Zvony Nagy
Carmen Perpetuum
Short instrumentation: 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0, str
Duration: 10'
Instrumentation details:
1st violin (6 players)
2nd violin (6 players)
3rd violin (2 players)
4th violin (2 players)
5th violin (2 players)
6th violin (2 players)
7th viola (2 players)
8th viola (2 players)
9th violoncello (2 players)
10th violoncello (2 players)
double bass
Carmen Perpetuum
Sample pages
Video
Work introduction
Taking its title from the beginning of Ovid’s ”Metamorphoses,” Carmen Perpetuum, or ”unbroken song,” unfolds into two contrasting sections. The first section introduces a somewhat meditative character in a moderate tempo, gradually increasing in intensity, followed by a fast and unceasing motto perpetuo section. In the beginning, a melodic-harmonic line serves as the underpinning for the entire piece, accumulating the musical energy throughout the first section of the composition to eventually produce something new and highly energetic at the end. The musical material employed in the piece was initially featured in the first movement from Two Canons for organ solo (2007, rev. 2017). However, what unites the piece musically is a constantly recurring melody, spiral-like canons embracing the cantus firmus that, to quote Gabrielle Starr in her book Feeling Beauty (2013), becomes ”a song never-ending in its transformation and evolution” (146). This concept of a never-ending song is deeply rooted in the ancient Greek and Roman cultures, symbolizing the eternal nature of music.