"Thema" and a Sleepwalking Ballad

Famous for his works as sculptor, painter, architect, and engineer and not least for painting the Sistine Chapel and his sculpture Pieta and of David, the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, commonly known as Michelangelo (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) was also a prolific poet, in his lifetime penning more than 300 sonnets and madrigals. Within his collection of 78 beautiful Petrarchan Sonnets lies an eloquent and always magnificent glimpse of man's struggle within himself with love, pain, guilt, and God, a sense of struggling to break out, perhaps like his sculptures, where art is not created but freed, and a sense too of always getting close, but never quite attaining what is desired. The “Four sketches after the Sonnets of Michaelangelo” draw upon four of Michaelangelo’s sonnets in lyrical response to the imagery and sentiment of the great artist’s poetry, from passionate love to intense remorse, in grief and faith, and upon art and beauty. Each sketch takes its title from a theme or reference in the sonnet itself. The images on the video for the “Four sketches” treat four of Michaelangelo’s drawings which chart an unceasing quest to find poses that would most eloquently express the emotional and spiritual state of his subjects for his artwork. Most of Michelangelo's drawings were never intended to be exhibited and he apparently destroyed a large number before he died, probably to prevent them from falling into other hands. However, the drawings offer a unique insight into how the artist worked and thought and are beautiful artworks in their own right. (AF June 2015) “Four sketches after the Sonnets of Michaelangelo” for solo piano - composed and performed by Anna Ferro Sketch I - “As from fire” - after Sonnet XXVIII Sketch II - “The moon’s illumination” after Sonnett XXX Sketch III - “The love-knot” - after Sonnet XXXII Sketch IV - “Make of my sunset” - after Sonnet XLVIII (mp3s and pdfs can be downloaded on my main music page) Sketch I - “As from fire” - after Sonnet XXVIII The living portion of my love is not My heart; the love which I love has not Heart, for in human hearts things means and low Always exist, in impulse or in thought. Love which came, like the soul, from God’s own hands Made me without eyes, made you full of light; That light cannot be seen in what death ends - The mortal part which hurts me with delight Just as from fire the heat cannot be parted, Neither can I be separated from That Beauty in who lifeness she is made. Ardent, I run to joys which cannot fade, That paradise where your own beauty started, Eternal loveliness from which you come. Sketch II - “The moon’s illumination” after Sonnett XXX This glorious light I see with your own eyes Since mine are blind and will not let me see. Your feet lend me their own security To carry burdens far beyond my size. Supported by your wings I now am sped, And by your spirit to heaven I am borne. According to your will, I’m pale or red - Hot in the harshest winter, cold in the sun. All my own longings wait upon your will, Within your heart my thoughts find formulation, Upon your breath alone my words find speech. Just as the moon owes its illumination To the sun’s light, so I am blind until To every part of heaven your rays will reach. Sketch III - “The love-knot” - after Sonnet XXXII If love is chaste, if pity comes from heaven, If fortune, good or ill, is shared between Two equal loves, and if one wish can govern Two hearts, and nothing evil intervene: If one soul joins two bodies fast for ever, And if, on the same wings, thee two can fly, And if one dart of love can pierce and sever The vital organs of both equally: If both love one another with the same Passion, and if each other’s good is sought By both, if taste and pleasure and desire Bind such a faithful love-knot, who can claim, Either with envy, scorn, contempt or ire, The power to untie so fast a knot? Sketch IV - “Make of my sunset” - after Sonnet XLVIII Though long delay breeds greater tenderness Than our desires in youth can ever know, Still I regret my love’s belatedness - That passion has so short a time to go. Heaven is perverse indeed if in its care For us it still can set old hearts on fire. This is the fate which I must accept and bear - To love a woman with a sad desire. Yet maybe when the sun sinks in the west And the end of the day is reached, I can at least Be in the greater dark a single shade. If love has come to me when life must fade, If I desire, though death must touch me soon, Of, of my sunset, Lady make my noon! (as translated by E Jennings)

“ St Agnes Eve” is a four-movement piece for solo piano inspired by and drawing upon the well-known poem “The Eve of St Agnes” by English Romantic poet John Keats (31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821). The poem (link below) was written in 1819 and published in 1820 and is in 42 Spenserian stanzas (the fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queene). It is abundant in its description and imagery. Some commentators view the poem as Keats' celebration of his first and only experience of romance. It was written not long after Keats and Fanny Brawne had fallen in love. Keats based his poem on the superstition that a girl could see her future husband in a dream if she performed certain rituals on the eve of St. Agnes (20th January) being the evening before the feast of St Agnes (21st January). By the rituals, a girl would go to bed without any supper, undress herself and lie on her bed, naked, with her hands under the pillow, looking up to the heavens and not to look behind. Then her proposed husband would appear in her dream, kiss her, and feast with her. The movements of the Sonata follow the course of the poem:- Movement I - "St Agnes Eve" shares its title with the piece itself and evokes the scene at the medieval castle on the Eve of the Feast day, as young, beautiful Madeline retires to bed, to perform the rituals of which she has been told, hoping for sweet and enchanted dreams of love from the knight Porphyro for whom she pines, "On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care,/ As she had heard old dames full many times declare" and Porphyro, who is in love with Madeline himself, braves entry to the castle. The pulsing chords towards the final section of the movement allude to those which form the basis of the third movement. Movement II - "The Morphean Amulet" evokes Madeline undressing and her ritual preparation for her descent to sleep, unware that Porphyro has managed to gain entry to her room and is concealed and watching her from inside the closet. The music moves carefully and deliberately from upper to lower register. "In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay/Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd/ Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away". The title of the movement draws on Porphyro's subsequent call for a ‘Morphean amulet’, a sleep inducing charm, to prevent Madeline from awakening... Movement III - "I dream of Porphyro" evokes the moment when, after beholding Madeline asleep, Porphyro has crept forth from the closet to prepare Madeline a feast of rare delicacies and has entered her bed, received by Madeline seeing Porphyro as in her dream. "The blisses of her dream so pure and deep", Madeline's sleep becomes the sleep of enchantment and Porphyro fills her dreams. Movement IV - "Lovers' Flight": evokes the lovers' rapid departure from the castle when Madeline awakens fully, realizes what has occurred and Porphyro declares his love for her ... "Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be, / For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee." The images in the video are the composer's graphic response to the poem. Here is a link to the full text of Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173735