Reflections of Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia in the artistic universe of Eduard Terényi

ANAMARIA M ĂDĂLINA HOTORAN

Department of Music Pedagogy Emanuel University of Oradea

Str. Nufărului nr. 87, 410597 Oradea, Jud. Bihor ROMÂNIA

hmaddy@yahoo.com; http://www.emanuel.ro/ro.academic.faculty.hotoran

Abstract: - The Romanian composer Eduard Terényi (b. 1935) has often approached in his scores the idea of three realities - Paradise, Purgatory and Inferno. He conceived in 1972 Terzine di Dante (sonata for the baritone, the piano and the trombone), inspired by the first part (Inferno) of Dante’s literary masterpiece. In 2004 he used this sonata as the first part of his mono-opera La Divina Commedia for the baritone, piano, trombone, percussion and harp. The subject of Dante’s La Divina Commedia could be also found in his graphic art, in the cycle entitled Dantesca (1972-2002, 25 graphics) and more recently, in his album The Garden of Dante (2010, 23 graphics). Many of his creations are tied by these three worlds. This study undertakes to show how, inspired by the compilation Odae cum harmoniis (1548) by the humanist Johannes Honterus and by Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia, E. Terényi’s Honterus Odae for organ (1983, revised in 2005) is depicting the idea of Paradise, Purgatory and the Inferno, through different aspects of the human life. The first part (Praeludium) of the musical triptych evokes a celebrating, celestial atmosphere, the second part (Tanz) brings an infusion of robust, telluric joy, and the last part (Toccata-Fantasia) is the artistic expression of the drama of the contemporary human being. Key-Words: - Eduard Terényi, Dante Alighieri, Honterus Odae, Divina Commedia, Romanian music

1 Introduction. Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia in E. Terényi’s musical and graphic art.

As he was concerned with Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Comedia since 1972, Eduard Terényi (b. 1935) will often go back in his scores to the idea of three realities - Paradise, Purgatory and Inferno: “I have been fascinated for thirty years by the great work of Dante, Divina Commedia. I was 37 years old when I read this fantastic poem for the first time. I was surprised by the beginning line: <He arrived on the middle step.> YES, I arrived here, too, surrounded by the frenzy of the scenic game that assaults both the spirit and the body. In addition, I <found myself into a dense wood> - I was torn by this new revelation. But the third line proved to be even more painful: <since I was wondering I have lost the right way.> Suddenly, I felt Dante to be very human: as if he had come after me! (…) I tried to look for Dante – the man. Therefore, I came closer to him and slowly, I have got the feeling that he was leading me in the same way he led Vergilius. We were wandering together through our deeply shaken world (…) I knew what I was looking for: Dante’s message to the contemporary man.” [1]

E. Terényi conceived in 1972 Terzine di Dante (sonata for the baritone, the piano and the trombone), inspired by the first part (Inferno) of Dante’s literary masterpiece. In 2004 he used this sonata as the first part of his mono-opera La Divina Commedia for the baritone, piano, trombone, percussion and harp. The mono-opera is composed on a selection of Dante’s stanzas (in Italian language), echoing in the same time the tripartite structure: Inferno (composed in 1972 and revised in 2004), Purgatorio (2004) and Paradiso (2004). “In a retrospective look over the last decades, it seems that I wandered through Dante’s universe with my creation. I got in touch with him instinctively. My immediate approach to La Divina Commedia, at the beginning of the ’70, was transformed in a certain hidden, subconscious agreement. From this point on, it comes out the fact that many of my compositions are tied by the world of the Inferno and the Purgatory. I composed the sonata Terzine di Dante in the sonorous world of the Inferno. The Purgatory and Paradise is the thesaurus of the sacred songs with a Latin text; there are outnumbered references to these holy songs in the parts Purgatory and Paradise of my mono-opera La Divina Commedia. Nevertheless, the world of the Paradise is evoked in a series of the compositions

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of the ‘90s [Our note: e. g. Bells for soprano, organ and percussion, Stabat Mater for soprano, alto, female choir, organ, percussion, Te Deum Laudamus for soloists, mixed choir, symphonic orchestra and so on]. The music of my 12 Concertos and that of the Symphony for two percussionists is connected to the color and sonorous universe of the Purgatory (the timbre effects, the melodic Gregorian quotations). The melodies of the musical work Amor Sanctus that is made of three cycles (Carmina Angelica for soprano and piano - 1991, Maria Madre for mezzo-soprano and piano – 1992, Cantico del Sole for baritone and piano - 1994) is bound through thousands of fires of the musical world of Divina Commedia. ” [2]

