Transcript Thomas moore, IreLaND’s mINsTreL (1779-1852) 1) Moore o More? 2) posizione controversa in canon/reception history della letteratura (in) inglese 3) non esiste edizione.

Thomas moore, IreLaND’s mINsTreL (1779-1852)
1) Moore o More?
2) posizione controversa in canon/reception history della letteratura (in) inglese
3) non esiste edizione (integrale e/o critica) dei Complete Works di TM
4.1) figlio dei Roman Catholics John Moore e Anastasia Codd Moore con studi
universitari presso il Trinity College di Dublino e moglie protestante
4.2) ruolo della sua matrice confessionale nei suoi studi, nel suo impegno sociopolitico e nella sua attività (musico-)letteraria e, più in generale, culturale
5) trasformò l’Irlanda in una risorsa economica e, in seguito, andò egli stesso
incontro alla medesima trasformazione
Obiettivi in termini di cultural and textual politics: ad es.
→ ricomposizione di materiali culturali autoctoni allo scopo di creare una cultura
irlandese di lingua inglese – cultura, questa, in grado di includere sia nuove
modalità esecutive in ambito musicale, sia un’innovativa produzione editoriale
negli ambiti letterari della poesia e della prosa
→ rimodellare la storia e la cultura d’Irlanda in nuove forme letterarie, soprattutto
quelle che prevedono la musica [music] in generale e il rapporto tra musica e
parola [song] in particolare
Irish Melodies (London, 1807/8-1834)
“collection of political songs to Irish Airs” (lettera a Mr Powers, March 23 1813)
•
“a conventional understanding of music in relation to literature” per Irlanda, Europa e oltre:
“Moore’s auditory imagination [-] the expressly musical dimension of [his] poetic technique (as
against the musical symbolism of his verse) – […] has, until recently, been little explored”
2) “The language of sorrow […] is in general best suited to our Music, and with themes of
this nature the poet may be amply supplied. […] While the National Muse of other countries
adorns her temple proudly with trophies of the past, in Ireland her melancholy altar, like the
shrine of Pity at Athens, is to be known only by the tears that are shed upon it” (1827)
3) Irish Melodies (unione di nuovi testi con melodie preesistenti) =
radici nel patrimonio popolare raccolto da Edward Bunting (1773-1843) +
estetica borghese del pianoforte di TM e John Stevenson (1761-1833) +
revisione profonda degli ideali politico-culturali degli United Irishmen
4) TM : scelta tecnica delle Irish Melodies vs nazionalismo militante : ballad poetry
TM “selected the airs, determined their pitch, and modified their rhythmic contours […]. Only
then was Stevenson invited to arrange the airs and preface them with modest ‘symphonies’
(introductions) and postludes for piano”
5) TM “received the equivalent of £500 a year for his bestselling Irish Melodies”
‘TIs The LasT rose of summer (1805)
-
prima pubbl. nel V numero delle Selection of Irish Melodies (1813)
un milione di copie di LRoS vendute solo negli USA (rispetto a 1.500.000 di copie
delle Irish Melodies)
EVOLUZIONE DEL TESTO MUSICO-LETTERARIO?
A) Castle Hyde (“old [?] Irish air”)
↓
B) The Groves of Blarney (R.A. Millikin, 1767-1815)
↓
C) ‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer (T. Moore)
ascolterete anche la “versione” di Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), dalle The Irish
Melodies of TM, op. 60 (1894), “long-standing project” del compositore anglicano di
Dublino, a lungo residente in Inghilterra: “closely acquainted with Moore’s Melodies
since he was a child, Stanford had chafed against what he considered to be gross
violations of the original native tunes”
(Jeremy Dibble, Charles Villiers Stanford: man and musician, 2002)
→ gli esiti due esecuzioni pop contemporanee in…
Clannad, 1980
Celtic Woman, 2005
Thomas Moore & Fryderick Chopin (1810-1849)
Chopin was also called “the Mickiewicz of pianists” and compared with
the Irish poet Thomas Moore in that “through their songs they keep alive
the traditions and the love of the country where they were born, and nurse it
with a sweet and noble hope of liberation”.
(Jonathan Bellman, Chopin's Polish Ballade Op. 38 as Narrative of National Martyrdom, 2010)
Si aveva notizia da decenni che Chopin avesse composto delle Variazioni per
pianoforte a 4 mani, ma fu solo nel 1959 […] che si poté provare che il
giovane pianista aveva composto nel 1826 le Variazioni in Re maggiore per
pianoforte a 4 mani su un’Aria Nazionale di Moore […]. [Di] queste
ultime la Biblioteca Jagellonica di Cracovia comprò un manoscritto che
Chopin stesso aveva donato al compatriota Kornel Kurzeczunowicz nel 1841
o nel 1842.
(Gastone Belotti, Chopin, 1984)
Thomas Moore & Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
In his Memoirs, Berlioz remarks with some annoyance: ‘[Mendelssohn] liked to get
me to apply my irritated voice to two or three of the songs I had written on verses
by Thomas Moore, and which he liked. Mendelssohn has always felt a certain
esteem for my [. . .] lighter songs.
(Eugene Asti, Mendelssohn Rediscovered: Unknown Songs, 2009)
His song subjects seem to have been chosen in such a manner that the music should
generally be more important than the words. He is in the German Song, what
Thomas Moore is in poetry; always graceful, delicate, even delightful, but never
grand or soulstirring.
(Louis C. Elson, The History of German Song, 1888)
The student should compare the Venetianisches Gondellied, Opus 57, No. 5, with
the Gondola Pieces among the Songs Without Words. Mendelssohn catches the
same Romantic atmosphere, but the text by Thomas Moore was apparently no aid
to inspiration.
(John Erskine, Song Without Worlds, 1941)
Seamus Heaney, 2009
“Thomas moore
was
Bono and de Valera
roLLeD INTo oNe”
=
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1882-1975
1960-