Apr 5
Guest Concert: Suzanne Farrin's "dolce la morte" with Ensemble Dal Niente and Michael Walker
Music @ Carleton presents world-renown composer Suzanne Farrin, featured guest of the 2024 Christopher U. Light Lectureship.
"In 1532 Michelangelo met the young Roman nobleman Tommaso de’ Cavalieri. Though the details of their relationship are unknown, we know that the meeting inspired the artist to compose intense poetry that deals with the joy and complexity of carnal desire and spiritual fulfilment. The two men also exchanged “presentation” drawings, which were intended to be lessons for Tommaso. Mainly depicting stories from Greek mythology, they include Phaeton, Ganymede and il Sogno. Tommaso was one of the men at Michelangelo’s side when he passed away and was the executor of his estate.
For me, the visual works that mostly closely express a feeling similar to the love poems are Prisoner Statues, which now beautifully stand before the David at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. These are the unfinished statues who look as though they were abandoned in mid-thought. Each body exists in many different stages of emergence: a perfect arm, a rough leg, a faceless head. There is great motion and strength in these bodies that are “imprisoned” in the stone. They are submerged and unbound: muscles strain and reach like contrapposto between life and non-living.
Michelangelo’s poetry also seems to be in a process. His speech cannot fully contain the overwhelming impetus of physical love, which becomes too much for the sonnets to bear. They stretch and are torn out of shape. He loses his voice and falls silent. Inspired by this intensity of emotion and reflection, my desire was to create the sound-world between creation and being."
- Suzanne Farrin
Sponsored by The Elizabeth Nason Distinguished Women Visitors Fund and The Christopher U. Light Lectureship. The Chrisopher U. Light Lectureship in Music was created in 1985 (1985 for Art and 1984 for Literature) by Mr. Light, Carelton Class of 1958. Among his many interests, Mr. Light is a freelance writer and composer, a record producer and a musician with interests in computers and music.
from Music Department