Opus (Sep 2015)
<i>... stella tenax...</i> Variations on <i>Vanités</i> by Brice Pauset
Abstract
Between 2000 and 2002, Brice Pauset composed Vanités, twenty-five fragments (for echo soprano, principal haute-contre, principal harpsichord, two echo harpsichords, theorbo, two violins, viola, cello, and contrabass) that fall within the secular history of melancholy and its artistic representation. The work models after Leçons de ténèbres by Marc- Antoine Charpentier and refers to still lifes by Willem Kalf. In addition, it boasts a number of musical languages, concepts, and genres organized in cycles borrowed from other historical periods, including canons, choirs, and passacaglia. This article aims to study the libretto, its montage, its significance, and its related melancholic representation, as well as the metric organization of the work and its complex intercombinations – inspired by the Magic Square of Melancholia I and the name of its author, Albrecht Dürer. The result is a new rhetoric, which requires formal analysis, as well as an analysis of the expressive, symbolic, and metaphoric dimensions whose musical signs are holders.
