Dido and Aeneas

F. Nicolas

Performance Notes

(Translation: Matthew Lorenzon)

Voices

· Dido: soprano (Latin, Sprechgesang)

· Aeneas: tenor (English, singing)

· Choir: narrator (French, recto tono cantillation)

Percussion

· Two rototoms

· Six wood-blocks

· One vibraphone

· Eight toms

Sticks

- Snare drumsticks

- Soft timpani mallets

- Vibraphone mallets: Hard / Medium / Soft

Tempi

The metre and the tempo are the same throughout: 6/4, crotchet = 120.

Two voices have their own metre and their own tempo:

- Dido: 5/4, crotchet = 100

- The choir: 4/4, crotchet = 80

Languages

I cannot stress enough that the different voices should prioritise:

- First of all, the meticulous pronunciation of the text.

- Then its prosody, with its own and notated rhythm.

- Finally (and last of all) its specific vocal line.

The principal aspect of the performance of all the vocal parts is the reproduction of the “text” and the “lingual” game of the “theatrical” roles.

English pronunciation

The language proceeds by a rhythm of accents where the words freely agglomerate around accented syllables. These are notated in black according to a globally isochronic rhythm. We will not hesitate here to refer sometimes to the logic of “swing.”

French pronunciation

The language uses a syllabic diction, privileging fluidity without distinguishing between “shorts” and “longs.” The accents should remain strictly prosodic. The notation puts the accent on the phonological separations (and not the syntaxical divisions) of the syllables: “ce-tte fe-mme” rather than “cet-te fem-me” and, more generally, on the sequence of consonants: “fe-mm’/a-ccom-plie” rather than “fem-me_ac-com-plie”.

Latin pronunciation

The language privileges a syllabic diction playing on the distinction of shorts and longs (without taking account of elisions) and on the scansion proper to the tonic accent of the word.
The long syllables are indicated in bold. The stressed syllable of a word (when it has more than one long syllable) is underlined. We will accord particular attention to the prosody of the text, especially the articulation of the consonants

Due to the large variety of pronunciations of latin, we will make our chosen phonetic system explicit here.

Consonants

The final consonants (especially the “s”) are never mute. For example “nefas”, “crudelis” ...
. The geminate consonants are overarticulated in two phases: one by implosion, the other by explosion. For example, “dis-simulare”, “tyran-ni”, “sup- plicia”...

• The “c” is pronounced as “s”: “tacitusque”.

• The “g” is a hard “g” like in Edgar ; followed by a “u”, it is pronounced “gou” : “tangunt”, “sanguine”.

• The “h” is always mute.

• The “m”s and “n”s are pronounced separately (there are no nasals in latin): “etiam”, “tantum”, “omni”, “non”, “quondam” ...

• The “q”, which is always followed by a “u”, is pronounced “kou”: “quid”, or ‘kw’: “antiquum”.

• The “r” is rolled.

• The “s” is pronounced “s” (and not “z”).

• The “t” is hard (as in tomato).

• The “v” is pronounced “v”: “verum”

• The “x” is pronounced as two consonants “ks” (as in “taxi” or “excess”).

• The “y” is a vowel—as below.

Vowels

• The “e” is pronounced “é” as an open syllable and “è” as a closed syllable (with the consonant that follows). I will systematically mark out the “è” so that, by default, the “e”s are all pronounced as “é”.

• The “u” is pronounced “ou”.

• The “y” is pronounced as our “y”: “hymenæos”, “Libycæ”, “tyranni”, “Tyrii” …

Diphtongues

We will accord particular attention to the four diphthongs:

- “æ” = ‘aé’

- “u” = “aou” or “aw” (Such as in “out” in English)

- “oe” = “oé”

- “eu” = “éou” or “éw”

General Balance

The score is divided into two blocks: that of the voices and that of the instruments.

The voices

The role of the choir can be held by one person. It will be cantillated recto tono, at a freely-determined pitch held from one end to the other. The polyphony of voices (heterophony without counterpoint) should preferably arise from the lingual play, the attention weighing on what is said, on the language in which it is said, on the “theatrical” rapports between the three roles. The more properly musical part—that which is given by the notated pitches and dynamics—should remain subordinate to the first (the brief central part B being an exception). In this way, the indications of modes of play for the voices have been deliberately reduced in order to leave room for the “theatrical” interpretation of the roles, which could not be musically notated.

Specifically concerning the role of Dido, I have had recourse to three colours to suggest the rapports between three affective tonalities: anger , coldness and tenderness.

This “heterophony” privileges the (relative) autonomy of the voices and their global interweaving rather than their local combinations.

The Instruments

The piano and the percussion alternate two types of relation to the ensemble:

- Commentaries and punctuations: Here the priority is to listen to the other performers and introduce the interventions at the right time (most often, the notated rhythm and dynamics leaves the instrumentalist some room to move).

- Autonomous discourse: Here the priority is individual discursive engagement (one must privilege the part’s intentions in its meticulous and local synchrony with the other parts).

Between the two instruments, the polyphony is not strictly contrapuntal (the counterpoint is ultimately the internal affair of each part): it arises from a heterophony making a weave or intertwining.

In sum

The work must be heard as the heterophony of these two heterophonies, the one of a lingual order, the other of a musical order. One need not worry that, locally or regionally, one heterophony wins out in volume over another. Globally, however, the two must be led to equality, without the hierarchies of foreground-background, principal-secondary or figure-foundation: the point is, in sum, to hear the gap between the musical and the lingual.