[Brian Allgar]

Here are a couple of pieces that appeared on Metrical a few years ago. This seems a good spot to give them another airing, although I should warn you that, most uncharacteristically, neither is at all humorous.


The Prince of Venosa

My thoughts on love? Good Sir, my wife betrayed me -
Yes, me, Gesualdo da Venosa, Prince,
And Count of Conza. She most foully played me,
So love’s a topic that revolts me since.

Her lover I dispatched by sword and gun;
On her, I used a well-honed hunting‑knife,
And when I saw that she was not quite done,
I slit the throat of my adulterous wife.

The only solace was my composition,
My madrigals, my sacred Tenebrae,
For music mitigates the soul’s attrition,
And, through the darkness, brings a glimpse of day.

My life has been both anguished and dramatic;
Perhaps that’s why my music’s so chromatic.

Requiem

Mozart was dying - not, as he thought, poisoned;
Perhaps rheumatic fever? No one’s sure.
The Requiem that sounded in his head
Was still unfinished, fragments of a score
His swollen hands could not complete; instead,
He hummed to others all those themes that foisoned
Within his mind. The day before he died,
He sang the work with family and friends,
And wept in desperation when they came
To “Lacrimosa”. Who knows how it ends?
He left it incomplete, but all the same,
What music-lover can remain dry-eyed?

People have been too ready to condemn
His wife, Constanze, for the common grave
Outside Vienna where his corpse was flung.
But, sadly, Mozart never learnt to save,
And died in debt. His death was mourned unsung -
She had no money for a Requiem.