Sprezzatura: my observations...

"He had that supreme elegance of being, quite simply, what he was."

-C. Albaret describing Marcel Proust

Style, chic, presence, sex appeal: whatever you call it, you can discuss it here.
Frederic Leighton
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Thu Feb 28, 2013 2:35 pm

Miles Messervy wrote:Che bellissimo esempio fornito dal vostro padre, Signore Leighton!
Thank you for the kind words, Miles Messervy. If you liked the story, here I have two more for you.

My parents came to London to visit me around Christmas 2011. Unfortunately, I couldn't host them since I live in a house share [this is London!]. My Father, despite his age, the restrictions of the luggage, the lack of comfort for being abroad and staying in a hotel, the cold weather and the bronchitis he was suffering, wore every single day a suit, a tie and a perfectly ironed shirt. That's the exact moment when I looked at myself, a [relatively young and perfectly healthy] man always finding excuses to dress down a bit and adopt 'practical' (?!) outfits.. Things started to change a bit since then..

The second story is even shorter. Last night my Dutch flat mate asked my dad's age. 72, I replied. With a glass of coke in his hand, he observed: "PPPPssh! He's fucking old, man!", which I try to read as a very extreme example of sprezzatura :wink:
robert_n
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Sun Mar 03, 2013 4:36 am

Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart is probably more sciatteria than sprezzatura, but at times the line is blurred.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCwsw7al9kA
hectorm
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Sun Mar 03, 2013 6:18 pm

robert_n wrote:Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart is probably more sciatteria than sprezzatura, but at times the line is blurred.
I believe there cannot be real sloppiness or dowdiness (or by the way, any sprezzatura either) when you get dressed by the whole costume design team of a film production.
Frederic Leighton
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Fri Mar 22, 2013 9:44 pm

Jean Cocteau's way (photo with Coco Chanel).
hectorm
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Sun Mar 24, 2013 9:13 pm

Dear Frederick,
since you were who posted his picture here, what is your observation on Mr. Cocteau´s sprezzatura?
Frederic Leighton
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Sun Mar 24, 2013 10:07 pm

Dear Hectorm, thank you for asking. When it comes to elegance (here in a broad sense), I consider myself a student and try to keep my opinion to myself. [Although, silence requires high discipline and I not always succeed.] Since you ask, here my first thoughts. While two undone buttons on a cuff can represent for some men a daring gesture, a loud statement or the esoteric password for a higher status, I think this is not the case for Cocteau, man who proved his genius and character in many other [and more significant] ways. I find those two unfastened button to suit him (or my image of him) very well. On the other hand, the unfastened button on the cuff of a banker while commuting on the Jubilee Line just talks to me of the sadness of a man who, until a short time ago, was not even allowed to grow a beard in case he wanted one. I'm sure I'm too harsh in my opinion, which is also part of the reason why I believe the exercise of silence is good for me. And you, Hectorm, what is your opinion?
Jean Cocteau wrote:A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
hectorm
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Mon Mar 25, 2013 3:01 pm

Thank you Frederick for honoring my inquiry.
I much agree with your observation regarding the unbuttoned cuff at the end of a lounging artist´s arm versus the same on the arm of a tube commuting banker. :)
Notwithstanding, what makes your assertion true -besides the fact that the environments are very different- is that we know the lounging fellow is a famous artist and we also have to know in advance that the commuting fellow is a banker. Context.
What would be our assessment all the other things equal?
Once you level the rest, unbuttoned cuffs are unbuttoned cuffs and you can´t guess intentions or personalities behind them.
In the case of the multitalented Mr. Cocteau, some would say it was part of his nature, but I think he always tried a bit too hard with the image he wanted to project.
Frederic Leighton
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Mon Mar 25, 2013 11:21 pm

Hectorm: Thank you for the poignant reading; I really appreciate and much agree.
When sprezzatura is superfluous: Adolf Loos.
davidhuh
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Sun Mar 31, 2013 1:44 am

Gentlemen,

reading the liner notes of a CD, I just came across an interesting reflection on sprezzatura:

After the first experiment with recitar cantando towards the end of the sixteenth century, and despite the claims of other authors, Giulio Caccini was no doubt the first to define this new manner of singing and composing. His preface to Le Nuove Musiche of 1602 provides an invaluable analysis of the subject. Despite strong opposition from conservative intellectual quarters, this essay by Caccini was epoch-making: music became a means of representing the affetti, or human emotions; henceforth the singer's eloquence and expressive powers were of vital importance to the success of a work. The new style laid great emphasis on expressiveness, but also on sprezzatura in singing, i.e. the art of making the difficult seem easy (sprezzatura is often translated as 'nonchalance').

Caccini did not coin this term, although he was the first to use it to describe music. The idea behind it was one that had periodically resurfaced over the centuries (other important themes in Western culture have done likewise). Cicero and Quintilian state clearly that Ars est celare artem. But the work sprezzatura originated, in the context of social interaction, in Baldassare Castigliones' famous Libro del Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier) of 1528:

La gratia / È fuggir quanto più si pò (...) la affettatione, & per dir forse una nuova parola, usar in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura che nasconda l'arte, & dimostri ciò che si fa, & dice venir fatto senza fatica, & quasi senza pensarvi (...)
'Having already given much thought to the origin of this grace (...), I have discovered a universal rule (...): namely, to steer clear of affectation at all costs, and - to use for it a word that is perhaps new - to practise in all things a certain sprezzatura, which conceals art and makes whatever one does or says seem spontaneous and almost effortless.'

