# Poignancy in music



## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

This week's composer on Radio 3 is Smetana. This afternoon the program played his first string quartet. This is the one which has a single held note in the last movement depicting the tinnitus which was the prelude to his deafness. Poignancy literally means stinging and this note stings all the more for arriving in an exuberant passage of music. The way Smetana describes it as a 'joke' is a further twist of the knife.

Can you think of any other examples of happy music shot through with a piercing sadness? Another work that comes to mind is Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, in which he dedicates each of the movements to a friend who had been killed in action in World War I.


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder. In and by itself, the music is of a stunning and endless beauty. Crafty and long-breathing melodies, lush orchestration. But when you start considering the poetry of the four songs, you realise that in each song a metaphor for death is contained. The composer says goodbye to the world.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There are ways and ways. I hear poignancy in Bartók's 6th string quartet; he is lamenting the end of civilized behavior in eastern Europe, in his own unyielding way.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Monteverdi's Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti.






_Zefiro torna, e di soavi accenti
l'aer fa grato e 'l pie discioglie a l'onde,
e mormorando tra le verdi fronde,
fa danzar al bel suon su 'l prato i fiori.

Inghirlandato il crin Fillide e Clori
note tempran d'amor care e gioconde;
e da monti e da valli ime e profonde
raddoppian l'armonia gli antri canori.

Sorge più vaga in ciel l'aurora, e 'l sole
sparge più luci d'or: più puro argento
fregia di Teti il bel ceruleo manto.

Sol io, per selve abbandonate e sole,
l'ardor di due begli occhi e 'l mio tormento,
come vuol mia ventura, hor piango hor canto.

Translation (by Tim Carter):

Zephyrus returns, and with sweet accents
makes the air pleasing and loosens his foot from the waves,
and murmuring among the green branches,
he makes dance to his sound the flowers in the meadows.

Phyllis and Chloris, garlands on their brow,
temper their sweet and joyous notes of love;
and from the mountains and the valleys low and deep
sonorous caverns echo their harmony.

Dawn rises more lovely in the heavens,
and the sun spreads forth more rays of gold;
while purer silver adorns Thetis' fair cerulean mantle.

Only I, wandering through abandoned, lonely woods,
the brightness of two lovely eyes and my torment,
as my fortune wills it, now I weep, now I sing._

This piece is very romantic, in the sense that it focuses on the individual. The celestial bodies and powers are profound and glorious, but Monteverdi can be miserable just the same. Man is fickle, willing himself both to weep and sing.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Schubert's Trout quintet comes to my mind, but this could be due to my imagining it to be about the lives of fish, when it really isn't. Still, I think it has a bitter-sweet feeling.


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