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Poetry Prompt 12 – Rondo Let's Write an Opera-Style Rondò! A Rondò is a two-part aria. What's an aria? An aria is like a song in two sections, but the first section is repeated at the end. A Rondò breaks this repetition rule. The basic structure is this (and it's easy to follow): Aria sections: part A; part B; recap part A Rondò sections: part A; development of part A; recap part A; part B. This type of number is used to convey complex emotional situations at the height of the drama, and as such, is a great complement to the Sonnet forms we've already studied. The first part of a Rondò is slow, and the second part fast; it's like the natural break that occurs at the pivot point of a Sonnet. The history of this piece of dramatic music is not so straightforward. Like the origin of the Sonnet, the non-musical version of the Rondò comes from French late medieval poetry. The Rondeau is a well-established form of verse very much like the Italian Sonnet, with a rhyme structure of a-b-b-a; a-b-b-a, etc. So, this form being as old as it is would seem to have a long-lived history as the musical type known as the Rondò. But, it doesn't. Rondòs appeared all of a sudden at the end of the 1770s, and by the middle of the next decade had hit a perfect stride. Let's look at the structure in more detail. The classic Rondò is made of three quatrains of 8-syllable lines. Rhyming can vary greatly, but generally in Italian it follows the rules of vowel, vowel, vowel, consonant. In other words, think of the ending sounds like this: ah, eh, ee, are; or, ee, ough, ah, own; and so forth. That is the basic structure of Italian poetics where finding words that rhyme is not a challenge and what matters is the harmonious placement of the phonetics concluding a line. Let's look at an example. Follow along with the music as you read. The Rondò begins at min. 1:20. Amor, pietoso Amore, Oh Love, piteous lord of love, rendimi alfin al pace, finally grant me some peace, porgi ristoro a un core allow repose for my heart stanco di tollerar. so tired in its suffering. Basti il mio lungo pianto Let my long bouts of tears suffice l'ire a saziar del Fato, to assuage the anger of Fate, cessi un amante ingrato prevent that ungrateful lover di farmi sosprirar. from having to make me sigh. Ah se invano io mi lusingo, Ah, in vain I flatter myself, se pietà di me non hai, for if you do not take pity, crudo Amor! perché mi fai cruel Love, why then make of me le tue leggi seguitar? accomplice to your heartless law? So you can see, this is strong stuff! Emotions are pulled out from within the character and bared for all to see. You can also tell how the rhyme structure works here, although Lorenzo da Ponte, the poet, decided to keep it eh, eh, eh, are; oh, oh, oh, are; and then he diversified with oh, ai, ai, are. This is quite different from the typical approach to end of lines in English poetry, but as you can see, it makes for a beautiful effect, especially here in the capable hands of Maestro Salieri. Love-gone-wrong is one of the usual themes for a Rondò, but it's only one possibility. In Un cosa rara,[1] da Ponte wrote a Rondò where the Queen of Spain is reflecting on the joys of a simple life – the life of which she is deprived. And in our next example, by da Ponte again,[2] an evil woman comes to grips with not only giving up her political ambitions, but losing her life to save the man she's manipulated into doing her dirty work. Follow along with the music as you read. Non più di fiori vaghe catene No more with his garlands of flowers discenda Imene ad intrecciar. will blessèd Hymen descend on me. Stretta fra barbare Now locked in barbarous aspre ritore chains of captivity, veggo la morte it's only Death I see ver me avanzar. approaching step by step. Infelice! qual orrore! Unhappy soul! What horror awaits! Ah, di me che si dirà? Ah, but what will be said of me? Chi vedesse il mio dolore, Who seeing my agony will not then Pur avria di me pietà. find a little room to pity me. Ok, so bad example? No, a beautiful one, even though it breaks the form in several ways (having only 10 lines instead of 12, metres all over the place, etc.), I wanted you to hear how a great Rondò comes to life with great music. We can feel her torment, but her grudging acceptance to embrace her fate, even though it means a public execution for treason. She is brave here, and shines forth as the example that it's never too late to do the honorable thing. The prompt: write one Rondò based on a well-known movie scene. Channel the pathos you personally know and love from a favorite movie moment, like Scarlett O'Hara grubbing turnips and saying "As God is my witness…" or, the adrenalin injection scene from Pulp Fiction – you choose. Work those emotions into three quatrains, with the pivot point coming on the 3rd one. You decide how or if you wish to rhyme it, and how many syllables each line contains. Again, relax. Don't get frustrated; just have fun with it. -------------------------------------------- [1] Un cosa rara, ossia bellezza ed onestà – or, A Rare Thing, Beauty and Honesty Together – music by Vincent Martín y Soler. [2] The authorship of this number from La clemenza di Tito is in dispute. The libretto was created for Mozart by Caterino Mazzolà, but scholarship by H.C. Robbins Landon shows convincingly that this piece was preformed in concert long before the opera was commissioned. This assertion is validated by the number literally being cut and pasted into the opera score; he speculates that Lorenzo Da Ponte was the poet this piece and not Mazzolà. See Landon's 1791 Mozart's Last Year, 1988 New York.