Josh Lee | Monteverdi: Oblivion Soave скачать в хорошем качестве

Josh Lee | Monteverdi: Oblivion Soave

Josh Lee performs Claudio Monteverdi's "Oblivion Soave" from the album "A Portrait of Melancholy." About the work from https://www.joshlee415.com/blog I might be a 44 year old fat dude but down deep I’m forever a 14 year old goth girl, bedecked in a Ministry shirt and black eyeliner, holding a cigarette in my mesh gloved hands, sitting on the curb at the mall waiting for mom to pick me up. Seeing as that’s the case it should be no surprise that I was drawn to Oblivion Soave, one of only two reasons to sit through Monteverdi’s opera “L'incoronazione di Poppea” (for the curious, the second reason is the closing duet, Pur ti miro). Oblivion Soave comes at a moment in the opera when all hell is breaking loose - vengeance, murders, exile - major shit is afoot! But here I think we see one of Monteverdi’s most profound and ironic moments as an artist. Instead of employing more high pitched drama and conflict to fuel the opera toward its twisted end (spoiler alert the bad guys win and the good guys die), he drops the pressure and gives us a lullaby. Sung by the character Arnalta, the comedic nurse of the titular Poppea, this aria stops the motion of the opera in its tracks. What is created is an uncomfortably fragile pause as Poppea slumbers while violence clears the way for her to wed the mad emperor, Nero. Up to this point the character of Arnalta has been a near-jester, but now Monteverdi gives her the most haunting moment of the entire opera as she sings her sociopathic mistress to sleep. Beauty and peace sitting atop such violence makes this a stand out moment in all of opera for me, making it a work I’ve contemplated for years. And of course it reminds me of this fabulous Werner Herzog quote: “Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.” When I sat down to record Oblivion Soave I was frankly intimidated. Most productions of Poppea I’ve played in made it a nice moment for the man or woman playing Arnalta, but largely it’s passed over because it’s so much simpler to put together than the HOURS OF ENDLESS RECITATIVE that make up the bulk of the opera. The result is quite often a beautiful moment of repose that I find bereft of the deeper consideration it deserves. Taking the bassline as my starting point, I decided to lean into the hypnotic affect the modified ciaccona bassline creates, perfect for a lullaby. During the “verses” the bassline is entirely predictable and can be found throughout 17th century music. However, once Arnalta stops singing I feel Monteverdi wants us to feel the pit of violence and darkness the characters stand atop by turning this trite bassling into a melodic ritornello, or instrumental interlude. In my take on Oblivion Soave I decided to make that melodic bassline the center for an “implosion” by outlining the harmonic roots with a plucked and bowed viols, making the bassline a secondary melody deserving of its own moment. The rest of the “implosion” texture was achieved by layering chordal viols to create a lirone effect, something I’ve had to do in many opera pits when an actual lirone was in the budget! But as is often the case in music, constructing the big moment is far easier than creating the fragile intimacy of the sung parts of the aria. It was obvious to me that small was the way to go, leading me to a three part texture of bowed melody, bowed bassline, and plucked continuo/countermelody. While I did go to college and remember attending continuo classes, I wouldn’t say I have anything close to an expertise in realizing harmonies - I just play the basslines and know what the numbers floating above the notes MEAN THINGS. Luckily my friend and master lutenist, David “The Dave” Walker, helped me out with harmonies in the aria, giving me what I needed to accomplish the fragile, dark calm I was going for. With the accompaniment in place I worked on honing the “vocal” performance, doing my best to play the shapes and accenture found in the text while making this an instrumental arrangement of its own standing and merit. This meant playing it a bit faster than most singers while keeping the feeling of bleak intimacy intact. Without the words present I didn’t find the need to “chew on” some passages like you hear in many vocal performances - something that is vital when singing words and imbuing them with clear meaning. But since that same “chewing” can sound so unbelievably stupid and self indulgent when played instrumentally, I feel we must honor the texts without being slavish… because we aren’t singing… we’re playing… equating the two is silly.. But I digress…