Madrigali dell'Estate [Alf:98-EP72001]

Beyond the well-known Italian tourist spots there is an earthier, more elemental place. I discovered this by accident when I first went to Abruzzo - at a time when I had to look on the map to find it (on the Adriatic almost opposite Rome). As I got to know the area I discovered many marvellous things about it; the long coast with rickety wooden fishing contraptions like contorted piers (called trabocchi), the rivers with backwaters full in the spring but drying up in summer, the profusion of life in (for an Irishman anyway) exotic forms — and it's poet Gabriele D'Annunzio. D'Annunzio was a First World War hero, a revolutionary and lover of many tastes — including Eleanor le Duse, the great Italian actress. D'Annunzio captured this off-the-beaten-track Italy in much of his verse, but in Madrigali Dell'Estate he particularly evokes the sound, sights and smells of a fading summer in a way that combines pin-sharp observation of natural detail with fantastic symbolism and erotic undertones. He describes, for instance, the grass snake escaping through the weeds (a not unfamiliar sight near the mouth of a river) and the next moment a passionate encounter with 'the savage nymph'. The poems are not madrigals in any normal musical sense — nor was I tempted in that direction, but they are a poetic evocation of the slow passing and death of summer. The poems seem to divide into a rough three part narrative: numbers 1—4, 5—8 and 9—11.

Individual songs or groups of songs may be performed as well the whole cycle.

(Stephen McNeff)

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