Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini
Imagine a gift so exorbitantPeople suspect the composer’s a poseurEven as they manage to get half-drunkOn his masterpieces of improbableBut deeply humane sentimentality.
Arias that have awakened the worldTo the mystery of intervals of sounds —The way our brain, the singer in us,Can detect precise mathematical steps —Astonish us with their simplicity.
I can sing “Recondita armonia.” I can’t, though, perform it. I have no gift,Only moderate talent, a “good ear.”I know enough to know he’s a master.I can hear why he rejoiced in Caruso.
I have no right to his world of beauty.He shares it not with me but with all of us.Arrogant, self-indulgent, unfaithful,Reckless, an addictive personality,He was clearly out for numero uno,
But his gift saved him. He was not a composeur.He was a musician — trained, disciplined,Inventive, improvising, revising,Reading, thinking — alive to the feelingsMusic nurtures and converts into art.
Arias that have awakened the worldTo the mystery of intervals of sounds —The way our brain, the singer in us,Can detect precise mathematical steps —Astonish us with their simplicity.
I can sing “Recondita armonia.” I can’t, though, perform it. I have no gift,Only moderate talent, a “good ear.”I know enough to know he’s a master.I can hear why he rejoiced in Caruso.
I have no right to his world of beauty.He shares it not with me but with all of us.Arrogant, self-indulgent, unfaithful,Reckless, an addictive personality,He was clearly out for numero uno,
But his gift saved him. He was not a composeur.He was a musician — trained, disciplined,Inventive, improvising, revising,Reading, thinking — alive to the feelingsMusic nurtures and converts into art.
An ex-smoker myself, I’ve always beenSaddened that Puccini died of throat cancer.Himself a heavy smoker, addicted,He destroyed the site of song in his body(As Beethoven, his hearing with lead-laced wine?).
Bodies are too weak for the burden of art.The few who (almost) bear it deserve our thanks.They grant us freedom otherwise unknown:In their bodies we transcend our bodies —“A l’alba vincerò, vincerò, vincerò!”
Bodies are too weak for the burden of art.The few who (almost) bear it deserve our thanks.They grant us freedom otherwise unknown:In their bodies we transcend our bodies —“A l’alba vincerò, vincerò, vincerò!”
