Angela Nisi - Porrino: I canti dell'esilio (Songs of Exile) - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The first 12 songs of the 15 in I canti dell'esilio - originally written for voice and small orchestra - were composed in the early months of 1945 before the Allied forces' arrival in Venice in April at the end of the War. They are a clear reflection of an ideological choice that guided Ennio Porrino selecting texts linked to a 'tradition' and crafting a musical language retaining the clarity of melody, in harmony with the prosody of the text. This was supported by harmonies both modal and chromatic, within the boundaries set by Debussy and his influence. All 15 of the Canti dell'esilio follow this structure, but especially the first 12, where the classical sources (Greek poets, newly translated in Salvatore Quasimodo's now-famous versions) and the pseudo-troubadour medieval sources (in old French, German and Spanish) intersect with Italy's poetic heritage. Organized according to a historical principle, these works suggest that Porrino intended to create a cycle representing different epochs of Italian literature. The first part of the collection comprises the three Greek songs, the three troubadour songs, and the three ancient Italian songs (from the 13th to 15th centuries). These stand out for their liveliness and charm, though simple modal processes occasionally hint at melancholy. The second part opens with the Italian songs from the 16th and 18th centuries, where a vital, extroverted energy prevails in movement, sound and gestures that border on the theatrical. Then the last three songs revisit the theme of 'exile' in their titles. While in the overall title of the collection the word 'exile' might imply the solace sought by the exiled and found through poetry, in this final subset of three it assumes a more personal meaning of nostalgia and sorrow, inevitably evoking the composer's own fate in that tragic spring of 1945. The texts are by Porrino himself and ar