Monteverdi: L'Orfeo - Tu se' morta mia vita (you are dead, my life)

So since this is the second time I have blogged this tonight because it trashed my last one because the system was down for maintenance it is not as detailed because my last one took forever, but unfortunately I have to study a lot for music history. So, this is about all your going to get. I think it’s still pretty good :)

I’m going to follow in the same track as Kaitlyn and do a little Orfeo. Mine is from the NEW CD set in the music library, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. The excerpt I am looking at is near the ending of Act II when Orfeo has just been told my the messenger that his wife, Euridice, has just died. She had been collecting flowers in a meadow and a snake bit her foot. I had to pick a song that Orfeo sings because he is my favorite male voice…Ian Bostridge… AMAZING..check him out of the library sometime…(he does Schumann and Schubert song cycles, L’Orfeo, and a couple other things I believe.)

Anyways, I believe in this recording the instruments for this song are organ, harpsichord, and harp. The organ is sustaining the chord progression throughout the whole song, while the harp has little arpeggiations throughout the song and graceful strums in Orfeo’s farewell. The harpsichord comes in when there is the most vocal motion doing large arpeggiations yet staying somewhat hidden.

So…once again I’m going to talk about how the composer has used certain inflection in the musical writing to have the text set to, and also a little on how he set the text. First off, the piece really doesn’t have any true repetition of phrases except for the first two lines, and I believe this is basically because it is a short song, a cry out to the one he lost building more and more as the song progresses. In the very beginning Monteverdi sets the text in a very unique way.. Ex. “you are dead…are dead, my life.” & “you have left me….have left me never more….never more to return..” He keeps stressing the most important words, and it is almost like after Orfeo has said the word dead, left, never more….it seems like it took so much energy to say them, and to try and accept them. This makes it feel very realistic because when someone has lost someone close it is hard to even grasp the concept and get it all out in one solid sentence. It is usually very broken up.

After his realization and acceptance that his lover died set in, he starts to plan out what he could do to get her back. This is what gets the music flowing from a very solemn and depressed tone to a more flowing, and somewhat hectic motion. It really keeps building up until his last line where he says farewell to the earth, skies, and sun. He has decided he must kill himself to go and try to get her back, and if he can’t get her back, at least he will be with her in death. Two of the coolest things I notices what that the highest note in the song was placed with the word “stars”, and then also the very last work “dio” which means farewell, Ian Bostradge did somewhat of a very slow stuttered trill which gave me the sense of a very weak, and sad wave good-bye…

This is the song I would if I lost KDaniel....I really would, just cuz she is that important...not cuz we are dating...cuz we arn't...really...I'm being serious.....gosh!....