Mixed Choir (Choral
Score)
SKU:
HL.49047362
TTT-Bari-B Choral
Score in Italian.
Composed by Gavin Bryars.
Choral Collection.
Choral, Classical.
Softcover. 72 pages.
Schott Music #ED13303.
Published by Schott Music
(HL.49047362).
ISBN
9798350124842. UPC:
196288207597.
The
choice of 16th century
texts, by Bronzino and
Battiferri, reflects the
interests of the
dedicatee of these
sonnets - Craig Hugh
Smyth, a fine art
historian and former
director of the Villa I
Tatti, who was a
specialist in Bronzino
and Pontormo. Bronzino's
sonnet is a lament on the
death of Pontormo, his
teacher; Laura
Battiferri's poem is a
direct response to that
of Bronzino. As I was
also asked to set sonnets
by Petrarca, I chose two
of his closely linked
sonnets, numbers 229 and
230 in the Rime Sparse. I
had written a work for I
Tatti some five years
earlier setting Petrarca
(â??A qualunque
animaleâ?, the first
in my Fourth Book of
Madrigals) and was
familiar with the
context. However, through
correspondence with
Kathryn Bosi, Music
Librarian at I Tatti and,
through her, Craig
Smyth's family, I became
increasingly aware of his
unusual and quite special
character. From his
undergraduate days at
Princeton and indeed
throughout his life,
although a great scholar
and writer, he was at the
same time an aficionado
of jazz, loving above all
Louis Armstrong, being
photographed with Duke
Ellington, taking his
children to see
Thelonious Monk,
listening to Ben Webster
and playing the tenor
saxophone himself.
Indeed, he had told
Kathryn Bosi that he had
been proud to walk in
procession at the
funerals of black
musicians in New Orleans.
In some ways his life was
almost an obverse mirror
image of parts of my own
- I was a professional
jazz musician but found
myself teaching art
history for a time. As
Fiorella Superbi of I
Tatti has said: Craig was
a maestro di vita. I
raise a glass in his
memory and dedicate these
sonnets to him. Gavin
Bryars.