Purtroppo

The texts of these two madrigals are translations of two poetries by Battista Guarini (Ferrara, 1538 - Venezia, 1612), put into music by Claudio Monteverdi (Cremona, 1567 - Venezia, 1643): Ah, dolente partita (3rd book of madrigals), and Ecco, Silvio, colei che in odio hai tanto (5th book of madrigals). Every verse has been translated in an “exponential” way using some online translators such as Google Translate and Bing Microsoft Translator, i.e. passing by dozens of different languages and finally returning to the original italian. This operation upsets the meaning of the original text, making it ridiculous thanks to the wrong interpretation of multi-meaning words, or to the typical mistakes of the automatic translators. My attempt at a musical translation of the Monteverdian madrigals follows the same principle: madrigalisms are carried to excess, repeated in an exasperating way, and the juxtaposition of the musical materials are often devoid of any logical sense. Furthermore, the double senses trigger references to tragicomic situations of Italian society, such as the way of living one's own footballing passion, or the behavior of a certain political class.

Purtroppo is a piece written for EXAUDI in the context of the Voix Nouvelles 2018 program of the Royaumont Foundation