creation : 11.12.1941 at Teatro delle Arti, Rome (Italy)
duration : 25′
Titles of the parts
– Preghiera di Maria Stuarda
– Invocazione di Boezio
– Congedo di Girolamo Savonarola
Luigi Dallapiccola, speaking about the genesis of these three parts of the Canti di Prigionia (Songs of Captivity, 1938-1941) explained: “The dodecaphonic system fascinated me, but I knew so little about it! Nevertheless, I established a series of twelve sounds at the bass of the entire work and added a fragment of the old church song “Dies Irae, dies illa” as a symbol of counterpoint.
The twelve-tone series (which is not the only one in the work) is used with great freedom and generates a certain type of harmony in which the diminished fifth predominates. Written for mixed choir and a small instrumental ensemble comprising two harps, two pianos and percussion, the work occupies a special position in terms of its language: diatonism (from “Dies Irae” in particular) and dodecaphonism coexist, two radically different universes are confronted in an exceptional aesthetic situation which will nevertheless still be worth several successes at Dallapiccola in the 1940s. The counterpoint here, like other parameters, progresses towards a certain complexity and often contains new elements of language: the central part of Jerome Savonarola’s Farewell, for example, is made up of canons on three “levels”, one of which (the one concerning the instruments) returns, so to speak, to itself in retrograde movement. The songs of captivity constitute one of Dallapiccola’s most developed works, which later took up similar themes of inspiration in Il Prigioniero and in the Canti di Liberazione.
Pierre Michel.
Canti di Prigionia Chants de Captivité
– Preghiera di Maria Stuarda
O Domine Deus ! Speravi in Te
O care mi Jesu ! Nunc libera me.
In dura catena, in misera poena, desidero Te.
Languendo, gemendo, et genu flectendo,
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me.
– Prayer of Mary Stuart
O Lord God! I have put my hope in You.
O my dear Jesus! Today set me free.
In my hard chains, in the misfortune of my sorrow, I desire You.
Pining, groaning and bending my knee, I beg and implore:
– Invocazione di Boezio
Felix qui potuit boni
fontem visere lucidum
Felix qui potuit gravis
Terrae solvere vincula.
– Invocation of Boëce
Blessed is he who has been able to do good
See the light source,
Blessed is he who has been able to free himself from the weight of the Earth.
– Congedo di Girolamo Savonarola
Premat mundus, insurgant hostes, nihil timeo,
Quoniam in Te Domine speravi,
Quoniam Tu es spes mea,
Quoniam Tu altissimum posuisti refugium tuum.
–The farewell of Jérôme Savonarole
May the universe crush me, may the enemies rise up against me, I fear nothing,
Since it is in You, Lord, that I have placed my hope,
Since thou art my hope, since thou hast set the refuge that thou hast opened for me so high…
Traduction du latin : Jean Barré