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A Una Nariz

By thisisuser on October 27, 1986

for mezzo soprano and organ
composed 1986; duration 4 minutes
texts by Francesco de Quevedo (1580-1645)
commissioned by Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen
world premiere Copenhagen (Denmark) 1986
Henriette Clemens – mezzosoprano; Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen – organ

The famous poem A Una Nariz by Francesco de Quevedo was very compelling to put in music. The short setting is extremely sparse, and the poem is matched by music that always surprises by coming from seemingly unexpected emotional areas.

The text (sung in Spanish) is the following:

There was a man suspended from a nose,
Something for all to talk about,
A headsman’s pointed blade, a scribe’s fat pen,
A shark’s sharp and most hairy snout,
A twisted and off-center sundial,
A laboratory beaker bent in thought,
An elephant’s high-lifted trunk,
The nose that Ovid Naso never sought,
A floating galley’s boastful, pushing prow,
Egypt’s enceasing pyramid:
One whose nasality was infinite,
So fierce, so swollen, it could not be hid,
A dozen nations lie around its base,
It would have been a crime on Anna’s face.

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