Petrarch Songs
Brian Rice
About this work:
This duet is the first piece in what will hopefully become a large cycle of songs set to poems by the Italian poet, Petrarch (1304-1374). For this duet I chose to have each vocalist sing a different sonnet from Petrarch’s Rime Sparse, the alto poem number 75 and the tenor poem number 61. I picked these two because they share a similar subject, the eyes, and the fact that poem number 75 does not reveal the speaker’s gender.
I decided to split each stanza into smaller phrases based upon Petrarch’s punctuation and phrasing, and alternate between the vocalists at these points. The desired effect is the feeling that both vocalists are singing simultaneously, yet we can clearly hear each line. The piano plays throughout the piece, aiding the listener to smoothly move from the tenor to the alto and from stanza to stanza. For the final stanza, however, both vocalists sing at the same time, finally creating the duet, and the piano adds two more voices creating a quasi-quartet.
Version: No. 61 and 75
Year composed: 2005
Duration: 00:07:15
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Two or More Solo Voices One Non-Keyboard Instrument
Instrumentation: 1 Harp, 1 Alto, 1 Tenor