Nigel Osborne
The Sun of Venice
Short instrumentation: 3 3 3 3 - 3 3 2 1 - perc(3) - 2 hp, cel, pno - str - 2 groups
Duration: 30'
Instrumentation details:
3(1. also picc., 2. also alto-, 3. also bass fl.) 3(3. also c.a) 3(1. also Eb-, 3. also bass cl.) 3(3. also cbsn.) - 3 3 2 1 - perc.(3) - 2 hp., cel., pno. - str. - concert group 1: horn solo - cl. - perc. - vln., vla., vc. concert group 2: drum
Osborne - The Sun of Venice for orchestra
Work introduction
The Sun of Venice was inspired in some respects by Turner’s
painting of Venice, and in particular four watercolours and three oil
paintings.
The work is played
without a break, but may be thought of as five movements relating to the
paintings in the following way:
1. Looking eastwards
towards the Campanile of St Mark’s: sunrise (watercolour c. 1840)
2. Ceremony of the
Doge Marrying the Sea (oil on canvas c. 1835). The Sun of Venice going to Sea
(oil on canvas 1843)
3. The Interior of St Mark’s
(a) and (b) (watercolours, both 1833)
4. Campo Santo (oil on
canvas 1842)
5. The Campanile of St
Mark’s: Lightning (watercolour 1833)
Turner was preoccupied
with what he called “aerial” colour, or spectral light refracted through
qualities of atmosphere and elevation of the sun. Venice, with its southern
light and expanses of calm, shallow water became both the prism and reflecting
mirror for Turner’s most astounding “aerial” studies.
Some of the most
extraordinary musical sound may be compared to refraction or the illusion of
refraction. We can think of a bell or a Javanese gong, for example, as both its
own lifght and its own prism. We hear a fundamental tone, but it refracts many
other partials, or elusive half-heard notes, in an auro of “acrial” sound.
The Sun of Venice takes the idea of
the tragic city as a musical prism and mirror. All harmony and movement of
melody, for example, is derived from the “aerial” sound of the bells of St.
Mark’s, not just their fundamental pitches, but all the complexes of overtones,
at times spacious and transparent, at times dense to the point of noise.
There is also a
Venetian dimension to the layout of the instruments, beyond the main body of
the orchestra there are two soloists (horn and trumpet) and two choirs of instruments
in the manner of Gabrieli, whose music I believe was not merely concerned with
effects of call and response, but with the illusion of reflection and the
profound research of acoustics and space.
Nigel Osborne