The Sonorous World Of Dante's Commedia

THE SONOROUS WORLD OF DANTE'S COMMEDIA

A Study Of All Musical References in Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise

Lobke Sprenkeling

2016

Foreword

This book is an adaptation of a chapter in my 2016 PhD Thesis The search for a new multidisciplinary language at the crossroads of Antiquity and Contemporaneity, within the Doctorate Music program of the Universitat Politècnica de València. My thesis was focussed on the question of how the work methods taken from Historically Informed Performance practice of Early Music contribute to the creation of a Contemporary Music Theatre performance, which I realized through a mise-en-scene of Dante's Commedia. Therefore, I had to dive into Dante Studies as deeply as I had to done with Early Music Studies and Contemporary Theatre Studies. In my historical-musically directed investigation of the Commedia I discovered that it lit up aspects of Dante's sonorous references that had not come to the surface in other studies, as far as I am aware of. Thus, I have been so bold as to consider it of interest to publish my work on Dante and Music as a separate book, and surely hope it is received as such.

I would like to give special thanks to Margaret Bent, who has been most kind to answer any questions I had and to give me feedback after having read this book with a critical eye.

INDEX

Introduction

Inferno

Purgatory

Paradise

The ineffable and its interpretation: beyond polyphony

Introduction

Much has been written on the Commedia by Dante Alighieri, but the relationship of this magnificent work with the subject of music has been assessed in only a few articles and books. Considering the fact that the Commedia is full of references to music, this might seem surprising, but we should take into account the fact that it combines the quite distinct disciplines of Medieval Literature Studies and Musicology. The Sonorous World of Dante's Commedia aims to give a comprehensive insight into Dante's sonorous references, turning not only to Medieval Literature Studies and Musicology but also historically informed performance practice of Medieval chant. This enables us to gain a broader perspective and open up new information about Dante's sonorous references.

The Commedia contains many references to both musical and non-musical sounds. In Inferno, there seem to be only non-musical sounds, at least at first sight. When we read more carefully, we can discover various references to chants and music, but only to reinforce the fact that all sonorous experience in Inferno is anti-musical. Francesco Ciabattoni, Associate Professor of Italian at Georgetown University, argues that this is part of the punishment in Hell: the damned souls and those who once were angels (the neutral angels and the disobedient devils) are denied any form of music. Ciabattoni calls it a perverted musical experience.¹In Purgatorio and Paradiso, there are many references to chants, as an important part of the Afterlife experience. Although the chants have already been listed and performed², this performance was based on the 20thcentury standard versions of the Church, which are different from the Late-Medieval repertoire. We must go back to manuscripts from around 1300 and, if this is not possible, at least try to find a version before the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and certainly before the reform of the monks of Solesmes at the end of the 19thcentury. As far as is known, this research has not been undertaken yet, and as such it already contributes to knowledge of Dante's Commedia. Furthermore, there will be composition of additional voices to the plainchant melody according to the rules that were valid at the beginning of the 14th century.

In his book Dante's Journey to Polyphony³, Francesco Ciabattoni did considerable work by transmitting information from a great range of bibliography on Dante, among others works by Italian-writing authors that have not been translated into English. In this aspect it has served as a useful source of information for our study. Unfortunately, his book is not precise in its reasoning and conclusions, rather based on wishful speculations than facts, sometimes even using erroneous data⁴. Ciabattoni bases his hypothesis on the assumption made in a number of writings that Dante seems to be making a journey from Anti-Music in Inferno through monophonic music in Purgatory to polyphonic hyper-music in Paradise.⁵However, the idea that music in Purgatory is monophonic and in Paradise polyphonic is not as evident as it may seem. Most references to music in the Commedia do not give any specified information about its performance. As we will see, Ciabattoni has interpreted certain poetical expressions as indications for either monophony or polyphony, but they are not that obvious. After all, improvised note-against-note organum could range from parallel movement in octaves and fifths to contrary motion, which makes the distinction rather blurry. And what about the possibility of Dante knowing the practice of shorter notes against a longer tenor as a kind of fractio ornamentation, beginning as an improvised practice which eventually was notated? What we do know is that there was no break between monophony and polyphony but rather a continuum in everyday liturgical practice. Organum or cantus planus binatim was a colouring of the sound, not a polyphonic form with different rhythmic patterns. Thus, it is perfectly possible that Dante might have thought of organum in Purgatory at some points. On the other hand, in Paradise many musical descriptions are of an incomprehensible, supernatural type of music while polyphony is only clearly implied in a few cases. Perhaps we should not take for granted that Dante imagined anything like human musica instrumentalis, even if such vocal, audible music produced by humans was thought to be a creation of God. Just as Inferno hosts Anti-Music, Paradise hosts Hyper-Music.

Definitions and suggestions of musical forms and performance have changed considerably over time. In order to understand what Dante is really describing, a study of Medieval definitions is essential. Margaret Bent wrote an excellent article on how Dante defines poetical and musical terms in De Vulgari Eloquentia. Bent shows herself very critical on a number of these musical and non-musical issues, confirming the problem of Medieval terminology. She poses the question why the bibliography on Dante and music is so scarce.

"One reason may be a disjunction between, on the one hand, Dante’s apparent expectation of musical or at least oral performance of his work and, on the other, the total absence of any near-contemporary musical settings of his poetry. Dante seems to imply that canzoni from his own poetic output were musically composed and performed, but no such settings survive. A second reason why Dante’s several striking reports of music in the Commedia have eluded comment could be that most do not inform us about music as such, but about its affective impact on listeners. However powerful in effect, the content of such reports is hard to pin down. Thirdly, there are serious problems of terminology, and ambiguities as to where the line falls between verbal poetry and what we would call musical settings or musical performance."⁶

As to the first reason given by Bent, none of the texts of Dante have been used for a 14thcentury musical composition: No musical settings of his poetry survive from the fourteenth century. This is the more surprising since polyphonic settings of other secular Italian poetry survive in large numbers from soon after Dante’s death (Bent 2004, 162). In Purgatory 2 of the Commedia, the troubadour Casella sings a song with the text of one of Dante's poems, but such a setting has never been found. Bent notes that the madrigal as a polyphonic musical form became only popular from around the 1340s.⁷Indeed, Dante just mentions the poetic forms canzone, ballata and sonnet in his De vulgari eloquentia, adding that there are other forms that he has not yet discussed. Bent concludes that there is thus a considerable disjunction between the surviving poetic genres and actual musical settings. Dante sets out a hierarchy which in no way correlates with whether forms were or were not set to music (Bent 2004, 163). Nevertheless, the development of the new polyphonic genres probably came just at the end of Dante's lifetime, after the propositions of binary rhythmic modes by Marchettus da Padova between 1317 and