'Musiche Sull'Acqua', I. Poem by Fabrizio Frosini

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I've written the poem in Italian, but

YOU CAN ALSO READ MY ENGLISH ADAPTATION:

'WATER MUSIC' I.

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This poem is the first of 10 lyrics in my 1984 collection ‘WATER MUSIC' - after Georg Friedrich Händel's.

I wrote the 10 poems in Pécs, Hungary, during a 2-month-period spent there.

In them (at least in Italian) I tried to make the reader perceive a musicality recalling some of Händel's tunes..

The following scheme shows the 10 lyrics of the collection, related to Händel's arias:


I. [Suite in Fa: Ouverture]
II. [Suite in Fa: Adagio e Staccato]
III. [Suite in Fa: Minuetto]
IV. [Suite in Fa: Aria]
V. [Suite in Fa: Bourrée]
VI. [Suite in Re: Alla Hornpipe]
VII. [Suite in Re: Lento]
VIII. [Suite in Re: Bourrée]
IX. [Suite in Sol: Allegro]
X. [Suite in Sol: Rigaudon]


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N.B.:

Georg Friedrich Händel's Water Music opens with a French overture and includes minuets, bourrées and hornpipes. It is divided into three suites:

1. Suite in F major (Fa maggiore - HWV 348)

Overture (Largo - Allegro)
Adagio e staccato
Allegro - Andante - Allegro da capo Aria
Minuet
Air
Minuet
Bourrée
Hornpipe
Allegro (no actual tempo marking)
Allegro (variant) [Suite in Sol: Allegro]
Alla Hornpipe (variant)

2. Suite in D major (Re maggiore - HWV 349)

Overture (Allegro)
Alla Hornpipe
Minuet
Lentement
Bourrée

3. Suite in G major (Sol maggiore - HWV 350)

Allegro
Rigaudon
Allegro
Minuet
Allegro


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It was a cool, clear October night, in Hungary. Year 1984: more than 30 years ago…

BACKGROUND STORY:

I was in Hungary on an invitation and grant from The Hungarian Academy of Science. According to the fellowship, I had to spend 6 months in Budapest, at the National Institute of Neurosurgery, working on a research under one of the best neurosurgeons in all East Europe (the late prof. Pasztor, then head of the Institute) .
But destiny's will was different: the communist bureaucratic direction of the Academy, in Budapest, decided that I had to spend the first 3 months in Pécs (south-west of Hungary) and only the last 3 in Budapest.. Pure madness, of course.. but so things were.

Yet, when in Pécs (a pretty town, by the way) , just on my first few days there, it happened to me to meet a beautiful, bright, lovely young girl..
I wrote the 10 poems of my ‘'Water Music'' there (the last one, the 10th of that collection, although I started it in Pécs, was finished in Italy) , for/on her and on my absurd situation.. as I was far from home, from my work, in a foreign country.
I went there supposing to work on a research.. but I found myself facing a paradox.. stuck in the middle of nowhere.. because at the Neurosurgical Dpt in Pécs I couldn't work on anything.. and my days there were simply void of meaning..

I usually spent every morning at the hospital (Mon-Sat,07.00-14.00) , then a light lunch at a restaurant (the hospital cafeteria was so bad that, after the second experience there, my stomach refused to eat their food) . After lunch, I used to spend my time walking in the town centre or reading; then having an high tea at 5 PM at a beautiful café house..
I still have vividly, before my eyes, the images of that 'café', where a wonderful tiled oven dating back to the 18th century made a show of itself in a romantic corner of the main room..
And that was where I met Csìlla.. She was 17 that time: a student and a ‘ballerina' - she wanted to become a ballet dancer..
She loved music, too.. Händel's ''Water Music'' was sort of ‘our music'..
Now you can begin to understand.. can't you?

- It was a night (almost Dawn) , when I wrote this poem.
I was in my room, staring at the clear sky through the window.. The moon, so pale and magic.. drawing my imagination to 'Her'.. In my ears Händel's music was still playing softly..
We had known each other for c.1 week. That evening she had invited me to a rehearsal for a ballet they would have performed on the next Saturday..

- The quotation [‘gazing at the stars'] refers both to the night's heavenly vault and to the girl's name: ‘Csilla' relies to Hungarian ‘csillag', meaning ‘star'.

- Then, here you have: 1. A night sky.. with stars and the pale orb of the moon..; 2. A ‘Csìlla/csillag' girl with her ballerina' legs.. like a fairy..

- ''GAMBE DI LUNA'' - - I've translated this Italian expression with - ''Legs so pure'': it want to express the sense of beauty, whiteness (from her complexion, but also a reference to her ballerina suit) and also 'purity' (her young age; her innocence, moral integrity..) .
Someone could think: 'legs that make you dream'.. but in my poem, such a sexual attribute goes together with an intellectual and (sort of) ethical judgment..
For all the reasons above I have made it with ''legs so pure''.

- ''I TUOI OCCHI -EVANESCENTI / COME ALI DI FARFALLA'':
- ''Your eyes -Ethereal / Like butterfly wings''
Her eyes, when she looked at me:

- ‘'ETHEREAL'' (eyes) because: - 1. they were light blue eyes..; - 2. and, somehow, they had sort of a 'spiritual' feature.. By such a word I wanted to recall to memory a character made 'divine' by Dante's genius.. I refer to Dante's Beatrice..

- ‘'Like butterfly wings'' relates to the delicate, translucent, diaphanous features of the butterfly wings, applied to her eyes looking at me; but it wants to recall to mind also the movements of her body, when dancing.. Where ‘wings' are both her legs and arms..

- 'SUSPENDED ON YOUR HEART': beside her I did feel myself like being in a suspended state.. without any distress, in peace with myself.. sort of being suspended in zero gravity.. out & above the day-by-day life.. Sort of escaping the deadly cycle of the existence..

- ‘Pulse of life' is referred to Her People and Culture (Hungarian) .. as I was in a foreign country, and through Csìlla I had the chance to understand a different Culture.. to get to her heart and, through her, to the heart of her Country.. (‘THY PEOPLE' = Csìlla's Country/People) .

- But that chance was not fulfilled... - as the 'background story' shows, when I've described my ‘absurd situation' [I found myself facing a paradox..] -..and despite Csilla's presence, I found myself so estranged.. in a state of dejection [reference to Jean Paul Sartre's ''Being and Nothingness'', more than to Heidegger's philosophy].

Yet, such a feeling of strangeness (of extraneousness) never leaves me.. even in Italy.. even among my people..

- ''-Stranger / Always) / As among My.'' = MY PEOPLE.. ‘feeling like a foreigner even at home'...

(Fabrizio Frosini)