Blog No. 29: Rossi Short
On this eve of Juneteenth, racism on my mind, I set out to make
a few scribbles for my
salsa inspired "One Dance— one rhythm. I was looking for
a contrasting melody for that short piece.
The bars I sketched out were indeed contrasting to salsa.
So contrasting they reminded me of the Renaissance.
Being in a Spanish state of mind, tonight, and often,
I thought of Spanish & Renaissance.
I thought of the Spanish Inquisition (1478... officially disbanded in
1834... can't have too much of a good thing, I guess.)
My mind wandered to the Italian Renaissance.
Mary Feinsinger popped into my head, not literally, fortunately...
that would have been painful.
Mary, one of the most brilliant people I have ever known, comes to
mind when I think of the Renaissance, brilliant people who are
brilliant at a dizzying array of disciplines. Mary & I met in a
graduate seminar at Juilliard. A class assignment called for some of
us to sing a Renaissance piece. Maybe I volunteered because I
had spent so many hours over the previous four years writing
Renaissance counterpoint exercises— and joyously at that.
In any event, my singing wasn't very good (it still isn't, that didn't keep me
from making more money with it than as a composer or bassoonist).
Mary rescued me... giving me a few singing lessons. I enjoyed those, so
I became her student. Juilliard was great for me:
Singing lessons, violin lessons, counterpoint lessons, piano lessons... all
from my friends (all of whom were Teaching Fellows as I was.)
Renaissance Italy... given the ever present specter of growing antisemitism,
my mind hungered for Jewish heroes, of course Gershwin, Copland, Berstein... and
Rossi.
Even though this piece is not sung in Latin, it is a sacred work.
Sacred not for any one particular religion or group of people, it
is sacred in the sense that it conveys through irony that all
people should have equal rights.