The subject of La Divina Commedia could be also found in his graphic art, in the cycle of the twenty-five colorful graphics entitled Dantesca, created between 1972-2002, divided into three sections (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) and published in the year 2007, in a volume that is coming with a CD that contains musical fragments of the mono-opera with the same title. Recently, he revisited the subject in his album The Garden of Dante (2010). The author explains his passion for Dante’s universe and the way he illustrated it: “In Dante’s triple world there are only Shadows, only the dulled shapes, the souls that are moulded into the light. They got rid of the weight of the body. Because of this reason I did not look for the drawing of the outlines but on the contrary, of the place (although this is an outline, too). I considered the affective, sometimes sensitive or even ideate picture of the environment and of the shadows to be more interesting.” [3] I obtained the author’s approval to reproduce a few graphics from Dantesca, and to represent each of the three worlds through a set of three selected graphics. Fig. 1 Selections from the Inferno. From left to right: The Gate of the Inferno; Francesca da Rimini; The Center of the Earth.

The Gate of Inferno illustrates the phenomenon of synaesthesia that is characteristic to the terényian creation: “I visualized that immense metallic sound, of the small third that is stricken out by the trombone – with which it has started my musical work from that time (the mono-opera La Divina

Commedia). This sound accomplishes the black depth of the immense cave.” [4] Fig. 2 Selections from the Purgatorio: The landing of the blinds; The Decayed World; The Paradise of the Earth.

Fig. 3 Selections from the Paradiso: Spots on the Moon; Lovers on Venus; Letters on Jupiter

Fig. 4 Selections from the cycle Dante’s Garden:

2 The Triptych Honterus Odae and the Nostalgia for Paradise

Inspired by the compilation Odae cum harmoniis (1548) of the humanist Johannes Honterus and by Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia, E. Terényi’s Honterus Odae (1983, rev. 2005) for organ is a musical triptych, depicting the ideea of the three realities, in inverted order: Paradise, Purgatory and Inferno, through different aspects of the human life. The first part (Praeludium) evokes a celebrating, celestial atmosphere, the second part (Tanz) brings an infusion of robust, telluric joy reflecting the earthen nature and the last part (Toccata-Fantasia) is the artistic expression of the drama of the contemporary human being: “Honterus Odae can be regarded as a similarity with the triad: Paradise – Purgatory – Inferno.” [5]

If the first and the third parts rely strictly on the variation principle, through the presentation of more

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than one melodic variant of the same modal pattern, in the second part, this would be found in a symbiosis with the principle of the refrain. Consequently, it results a synthesis between the variational form and the rondo form.

A pyramidal structure based on the negative golden ratio determines the proportions of the parts: 19 bars (Praeludium) – 28 bars (Tanz) – 74 bars (Toccata – Fantasia): Fig. 5 Negative sectio aurea

Fig. 6 The form of Honterus Odae

The negative golden ratio symbolises the

abnormal reversing of the divine proportions: the third part, representing the Inferno occupies 61% of the play compared to Paradiso (the first part) having a percentage of 16%.

Praeludium is a cheerful song processed by the composer as a Christmas carol (fig. 7) that evokes the celebrating, celestial atmosphere in waiting for the birth of the Saviour. Praeludium captures an affective state relevant for the pastoral ethos not

only through the archaic character of the theme, but also because of the high registers of the organ, in an analogy with the timbre of the flute and that of other instruments that can be imagined in the frame of this enchanting musical picture.

The theme is made of four monodical phrases plus the ending cadence that has the role of a commentary - epilogue, contrasting through its middle register and homophonic structure:

A (theme) = [a – a var.1 – a 1 – a 1 var. ] + b This algorithm can also be found in the tetra-

strophic macrostructure of the theme plus the three variations: A (theme) – Avar.1 – Avar.2 – Avar.3 and it is preserved in each part of the play as well as inside the themes.

The first three phrases of the theme have their cadences on the third degree of a G mixolydian and the last phrase brings the phrygian cadence on the second degree. Fig.7

The accompaniment is a pedal on G in the low

register, in pp, and a cluster on C, D, E, F at the left hand in the high register in ppp, that together form the basic pentachord of the melody. This sonorous image that is defined through opposite registers in pp persists in Térenyi’s organ music as a metaphor of distance and atemporality. The composer has a particular conception concerning the matter of time dimensions in music. In one of his books, he explains that: “In music, evocating the past times is frequently linked to the low and very low registers. The history is like a deep fountain in which we can dive trying to find the values of the past. (…) The

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sinusoidal melody, pale harmonic spots, long pedal points and tremolos are musical pointers to the past (…) The past has usually the nuance pp to pppp. (…) In order to express the past times, the most obvious solution is to quote from the music of the past (…) The musical image of the future is reproduced by the composers through the high and very high registers, maintaining the nuance pp, which indicates the distance in time” [6] The pedal of the low register will be preserved as an invariable procedure along the variations as the entire work is a continuous play with temporal dimensions.

