Dit de l’alerion
Dit de l'alerion continues my "new historicality" works, which generate interpretive approaches to historically distant music and ideas, such as Floruit Egregiis, Etude on F. 113 ("Pymalion"), and Se je fume, c'est ma compleccïon, each engaging differently with different historical references. While some works employ technical approaches like echoing the metric play of the ars subtilior or juxtaposing quoted material with contemporary techniques, Dit de l'alerion is more ekphrastic; it draws from a poem by Machaut, unset, and so with no musical material to borrow (though the wise may hear Solage's Fumeux fume par fumee in the performance).
In Machaut's poem, the narrator recounts experiences with four hunting birds: a sparrowhawk, an alerion, an eagle, and a gerfalcon. He loses the first three birds (which he admired) and abandons the fourth due to poor behavior. Eventually, his favorite - the alerion - joyfully returns. Throughout, the poem meditates on falconry techniques and the narrator's relationships with these birds. The Dit is a wondrous, odd manifestation of the typical poetic themes of its moment, using falconry as a framework for exploring success, excellence, loyalty, and beauty. While seemingly disconnected from it, 'courtly love' remains resonant–consider the narrator expressing profound joy at the alerion's return with its "extraordinary powers, ferocious claws, and razor-sharp feathers"; this is a distinct fin'amor.
It's a big work, with eleven movements unfolding as if tapestries articulating moments from the narrator's (lengthy) tale:
I. A prayer to St. Hubert
II. The call of the alerion
III. Delighting in the energy of sparrowhawk
IV. A dire molting
V. Consulting the learnéd in a smokey tavern
VI. The razor feathers unfold
VII. Sorrow at the departure of the alerion
VIII. The magisterial eagle
IX. Fretting over repeated losses
X. The improprieties of the goshawk
XI. Melancholy and the subsequent return of the alerion
Dit de l'alerion premieres with counter)induction at the Williamsburg Biannual in Spring 2025, followed by a performance at Alba Music Festival in Italy (June 2025).