Santa BUŠS : 'Lo ferm voler q’el cor m’intra... (lacuna)'  for large ensemble (2024) 
Sinfonietta Rīga, conductor Normunds Šnē

(live recording : 11.05.2024. - Riga Great Guild, Latvia)

The piece ‘Lo ferm voler q’el cor m’intra... (lacuna) ’ is inspired by both troubador traditions, as well as the very first sestina and the phenomenon of lacuna. 
The troubadours and trouvères sang of love in many different genres, using courtly, sacred, and frankly sexual registers of language in ways that have invited study and explication for over 800 years. Although only about one-third of all troubadour and trouvère songs survive with musical notation, evidence suggests that the troubadours and trouvères considered their musical settings equal in importance to their texts.
There are only two surviving melodies by Arnaut Daniel (~1180–1200), and one of them is ‘Lo ferm voler q’el cor m’intra... (lacuna), which serves as one of the starting points for the piece written for Sinfonietta Rīga and Normunds Šnē. This Occitan troubadour of the 12th century was praised by Dante as “the best smith” and called a “grand master of love” by Petrarch, lauded by Ezra Pound as the greatest poet to have ever lived, and through centuries celebrated by mathematicians thanks to his creative invention – otherwise known as sestina. 
‘Lo ferm voler q’el cor m’intra...” is the oldest known and the very first sestina – a fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas, rotated in a set pattern. While strictly regulated, it is consider to have also roots in dice patterns since Arnaut Daniel was a passionate dice player. 
The notation that the troubadors used may have conveyed a wealth of information to the musicians who were familiar with its vocabulary, but modern eyes cannot determine what rhythms or vocal quality they suggest, nor what tempo, nor any instruments designed to fill out the soundscape. We can only read the pitch level of the notes in a single, monophonic line. We can assume that the lengths of notes and syllables are treated as flexible and fluid, according to the singer’s sense of the shape of the poetic text... 
For example, each phrase might follow a pattern of gradual acceleration driving the beginning of the phrase and then a slow deceleration in the last few words, or there could be added elaborate ornamentations and a dramatic ritardando to communicate more changes in the emotions of the piece.  
And if there was instrumental accompaniment, it was improvised, and never quite the same way twice... 
And exactly in this unknown territory and lack of certainty, or gaps of information, caused by time and distance, and endless ways of interpreting those little pieces of things we know or assume to be facts, and especially in different points of view how the same thing could be understood or seen both by numerous persons throughout centuries, but also one person on different occasions and at different times... There is where this piece comes to life, and there is where I see how also something I refer to as 'lacuna technique' is essential part of decoding and interpreting the material... 
lacuna... a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work... or a lexical gap in a language... or an extended silence... or the lack of a law or legal source addressing a situation... or an intention to encourage someone to create their own stories... lacuna... words, sentences, or whole passages that are missing or illegible... caused by weathering, decay, and other damage to old manuscripts or inscriptions..

Santa BUŠS 'Lo ferm voler q’el cor m’intra... (lacuna)'

santa.buss@gmail.com

Santa BUŠS is a Latvian composer especially interested in detailed pre-compositional process and working with extra-musical ideas (found in other art forms, physiology, history, mythology, nature, architecture, medicine, sports, philosophy, etc.). 

Though her main focus and form of expression has been linked with instrumental music, lately she has discovered a deep interest in the voice and its possibilities, as well as being keen to expand her approach towards sound, composition and exploring different forms of collaboration. 
This also includes exploring territories between conventional and unconventional notation and performance techniques, as well as experimenting between the boundaries of music, theatre and opera, often focusing on the physical manipulation of instruments and the presence of musicians as a source of drama. 

She has studied both composition and musicology at the Latvian Academy of Music and Hamburg University of Music and Theatre. 

Her works have been performed throughout Europe, in North America and Asia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgBltNTuhvU

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