MAPPING THE MASque
Program Notes by Ina McCormack
Illustrations by Alyssa Lizzini
Animation by Grace LaPrade
Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death," the multidimensional chamber ensemble piece Conte fantastique represents a noteworthy intersection of music and literature. This André Caplet arrangement for harp and string quartet reenacts the dramatic narrative through a sonic medium.
BACKGROUND
The composer, André Caplet (1878-1925) is generally overshadowed by his more famous contemporaries, but he was an accomplished musician, conductor, and arranger in his own right. After winning the composition Prix de Rome in 1901, Caplet was actively involved in the French fin-de-siècle music scene. He consorted with fellow contender Maurice Ravel as a member of the bohemian group, Les Apaches, and he also acted as confidante and professional help to Claude Debussy.
Hailed as a master of the short story, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was a prominent figure in nineteenth century American literature. Narratives such as the "Tell-Tale Heart, "The Raven," and "The Fall of the House of Usher" characteristically explored dark, supernatural, and melancholy themes.
Such poetic intrigue eventually captured the attention of audiences across global and generational borders. The evocative language of Poe's tales contain many sensory references to texture, sight, and sound, which Caplet then integrates into his personal musical syntax.
PROGRAM
Conte fantastique is steeped in the aesthetics of Gothic literature, featuring programmatic sound effects, detailed articulation, repetitive phrases, and a structural anatomy mirroring that of its written inspiration. Caplet utilizes a variety of compositional techniques to define key points of the original story and issues much of the interpretive responsibility to the harp. The introduction immediately establishes an atmosphere of "madness and horror" by exploring elements of fragmentation and unnatural sonorities. The harp introduces the spectre of the Red Death via a recurring triplet motif that symbolizes the stealthy tread of the apparition who moves throughout the countryside with a "solemn and measured step." The descriptive marking, haletant, translates to breathless; a sonic effect achieved by a rapid muffling of the strings after each phrase. This sinister pulse not only represents the phantasm, but also the lethal consequences of the ensuing plague.
"THE RED DEATH"
Suddenly, the listener is transported away from the peril of this external domain into the "appliances of pleasure...and security" that are found within the walls of Prince Prospero's mansion. The increasingly frenetic energy of the opening passage acquires a more steady foundation as its melodious strands coalesce into a familiar triple meter waltz. This dance music accompanies visions of carefree party goers who intend to dance the night away. However, slight tonal and rhythmic abnormalities create a sense of sonic unease, thereby suggesting that everything is not as it appears at the ball.
"The Waltz"
One of the story's most haunting inhuman voices belongs to the infamous ebony clock that decorates the mansion's black and scarlet chamber, and Caplet features it twice in his musical rendition. At its first appearance, the tolling interrupts Prince Prospero's bizarre masquerade. The waltz refrain is cut short by a unique sound which Caplet designates to the harp alone. The instrument imitates the metallic clang by alternating between the wire-clad lower register and its bright upper strings. Each chord is marked by a clear dynamic contrast that sounds as if each pendulum strike casts a reverberating echo. The harp plays eleven identical strokes while the strings rustle nervously overhead. This mechanical process is repeated with an additional chord at midnight.
"The CLOCK"
Poe's narrative eloquently marks the midnight hour as such: "To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams." Caplet reinterprets this dream-like state by reducing the ensemble texture and writing an expressive cadenza for the solo harp. The musical passage constantly shifts between linear arpeggiation and blocks of chords, thus suggesting the alteration of time and space throughout this sensational experience. Its flexible rubato tempo and repetitive figures sonically evoke the mystical powers of an enveloping trance that holds Prince Prospero and his guests in thrall.
"The Multitude of dreams"
A startlingly brittle glissando played with the fingernails creates a seamless transition into an unexpected rapping on the harp's resonant sound board. Interestingly, this percussive sound effect does not correlate to any direct reference found in Poe's narrative, but it does blur the boundaries of fact and fiction. One possibility is that it signals the appearance of the Red Death to the human company. Another interpretation is that it realizes the moment when Prince Prospero drops dead upon gazing at the deathly visitor's visage.
"The KNOCK"
This shocking sonic collision renders the suppressed emotional suspense of the preceding cadenza into a sensory form. At this point, Caplet inserts the stroke of midnight and Conte fantastique launches into a recapitulation of its "sudden impulses of despair and frenzy" music. Brief snatches of the waltz provided by the string quartet and harp reemerge from the spiraling.
Caplet limits the concluding musical material to the fragmented, spectral motifs that were previously associated with the Red Death, thereby effectively underscoring the terminal consequences of the phantom's visit. Even the distracting clamor of the waltz cannot save the revelers as one by one, they succumb to the plague's gruesome effects. An eerie procession of harmonics is partially obscured by the rasping sound of overlapping fingernail glissandi. At last, a single metallic scrape along the harp's lowest wire strings signifies the final extinguishment of torchlight in Prince Prospero's mansion...
"The Extinguishment"
"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."