Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
This work was the result of a truly organic collaboration with composer Eric Whitacre. He was commissioned by the ACDA in 2002 to present a work for the 2002 national convention in San Antonio, and I was honored when he asked me to collaborate. Eric and I worked together on the concept for the piece, starting with the simple concept of a soundtrack for Leonardo’s dreams. I set to work researching everything Leonardo wrote about flight or flying, trying to find anything poetic. Eric wanted something narrative and sweeping. What emerged, after a lot of back and forth sharing of text and music, was the following text, a libretto bréve, and the rest is history. The work was premiered at the convention by the Kansas City Chorale directed by Charles Bruffy. Since then it has been performed and recorded all over the world. Check out this performance by the combined choirs of Lawrence High School and Free State High School of Lawrence, Kansas: YouTube Video of performance of Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine.
This work appears on the recording Eric Whitacre: The Complete Acapella Works (BYU Singers, Ronald Staheli,cond. Arsis Records ©2002). Here's the text...
LEONARDO DREAMS OF HIS FLYING MACHINE
Libretto brève ©2001 by Charles Anthony Silvestri.
(Italian fragments taken from the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, my translations)
•
Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine...
Tormented by visions of flight and falling,
More wondrous and terrible each than the last,
Master Leonardo imagines an engine
To carry a man up into the sun...
And as he’s dreaming the heavens call him,
softly whispering their siren-song:
“Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”. “Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”.
L’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale, A man with wings large enough and duly connected,
facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria. might learn to overcome the resistance of the air.
• •
As the candles burn low he paces and writes,
Releasing purchased pigeons one by one
Into the golden Tuscan sunrise...
And as he dreams, again the calling,
The very air itself gives voice:
“Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare.” “Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly.”
• • •
Vicina all’elemento del fuoco... Close to the sphere of elemental fire...
Scratching quill on crumpled paper,
Rete, canna, filo, carta. Net, cane, thread, paper.
Images of wing and frame and fabric fastened tightly.
...sulla suprema sottile aria. ...in the highest and rarest atmosphere.
• • • •
As the midnight watchtower tolls,
Over rooftop, street and dome,
The triumph of a human being ascending
In the dreaming of a mortal man.
Leonardo steels himself,
takes one last breath,
and leaps...
“Leonardo, Vieni á Volare! Leonardo, Sognare!” “Leonardo, come fly! Leonardo, Dream!”
I began by studying all of Leonardo’s drawings of flying machines. Here’s an image from his notebooks of the kind of contraption I was thinking of when I conceived the poem.
