Dante, a source of musical inspiration for 700 years
Dante Alighieri certainly needs no introduction!
His work La Divina Commedia has been a source of inspiration for generations of composers over the centuries. The feelings and, above all, the characters of the poem’s three canticles – Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paradiso (Paradise) – have been set to music in a wide variety of musical forms. From madrigal and symphony to romance and melodrama, contemporary opera and rock, metal and electronic music.
Luzzasco Luzzaschi’s famous madrigal “Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai”(Secondo libro de Madrigali a 5, Venice, 1576), for example, takes lines from theInferno. And the Florentine poet’s journey through Hell is also echoed in one of the earliest operas in music history: Hope’s aria “Ecco l’atra palude, ecco il nocchiero” from Act III of Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, favola in musica (1607).
The Divina Commedia was of particular interest to 19th-century Romantic composers. No surprise there! In the 19th century, the Middle Ages were taken as an example and exhumed by the unjust age-old accusation of a “dark century”.
Many composers dedicated their art to the Florentine genius. Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony is a prime example, as is Giovanni Pacini’s Sinfonia Dante. Liszt also wrote a piano sonata Après une lecture du Dante: fantasia quasi sonata, published in the second volume of Années de pèlerinage, Italie.
But the 19th century was the century of melodrama par excellence. Characters from La Divina Commedia were revived in several operas.
First, Francesca da Rimini, protagonist of the incestuous love affair with her brother-in-law Paolo. The two young lovers are immortalized in Canto V ofInferno. Here, tragedy is transformed into myth, combining the popular themes of forbidden love and eternal damnation. Saverio Mercadante, Pietro Generali, Ambroise Thomas, Riccardo Zandonai (based on Gabriele D’Annunzio’s play inspired by Dante), dedicated an opera to it. Amilcare Ponchielli wrote a cantata, Gioachino Rossini a Recitativo ritmato for mezzo-soprano and piano, “Farò come colui che piange e dice”, and Tchaikovsky a Francesca da Rimini, a symphonic fantasy after Dante.
In Canto XXX ofInferno, Dante meets Gianni Schicchi, a knight condemned for forgery. This character and his story are repeated in Puccini’s Trittico (a cycle of three operas including Gianni Schicchi, Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica).
Donizetti, for his part, was inspired by the infernal Conte Ugolino and the purgatorial character of Pia de “Tolomei, to whom he dedicated two of his works: the cantata Il Canto XXXIII della Divina commedia and the opera Pia de” Tolomei.
The prayer to the Virgin Mary “Vergine madre, figlia del tuo Figlio” by Saint Bernard, the poet’s guide to Paradise, inspires Giuseppe Verdi. He composed the Laudi alla Vergine Maria, a sacred composition in the collection Quattro pezzi sacri.
The influence of Dante and his characters continues into the 20th century and modern times. Serge Rachmaninoff dedicated an opera to Francesca da Rimini, Max Reger composed theInferno Fantasie (Symphonic Fantasia and Fugue op. 57 for organ), Paul August von Klenau the Dante Symphony, Salvatore Sciarrino the incidental music for La Divina Commedia and Paradiso.
In 2007, Monsignor Marco Frisin composed La Divina Commedia Opera Musical, the first musical transposition of the Dantesque masterpiece, produced by the Musical International Company.
Italian composer Lucia Ronchetti’s opera Inferno will have its Frankfurt premiere on June 27, 2021.
And in rock music?
On the UT album (1972), the Italian progressive rock band New Trolls sing “Paolo e Francesca”.
Pia de’ Tolomei, on the other hand, is the protagonist of Italian singer Gianna Nannini’s rock opera. The 11 songs in the show, a rock reinterpretation of the story, were collected from her album Pia come la canto io (2007).
The Roman band Metamorfosi, meanwhile, is inspired by the whole of Dante’s journey and releases a trilogy: the concept album Inferno (1973), Paradiso (2004) and Purgatorio (2016). The lyrics update the original poem, placing politicians, racists and drug dealers among the eternal tortures.
But heavy metal is certainly the rock genre that has been most naturally influenced by the dark, tormented atmosphere and grating sounds of the Dantean poem’s verses. That’s all it took to make it one of the most popular works among metal bands….
In 2006, the release of the concept album Dante XXI by legendary Brazilian death-metal icons Sepultura caused a sensation. Amidst insane decibels and guttural screams, it tells of wild beasts and dark woods.
Previously, American heavy metal band Iced Earth, sing the monumental – over 16 minutes long! – “Dante’s Inferno” released on the Burnt Offerings album (1995).
Nowadays, Greek symphonic death metal band Septicflesh plunges us into the frightening atmosphere of the Dantean poem with its Dante’s Inferno (2017). The first three original lines of Canto III – the song in which Dante and his guide Virgil arrive at the gates of Hell – are quoted as an epigraph.
Given a certain ease of production and a desire to explore territories no less obscure than those of metal, electronica is also a musical genre that is largely inspired by Dante. Belgian composer Dirk Serries, a.k.a. vidnaObmana, is fascinated by the Inferno, devoting a trilogy to it: Tremor, Spore and Legacy. The famous techno producer Scanner, meanwhile, wrote the music for Dante’s Inferno, an audio version of the Florentine poet’s journey with several narrators.
And rap?
Italian rapper Murubutu, pseudonym of Alessio Mariani, whose music is defined as “literary-inspired rap”, couldn’t fail to be inspired by the sommo poeta. His 2020 album Infernum, with the track “Paolo e Francesca”, needs no comment.
