Cusson: The Cure of Madness
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Shipping Policy- Composer: Ian Cusson (1981-)
- Format: Score & Set of Parts
- Instrumentation: String Trio (Violin, Viola, Cello)
- Work: The Cure of Madness (2022)
Description
Duration: 13 minutes
Composer note
The Cure of Madness is a string trio in 4 movements inspired by paintings of Hieronymus Bosch that show the painter as his most irreverent. The work is the third in Boschworks, a trilogy of chamber pieces based on paintings by Bosch.
The work is a tongue-in-cheek play on historic musical forms that get turned on their heads and run through the quasi-surrealist landscape of the late-Medieval painter's wonderfully bizarre depictions.
In the first movement, Concert in the Egg , a mixed group of people (nuns, officials, common folk) stand inside a giant egg trying to figure out how a piece of music should sound. The score in the painting is a love song by Thomas Crecquillon. Try as they might, the group of singers can't make heads or tails of the music and spend their time arguing more than singing. in the end, it is a lone lute player who sticks his head out of the egg and manages to properly play the music.
The second movement, The Conjuror , features a magician (who is really a charlatan) transfixing the crowd with his illusions while his assistant picks their pockets.
The third movement, Ship of Fools , is structured as a barcarolle, or boat song. But the boat is filled with fools, and the journey becomes something of a sea-sick-inducing day on the water.
The work closes with the toccata-like title fourth movement, The Cure of Madness , wherein a doctor of questionable abilities drills a hole into a man's skull to cure him of his madness. The constant tattooing of the doctor's instrument makes one wonder if the procedure itself will cure the man or make his condition worse.
— Ian Cusson
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Cusson: The Cure of Madness
