GODDESS, EXCELLENTLY BRIGHT

There was another full moon earlier this week, on Monday. I do hope you’ll forgive me for missing the actual evening of the full moon. As life has begun resuming a sense of normalcy in fits and starts, I am finding myself unaccustomed to balancing a slightly more complicated schedule now that I am fully vaccinated, and it is safer to go out in the world again.

One of the projects I had the privilege of working on the past few weeks was a film of Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with the California Symphony. I want to write more about that experience at some point in the coming days (it was the first time I was able to make music with an orchestra in nearly 13 months), but first I want to share this video in order to stay as close to on-schedule as I can with this Moon Songs project.

Among the most difficult movements in the Britten cycle is his setting of Ben Jonson’s poem, Hymn, which calls for both the solo horn and the tenor to sing as fast as possible, negotiating some rather gnarly runs of triplets that span a tricky tonality. Britten’s interpretation of Ben Jonson’s text is a playful one that offers a sparkly and witty take on the words “excellently bright'“. His musical portrait of Diana (or Artemis), Goddess of the Moon, focuses on her as the huntress, always galloping through the forest after her prey. Rehearsing and recording it the other day had me thinking of the American composer Dominick Argento’s setting of the same poem, which is wildly different.

Argento’s reading of Jonson’s poetry is much more ethereal and atmospheric. He is clearly more drawn to the divinity of the goddess of the moon rather than her quick wit. His slow tempo and broad musical gestures evoke the aural image of the heavens opening to reveal the moon’s brightness. Listening to his song, it is not hard to imaging how arrestingly beautiful she was purported to be, a beauty that drove men to their untimely and gruesome deaths in Ancient Greek and Roman mythology.

I’ll be able to share the Britten setting with you in a few weeks when the California Symphony broadcasts our film of that piece, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this extraordinary song by Argento.

A note: Apologies for the focus issues in this video below. I am still learning how to us my new camera, and it seems that the autofocus was much more interested in the red bricks behind me at times as opposed to anything I was doing. Part of what I am trying to do with this Moon Songs project is learn new skills. Thanks for bearing with me as I learn from my mistakes along this videography path...

Also, thanks to my friend Robert Mollicone for suggesting we film this song, as well as for joining me on this leg of our journey through the full moons of 2021.

TEXT:

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep,

Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep:

Hesperus entreats thy light,

Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade

Dare itself to interpose;

Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heav'n to clear when day did close;

Bless us then with wishèd sight,

Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal shining quiver;

Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short so-ever:

Thou that mak'st a day of night,

Goddess excellently bright.

– Ben Jonson

DOMINICK ARGENTO: Hymn with Robert Mollicone, piano