The Dante Trilogy consists of three modernist ballets by Charles Wuorinen: The Mission of Virgil (1993), The Great Procession (1995), and The River of Light (1996), which correspond to the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso of La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri. Without attempting to depict the poem's otherworldly narrative through scene painting, Wuorinen instead supplies stark tableaux and brooding atmospheres that suggest the action and allow the imagination to roam freely through Dante's cosmology. Pianists Richard ...
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The Dante Trilogy consists of three modernist ballets by Charles Wuorinen: The Mission of Virgil (1993), The Great Procession (1995), and The River of Light (1996), which correspond to the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso of La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri. Without attempting to depict the poem's otherworldly narrative through scene painting, Wuorinen instead supplies stark tableaux and brooding atmospheres that suggest the action and allow the imagination to roam freely through Dante's cosmology. Pianists Richard Moredock and Cameron Grant present the first ballet in a reduced version for two pianos, and Oliver Knussen leads the Group for Contemporary Music in the chamber versions of the second and third ballets. All the musicians deliver the spiky, angular, intensely active, and frequently violent music with crisp rhythms, bright timbres, and forceful attacks, and the virtuoso performances are remarkably tight, with precise attacks and impressively brisk tempos. As usual, Naxos provides...
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I have been learning a great deal from listening to and reviewing recordings of contemporary American music in Naxos's "American Classics" series. This recently-released CD of the "Dante Trilogy" was my first experience with the music of Charles Wuorinen (b.1938).Wuorinen received the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 and also has received a MacArthur Fellowship. He has composed over 240 works.
The "Dante Trilogy" consists of three separate ballets composed between 1993 and 1996, each of which is based upon a book of Dante's Divine Comedy. Wuorinen also wrote a version of this piece for full orchestra. I found the chamber music version of this work, which is recorded on this CD, intriguing in its scoring. The first ballet, "The Mission of Virgil", based on the Inferno, is scored for two pianos. The second ballet, "The Great Procession" is based upon Dante's Purgatorio and is scored for an ensemble of six. The final ballet, "The River of Light", based upon Paradiso is scored for a 13-member chamber ensemble.
This music is atonal, dissonant, and difficult. It is also highly and complexly organized with interrelationships in musical language, themes, and rhythms among the various sections of a ballet. The work is astringent but rewarding. The detailed program notes included with the CD explain the connections with Dante's text as well as giving an idea of the intricacy of the scores. During my listening, I tried to imagine the staging of this music as a ballet, but I also, at times, put the ballet out of mind and tried to concentrate on the music itself.
The eight-movement "Mission of Virgil" tells of Dante's descent into and departure from Hell. Wuorinen offers scenes of wandering and depictions of beasts, monsters and of Satan. There are also meditative moments in this work. I found the two-piano scoring unusual and effective.
The eleven-movement "Great Procession" is devoted to a single scene in Purgatorio with seven aspects of the procession interspersed with a short, energetically recurring refrain. There is significance to the numerology of this piece and a great deal of allusiveness in the recurring themes of the music. The centerpiece of the work is a movement titled "The Griffin", which is a meditation on Dante's depiction of Jesus.
The final ballet, "The River of Light" is cast in the form of a long, continuous movement with subsections. Moments of calm are juxtaposed against music of strong rhythm and aggressiveness. The piano and the percussion seem to dominate in much of this work, although it also includes chorale-like passages for wind and strings.
The Dante Trilogy is is a taut, highly organized work performed here by members of the Group for Contemporary Music, an organization which Wuorinen himself established. It made me interested in hearing other works by Wuorinen that are also available on Naxos. Adventurous listeners wanting to explore contemporary American music will enjoy this CD.
