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Canzoni amorose del duecento : per soprano, baritono, pianoforte ed orchestra, (1972-'73) / Hans Henkemans

Other authors:
Rustico Di Filippo (librettist)
Contains:
Partite, amore, adeo
Lo sparvero
Il farso / tekst v. Rustico di Filippo
Description:
Program note (English): I composed the three songs and brought them together under the above title in the winter of 1972-'73 as a result of a commission by the Netherlands Government. I had already been fascinated for some time by the double sonnet "Lo Sparvero" (the sparrowhawk), which I had been given a few years before by the translator, W. van Elden. It has become the central and main part of these Canzoni.
From the musical point of view the unusual thing about this cycle is undoubtedly the solo piano part which has been added. It has in the song "Lo Sparvero" (stress on the second-last syllable) a descriptive function: on the one hand the depiction of the bird of prey (namely the cadence between both poems), on the other as the musical "answer" to the concept of the sparrowhawk, a bird in Mediaeval poetry, including Villon, symbolised the lover.
A double sonnet such as "Lo Sparvero" is called a "tenzone" or a competitive poem. Two minstrels -supposedly at the court of Frederick II in Sicily- wrote their sonnets to the same, given rhymes. The present example is a curiosity in its own way, being a sonnet by a woman and the answer to it by a man. The content is briefly the complaint by the woman that her sparrowhawk has fled and settled down with "un' altra donna", and the amorous, but sharp answer by the man -the sparrowhawk- that this is a treacherous allegation.
The piano has likewise been accorded a solo role in the tender and languid "Partite, amor, adeo", although here it does not have a dramatic or symbolic function. In this song it was the sonority of the solo instrument, which, above all, determined the orchestration.
"Il Farso" (The shirt) is the musical setting of the amusing sonnet by Rustico di Filippi, a 13th century inhabitant of Florence. Here, a harp has been included in the orchestra instead of the piano, in order to create an as jaunty as possible image in sound. - HANS HENKEMANS

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