Music and Myth

[Theme music begins]

Welcome to Harmonia … I’m Angela Mariani. This hour, we’re exploring the connection between music and myth. Myths served as the basis for many secular works of the Renaissance and Baroque, from the earliest Italian operatic tragedies featuring legendary heroes, to playful cantatas and madrigals. Our featured release this week is the world-premiere recording of the opera Venus y Adonis by the Spanish Baroque composer José de Nebra performed by the ensemble Los Elamentos.

[Theme music fades at :59]

MUSIC TRACK
Euridice
Les Arts Baroques
Maguelone Music | MAG358.415 (2017)
Jacopo Peri
Tr. 1 Prologue: Io, che d’alti sospir vaga e di pianti [4:48]

The Sinfonia and Prologue to Jacopo Perri’s opera Euridice, performed by Les Arts Baroques. Euridice is considered the earliest surviving opera.

Mythological figures have long inspired art, and it is no surprise that some of the earliest operas were based on the myth of Orpheus, a story about the power of music. Orpheus was a legendary musician and poet, known for his ability to charm all living things with his music. In this Greek tale, Orpheus’ love, Eurydice, is bitten by a snake and dies shortly after their wedding, so Orpheus ventures into the underworld to find her. Hades is so moved by Orpheus’ music that he allows Eurydice to return to the world of the living on one condition: Orpheus must not look back at her until they have both reached the surface. Orpheus, at the last moment before they emerge, looks back at Eurydice and she is lost to him forever.

In 1607, Monteverdi wrote his first opera, L’Orfeo, based on this myth. The second act of the opera details Eurydice’s, or Eurydice’s snakebite and its revelation to Orpheus, culminating in his famous lament and his resolution to descend into the underworld and rescue her. We’ll hear the scene “Ahi, caso acerbo!” in which a messenger tells Orpheus of Eurydice’s death, followed by the lament “Tu se’ morta.”

MUSIC TRACK
L’Orfeo
Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy
Dynamic | CDS477 (2005)
Claudio Monteverdi
Tr. 8 Ahi, caso acerbo! [6:13]
Tr. 9 Tu se’ morta, mia vita, ed io respiro [2:36]

Two excerpts from Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy’s performance of Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo under the direction of Jean-Claude Malgoire. First, the scene “Ahi, caso acerbo!” followed by Orfeo’s lament “Tu se’ morta,” sung by Kobie van Rensburg.

Italian poet Jacopo Sannazaro wrote the pastoral poem Arcadia at the end of the fifteenth century based on the Greek mythological figure Arcas and the region of Peloponnesus where the gods Pan and Hermes reside. Sannazaro’s poem blends elements of classical pastoral and mythological imagery with Renaissance humanism and combines multiple forms of poetry. After its publication in 1504, Arcadia circulated widely among the Italian artists and literati, serving as the basis for pastoral paintings and secular music. Verses from poem also served as texts for madrigals and other vocal works.]

Luca Marenzio composed many madrigals based on sections of Sannazaro’s poem. Let’s hear “Madonna sua merce per una sera,” with text from the seventh section of Arcadia, in which a beautiful woman appears in a dream and is compared to the sun after a rainstorm. After that, Marenzio’s madrigal “Vedi le valle,” which comes from the eighth section of Arcadia and depicts joyful shepherds dancing around fountains.

MUSIC TRACK
Marenzio, Madrigals
Quinta Essençia
La Ma de Guido | LMG2157 (2019)
Tr. 3 Madonna sua merce per una sera [2:31] from Eclogue VII, first book of madrigals in 4 voices (2:42)
Tr. 12 Vedi le valle e I campi [2:02] from Eclogue VIII, first book of madrigals in 4 voices (2:12)

Quinta Essençia performed two madrigals by Luca Marenzio based on text from the pastoral poem Arcadia. First, the madrigal “Madonna sua merce per una sera,” followed by “Vedi le valle.”

You’re listening to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.

Mid Break Music Bed:
The Fairy Queen
Scholars Baroque Ensemble
Naxos | 8.550660-61 (1994)
Henry Purcell
Tr. Act II: Dance for the Followers of Night [excerpt of 1:13]

Welcome back. This hour, we’re exploring musical works based on myth.

Henry Purcell composed his operatic work The Fairy Queen in 1692. And here’s a fascinating fact: Purcell’s score was lost shortly after his death and only rediscovered in the early twentieth century. The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mythologically speaking, Shakespeare’s queen of the fairies, Titania, is a blending of indigenous English paganism and Greco-Roman literature.

