Trionfo di Afrodite

Trionfo di Afrodite (Italian for Triumph of Aphrodite) is a cantata written in 1951 by the German composer Carl Orff. It is the third and final installment in the Trionfi musical triptych, which also includes Carmina Burana (1937) and Catulli Carmina (1943).

Background

Described by the composer himself as a concerto scenico (scenic concert), the Trionfo is a representation of a ritual for a Greco-Roman wedding, in a similar fashion to Igor Stravinsky's Les noces. In this case, Trionfo refers to the Roman and Renaissance trionfo, meaning "procession" or "festival". By using the word trionfo, Orff specifically intended to identify the work as a successor to the Renaissance and baroque tradition of the masque and pageant, not as a formal borrowing but as a rather refreshed and extended look on it.

Orff began working on the Trionfo as early as 1947, but could not fully concentrate on the piece until he completed his Antigonae in March 1949. The score was finally completed in 1951 and premiered some time later, on February 14, 1953, at La Scala in Milan, with Herbert von Karajan conducting. Originally published in 1952 by B. Schott's Söhne, it was reprinted by the original publisher in 1980 and again in 1990 by Ernst Eulenburg. Orff's intentions with the text were not to offer an ad hoc reconstruction of an antique rite, but rather to present the union of an "archetypal couple as the work of the Goddess of Love Aphrodite, as a hieros gamos" (holy marriage).

Despite the large orchestra, the instrumentation is often sparse, especially in the Greek verses, and the music is strongly influenced by the rhythms and melodies of the spoken word, though little importance is actually given to both tonic and prosodic accent. The piece closes with a triumphant apparition of Aphrodite herself, a rare instance when the full choral and orchestral forces are actually used.

Structure

The work is divided into seven tableaux:

{|class="wikitable" style='text-align: center;'

|+ Structure of Trionfo di Afrodite

!Tableau no.

!colspan="2"|Title

!Incipit

!Text source

!Language

!Rehearsal numbers

|I||colspan="2"|Canto amebeo di vergini e giovani a Vespero in attesa della sposa e dello sposo (Antiphon of virgins and young men to Hesperus waiting for the bride and groom)||"Vesper adest, iuvenes, consurgite..."||Catullus 62||Latin||Beginning to 17

|II||colspan="2"|Corteo nuziale ed arrivo della sposa e dello sposo (Wedding procession and arrival of the bride and groom)||"Ἴψοι δὴ τὸ μέλαθρον,⁠᾽Υμήναον..." (Ipsoi de to melathron, Hymenaon)||Sappho Fragments||Ancient Greek||17 to 25

|III||colspan="2"|Sposa e sposo (Bride and groom)||"Ζά τ᾽ἐλεξάμαν ὄναρ, Κυπρογένηα..." (Za t'elexaman onar, Kyprogenea)||Sappho Fragments / Carl Orff||Ancient Greek||25 to 47

|IV||colspan="2"|Invocazione dell' Imeneo (Invocation of Hymenaios)||"Collis o Heliconii cultor..."||Catullus 61||Latin||47 to 69

|rowspan="3"|V||rowspan="3"|Ludi e canti nuziali davanti al talamo (Games and wedding songs in front of the wedding chamber)||align="left"|a) La sposa viene accolta (The bride is welcomed)||"Claustra pandite ianuae..."||Catullus 61||Latin||69 to 80

|align="left"|b) La sposa viene condotta alla camera nuziale (The bride is led to the wedding chamber)||"Tollit', o pueri, faces: flammeum video venir'..."||Catullus 61||Latin||80 to 94

|align="left"|c) Epitalamo (Epithalamium)||"Iam licet venias, marit'..."||Catullus 61||Latin||94 to one bar before 106

|VI||colspan="2"|Canto di novelli sposi dal talamo (Song of the newlyweds from the wedding chamber)||"Γάλακτος λευκοτέρα..." (Galaktos leukotera)||Sappho Fragments||Ancient Greek||One bar before 106 to 108

|VII||colspan="2"|Apparizione di Afrodite (Apparition of Aphrodite)||"Σὺ τὰν θεῶν ἄκαμπτον φρένα..." (Sy tan theon akampton phrena)||Euripides's Hippolytus||Ancient Greek||108 to end

While texts are blended into the composition so that the sources seems homogeneous and transitions from one text to the other are not easy to spot, the music is different when different languages are used. Orff wanted to exploit the phonetic qualities of each language individually. Consequently, fragments in Latin are generally more rhythmical and serve as a stable background, while fragments in Ancient Greek form inlays with flexible and elaborate tessitura. The finale, taken from a different text, would be a combination of these two.