The three variations that are following the theme in different tempos, firstly represent variants of the basic melody. They are similar through their modal and formal structure, the typology of the cadences, the rhythmic and melodic formulas. This type of variational process is considered by the composer to be similar to the creativity that is manifested in the traditional (folkloric) music, where we have a multitude of variants of a certain modal and melodic pattern. Fig. 8 Second variation, the first phrase

The accompaniment increases in complexity in

the same time with the gradual rise of the level of the sonorous intensity (pp - mf – f – ff) and the harmonies will oscillate between the major and the minor character (G Mixolydian and E Phrygian). The first variation keeps the pure line of the melody by adding the parallel inferior third which in the variation III is completed with a full vertical harmonization that evolves in mixtures of triad chords and seventh chords. The last variation (Avar.3) reaches the harmonic apogee, overlapping strata of chords [7]. Fig. 9 The last fragment of Avar.3

If the first frame is celestial, the second one

brings an infusion of robust, telluric joy in Tempo di ballo. Like a mediaeval dance, Tanz recreates the atmosphere of a Pieter Bruegel’s picture in a Transylvanian environment: „This sacred peasant style dance transmits, through a series of elements, the naivety and the special beauty of the sincere and full of joy manifestations of the simple people, in

front of God.” [8] The second part is constituted through the combination of the variational principle with the refrain principle of the rondo: the theme and its variations are interwoven with improvisatory interludes of a different writing.

The theme is Sapphicum dicolon from the compilation Odae cum harmoniis (1548) of the humanist Johannes Honterus: “a compilation in a mensural notation that was edited in 1548 in Braşov by the great Saxon humanist of Transylvania.(…) the oldest musical printing of our country. (…) an important document of the history of the music in Romania. In the same time, the collection of odes is a remarkable outcome of the humanist musical culture of Europe.” [9] Fig. 10 The original melody and harmonization

Fig. 11 The transcription in the contemporary system of musical notation

The melody carries the mark of the metric

structure and the strophic one of the initial text, the ode Integer vitae by Horace. The rhythm has the pattern metrum sapphicum dicolon, that represents a certain type of Horace meter. The four lines/verses (tetrastrophon) have two different structures (dicolon). The first three lines, corresponding to the first three musical phrases have the scheme of the versus sapphicus and the last one – corresponding to the fourth musical phrase - has the versus adonicus:

Verse – ∪ – – – ∪ ∪ – ∪ – – I-III trochee spondee dactyl trochee spondee

Versus

sapphicus

Verse – ∪ ∪ – –

IV dactyl spondee

Versus adonicus

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The text of the Horatian ode Integer vitae that is applied to the song does not appear in the Braşovean compilation. Nevertheless, the succession of the stressed syllables and the non-stressed ones are reflected in the rhythmic accents of the melody in the approximately report of 2:1 - the tones which would correspond to the stressed syllables take twice longer than those of the non-stressed ones. “The rests or the breathing moments which are produced as a result of the punctuation marks, the expressive accents, and the unessential alterations of tempo, all of them confer flexibility to the rigid metric relationship of 2:1, but without changing it.” [10]

The melody appears to the tenor in a Ionian mode on F, having a hexachordal ambitus (F - D). In the Honterus compilation the melody is harmonized with clumsiness, the repetition of the steps brings jumps in the inner evolution of the voices (especially the octave leaps of the alto voice) and the intersection of the voices of alto and the tenor. The first chord, initially of the first degree of a modal scale in Ionic on F is mistyped, having a B flat, instead of a C (the interval of fourth at the basis of the chord was forbidden in that time and it was treated as a dissonant delay). One can notice certain harmonic characteristics that foresee the tonal system: the underlying of the degrees IV (subdominant) and V (dominant) of the modal scale and the authentic cadence in the end: I-IV-V-I. There are 13 authentic cadences and 9 plagal cadences, the percentage being 59% to 41%. [11] The line of the discant of the Sapphicum dicolon is taken by maestro Terényi with small modifications (fig. 12) that especially look at the diversification of the rhythmic durations of the whole notes that are followed by a half note, by changing them in dotted half notes followed by a quarter note. This rhythmic interpretation seemed to be specific to the French compositions of the 16th – 17th century. The modal harmony respects largely the steps in Honterus’ harmonization and it is formed by the plagal harmonic relationships and parallelisms in an organum style.

The first variation is mostly a development of the thematic cadences. However, the theme does not constitute the basis target as the variations are mainly self-stating variants of a modal pattern, as it is in the case of the first part of the play.

The interwoven – through the montage technique – of some contrasting interludes as opposed to the general context is a Térenyian styleme (fig. 13-14).