The Fairy Queen combines dialogue with musical masques, rather than recitatives and arias that would be expected in opera. A masque is a festive form of courtly entertainment that includes elaborate stage design, music, singing, and dancing. Purcell structured The Fairy Queen around masques representing figures from Shakespeare’s play, rather than strictly setting the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to music.

Act II of The Fairy Queen features music for Titania, the queen of the fairies, first to entertain her and then to help her go to sleep. The “Masque for Sleep” includes four airs on night, mystery, secrecy, and sleep, [followed by a bizarre and dream-like dance]. We’ll hear the “Air for Sleep” [and the “Dance for the Followers of Night.”]

MUSIC TRACK
The Fairy Queen
Scholars Baroque Ensemble
Naxos | 8.550660-61 (1994)
Henry Purcell
Tr. Act II: Sleep and Chorus [5:09]
Tr. Act II: Dance for the Followers of Night [1:13] CUT IF NECESSARY

Two pieces from Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen performed by the Scholars Baroque Ensemble. First, the “Air for Sleep” followed by the “Dance for the Followers of Night.”
Johann Sebastian Bach is well-known known for his cycles of sacred cantatas, but he also wrote cantatas on secular themes. The cantata “Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde,” chronicles a contest between the mythological figures of Phoebus and Pan. The plot is based on a story called “Ears of a Donkey” from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Bach wrote the cantata in 1729.

In the myth, Pan and Phoebus, a.k.a. Apollo, have a musical contest that is judged by Tmolus, the mountain god, and King Midas. Pan plays the flute and Phoebus plays the lyre. Tmolus declares Phoebus the winner, while Midas prefers Pan’s rustic sounding flute. Angered, Phoebus turns Midas’s ears into the ears of a donkey. We’ll hear Pan’s aria “Zu Tanze, zu Sprunge,” followed by Tmolus’s aria declaring Phoebus the winner.

MUSIC TRACK
Secular Cantatas, Vol. 9
Bach Collegium Japan
BIS | BIS-2311 (2017)
Johann Sebastian Bach
Tr. 7 Aria: Zu Tanze, zu Sprunge (Pan) [5:22]
Tr. 8 Recitative: Nunmehro Richter her (Mercurius, Tmolus) [0:44]
Tr. 9 Aria: Phoebus, deine Melodei (Tmolus) [5:47]

The Bach Collegium Japan performed three pieces from the secular cantata “The Contest between Phoebus and Pan,” by Johann Sebastian Bach.

You’re listening to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.

Our featured release this hour is the world-premiere recording of José de Nebra’s opera Venus y Adonis, performed by the ensemble Los Elamentos and released in January of 2025 on the Aparte label. José de Nebra was an 18th-century Spanish composer whose works combined Spanish musical traditions with late-Baroque Italian styles and genres. He is most known for his five Spanish operas, all of which deal with mythological stories and themes. He wrote Venus y Adonis in 1729.

The opera tells the story of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and her mortal lover Adonis, culminating with his death at the hands of a wild boar. Nebra’s opera has been reconstructed from surviving sources by the director of Los Elamentos, Alberto Miguélez Rouco, and features an all-woman cast.

We will hear two arias from Venus y Adonis. First, the aria “Bate a la navecilla,” sung by Adonis as he is about to embark on his hunt. Then, a recitative and aria sung by the character Celfa. Her aria “Calquiera mozuela” combines elements of two Spanish dances—the fandango and zarambeque—and uses castanets—yet stays within the (conventional) bounds of an Italian-style opera.

MUSIC TRACK
Nebra: Venus y Adonis
Los Elamentos, Alberto Milquélez Ruoco
Aparte 2025 / AP373
José de Nebra
Tr. 24 Aria: Bate a la navecilla (Adonis) [5:27]
Tr. 25 Recitativo: Con efecto Clarín me galantea (Celfa) [1:37]
Tr. 26 Aria: Cualquiera mozuela (Celfa) [4:58]

Los Elamentos performs the arias “Bate a la navecilla,” and “Cualquiera mozuela” from José de Nebra’s opera Venus y Adonis.

[Fade in theme music]

Harmonia is a production of WFIU.

Support comes from Early Music America: a national organization that advocates and supports the historical performance of music of the past, the community of artists who create it, and the listeners whose lives are enriched by it. On the web at EarlyMusicAmerica-dot-org.

Additional resources come from the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

We welcome your thoughts about any part of this program, or about early music in general. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org. You can follow us on Facebook by searching for Harmonia Early Music.

The writer for this edition of Harmonia is Travis Whaley.

Thanks to our production team: LuAnn Johnson, Aaron Cain, Brock Hamman, and John Bailey. I’m Angela Mariani, inviting you to join us again for the next edition of Harmonia.

[Theme music concludes]