Caccini first applied the term sprezzatura to music in the preface to his opera Euridice of 1600:
(...) Nella qual maniera di canto ho io usato una certa sprezzatura, che io ho stimato che abbia del nobile, parendomi con essa di essermi appressato quel più alla natural favella (...)
'And in using this matter of singing I have allowed a certain sprezzatura - a certain play in the timing to give, as I consider it, a heightening effect - so as to come as close as possible to natural speech.'

Remarkably, here Caccini notes not only the importance of sprezzatura, but also the need to bring singing closer to the inflections and rhythms of ordinary speech - an idea that he later confirmed and elaborated on in the preface to Le Nuove Musiche:
Mi venne pensiero introdurre una sorte di musica, per cui altri potesse quasi che in armonia favellar, usando in essa (come altre volte ho detto) una certa nobile sprezzatura di canto (...)
'I conceived the idea of a new sort of music which enabled me practically to speak in harmony, allowing myself (as I have said elsewhere) a certain studied nonchalance in the manner of singing.'

The madrigal Deh, dove son fuggiti, given as an example of style in the preface of 1602, includes a passage that is to be performed 'senza mesura, quasi favellando in armonia con la suddetta sprezzatura' - ('without regular rhythm, as if speaking in tones, with the aforesaid nonchalance').

The musician must therefore take into account the intelligibility not only of the words themselves, but also of the feeling expressed, and the dramatic and evocative qualities of the text. Signs of this new relationship between music and text and between the composer and the interpreter of his works are also found in the writings of Caccini's pupils, and in those of great masters such as Claudio Monteverdi. Francesco Rasi, a pupil of Caccini, who almost certainly created the title role in Monteverdi's Orfeo and was also the first Teseo, wrote in his advice to singers, included in the autograph manuscript (1612) of his Musiche da camera e chiesa:
Le seguente gentilezze si possono cantare tanto in tenore come all'ottava sopra eccetto "O del sol" et cetera e si devono cantare con affetto e sopra tutto far intendere le parole.
'The following delightful songs, with the exception of O del sol, may be sung either in the tenor or an octave higher; and they must be sung with feeling (affetto) and above all the words must be intelligible.'

Franco Pavan, 2003
'La Bella Noeva' - Marco Beasley, Alpha 508

If anybody wonders how Maestro Caccini was composing - I have posted two songs from said CD here
http://www.thelondonlounge.net/forum/vi ... 647#p69647

cheers, david
Frederic Leighton
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Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:34 am

Thank you, David, for the delightful exposition! Loungers may also appreciate that the Londoner Peter Philips (ca. 1560–1628) set Caccini's popular madrigal Amarilli for the keyboard. It is found in The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (listen here).
couch
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Sun Mar 31, 2013 8:05 pm

davidhuh wrote:Signs of this new relationship between music and text and between the composer and the interpreter of his works are also found in the writings of Caccini's pupils, and in those of great masters such as Claudio Monteverdi. Francesco Rasi, a pupil of Caccini, who almost certainly created the title role in Monteverdi's Orfeo and was also the first Teseo, wrote in his advice to singers, included in the autograph manuscript (1612) of his Musiche da camera e chiesa

Le seguente gentilezze si possono cantare tanto in tenore come all'ottava sopra eccetto "O del sol" et cetera e si devono cantare con affetto e sopra tutto far intendere le parole.

'The following delightful songs, with the exception of O del sol, may be sung either in the tenor or an octave higher; and they must be sung with feeling (affetto) and above all the words must be intelligible.'
This influence is heard to spectacular effect in the Monteverdi madrigal recordings by Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano, originally recorded on the audiophile label Opus 111; some of the discs have been reissued at budget price by its successor, Naive. These recordings made big waves in the early music world when released in the '90s, precisely because of their attention to expressive articulation of the texts. It's particularly challenging to retain that rhythmically "free" interpretive style while maintaining ensemble and blend with the other voices in (for instance) a five-part composition. In the relevant thread I'll link to a YouTube version of the entire Fourth Book; it's all wonderful, but the expressive emotional and dialogic range can be well sampled in the second madrigal "Cor Mio, Mentre Vi Miro" beginning at 3:33. I'll print the Italian text of G.B. Guarini's poem in the post in that thread, so members can follow the expressive rendering.
davidhuh
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Mon Apr 01, 2013 1:43 pm

Frederic Leighton wrote: ... the Londoner Peter Philips (ca. 1560–1628) set Caccini's popular madrigal Amarilli for the keyboard. It is found in The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (listen here).
Dear Frederic,

this is beautiful and a discovery for me. Thank you!
couch wrote: This influence is heard to spectacular effect in the Monteverdi madrigal recordings by Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano, originally recorded on the audiophile label Opus 111; some of the discs have been reissued at budget price by its successor, Naive...
Dear Couch,

thank you as well - you made me dig in my CD collection where I found two of the madrigal recordings by Alessandrini, bought almost 20 years ago. This is an incredibly beautiful interpretation indeed. Now I need to get the other books as well :D

cheers, David
couch
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Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:25 pm

Au contraire, David, thank you for the wonderful Caccini material and reminding me how much I love that moment in musical history!

Perhaps one day we should have a LL night at the (baroque) opera. I'll be at Wigmore Hall on June 11 for the AAM doing Corelli and Handel concerti grossi and "Clori, Tirsi e Fileno." I'll keep an eye out for anyone in LL linen or Mistral and a red carnation in their buttonhole . . . .
hectorm
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Sun Apr 07, 2013 3:17 pm

Frederic Leighton wrote:Hectorm: Thank you for the poignant reading; I really appreciate and much agree.
When sprezzatura is superfluous: Adolf Loos.
And what about this? :oops:
(sorry for the size of the picture, I was not able to reduce it -if anybody knows how to do it, help is appreciated).
Image
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