The four episodic interludes are symmetrically disposed (b – c – cv – bv), in pairs with the similar writing and alternate with the apparition of the

thematic variants, to which they are in contrast through their expression, syntax, harmonization, through the improvisando character, the smaller rhythmic durations, alternative measures (6/8 to 5/8 in interludes 1 and 4) and tempo. Fig.12

Fig. 13 Interlude 1 (b)

Fig. 14 Interlude 3 (cv)

Toccata-Fantasia, after a short and grandiose introduction, presents a row of variations that prepare the edifice for the return of the dance theme of the second part, in a type of cyclical thematism of Lisztian origin. [12]

Toccata-Fantasia, as the composer confesses, is the artistic expression of the drama of the contemporary world: “This is a type of music that expresses the artificial state of the contemporary human being contrasting to the two previous superb pictures but naïve, nevertheless, which us, the people of the 21st century, look at nostalgically. The passion that is manifested in the last part is as deep and rich in the different contrasting elements, between the extreme of the height, the hope, and the total downfall, of the desolation - as it is the significances of the celestial and earthen music of the first two parts, which are simple, expressive, and direct in showing a reality that we were estranged from gradually and this estrangement is so deep that the hope to find a way back towards the nature, humankind, divinity, seems to be a utopia.” [13]

The elements of the musical language become harsher: dissonant intervals and chords, chords

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implying 8-, chromatism, scordaturas, superposition of chords in converging polymodalism [14].

The introduction, pars pro toto of the thematic idea of the first part, it would take vary cellular – motive elements of an ending cadence type from the previous themes, into two segments: monody that is exposed in ff and strata of geometrical chords in pp. Fig.15

The variation cycle is continued with four self-

stating character variations that are distinct in their tempo, expression and writing. Variation I – Allegro, a toccata style (figurations of sixteenth notes, mobile clusters developing the oscillations of thirds that appear since the interludes 3 and 4 of part II), it has an appassionato character: Fig. 16

Variation II – Sostenuto molto rubato, in the jazz style, relies on a dotted rhythmic formula and geometrical sonorities: Fig. 17

Variation III - Più mosso has a celestial character (misterioso), complex strata of chords and in the same time it reminds of the Honterus style: Fig. 18

Variation IV has a dramatic expression and it recalls some microelements of the second part, from the theme and the interludes no. 2 and 3. Fig.19

Honterus Odae ends with the theme of the second part, in monumental strata of dissonant chords.

3 Conclusion The “nostalgia for Paradise” is doubled in

Honterus Odae by a nostalgia for the nobility of the cultured ancient music from Transylvania, regained in E. Terényi’s music since the ‘80s: “Here, on our places, in the XVI-XVII-XVIII centuries there was not possible to embody and constitute those tendencies, those genres, those musical perspectives, which characterized the music of that Europe.” [15]

It is Terényi’s Ars Poetica that the contemporary composer has to explore the spiritual dimensions of the music in order to comfort the souls, rather than looking for the ‘new and original by all means’: “Where can take a refuge the contemporaneous man? He can find relaxation, denouement only in the infinite empire of the soul. For many times, the modern art refuses this last refuge. Although, it is said, that even the art in itself should be foretold to have the ability to create this spiritual space. The great artists of the past centuries put this desiderate over all the objectives. That is why the nowadays auditory refugees backwards, to them.” [15] References: [1] Terényi E., Dantesca, Grafycolor, 2007, p. 69. [2] Ibid., p. 73. [3] Ibid., pp. 72-73. [4] Ibid., 70. [5] Interview with E. Terényi, 2008. [6] Terényi, Eduard and Coca Gabriela. The interference of the arts. The dualistic way of thinking, MediaMusica, 2007, pp. 131-139. [7] Terényi, Eduard. The Harmony of the modern music (1900-1950), Grafycolor, 2006. [8] Interview with E. Terényi, 2008. [9] Nussbächer, Gernot and Astrid Philipp (ed.), in: Honterus, Johannes. Odae cum harmoniis (1548), Editura Muzicală, 1983, p. 7. [10] Ibid., p. 213. [11] Firca, Gheorghe, Structures and Functions in Modal Harmony, Editura Muzicală, 1988, p. 200. [12] Laura Vasiliu, The articulation and the dramaturgy of the musical form in the modern era (1900-1920), Artes, 2002, pp. 201-202. [13] Interview with Terényi Eduard, 2008. [14] The “diverging polymodalism” refers to the superposition of the transpositions of the same mode whereas the “converging polymodalism” is the superposition of different modes. Gheorghe Duţică, The Universe of the polymodal view, Junimea, 2004, pp. 233-302. [15] Terényi Eduard, in Gabriela Coca, The Retrospective of Five Decades of Creation (I, II), in Muzica Review 3/1997, p. 43 and 4/1997, p. 29.

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