All of Me (Luci Serene e Chiare)
All of Me (Luci Serene e Chiare) is a medley/mash-up of John Legend's All of Me with Claudio Monteverdi's Luci Serene e Chiare. It was initially composed by 2018 (during the course of my Masters program) for a men's chorus in the States. It was unfortunately never performed. I revised it somewhat in 2024, and following the completion of my Ph.D. was thrilled to find myself available to finally recording it myself.
The piece opens as does the Monteverdi, with a gentle, chorale intonation of the titular statement: "Eyes serene and clear". From here half of the voices drop out while the bass and baritone chant fragments of the text in nearly drone-slow pseudo 2nd species counterpoint, providing mildly shifting foundation for the 2nd tenor's entrance shortly after with the first words from Legend's piano ballad.
The portions of the piece in which All of Me is foregrounded are styled in a melody/accompaniment fashion, where the 2nd tenor carries the melody (as seen on the right) while the other three sections provide mild additional rhythmic counterpoint in polyphonic harmonization mostly corresponding to that of Legend's song.
In this piece's climax, the medlied sources are dissolved and rejoined into something reflecting aspects of both while offering something distinct from them– a highly syncopated chorale peppered with brief moments of counterpoint. The harmonies are characteristic of Legend's All of Me, and the text foregrounded is adapted from Monteverdi's Luci Serene e Chiare:
​
Alma che é tutta foco e tutta sangue!
(The soul which is all fire and blood!)
​
D'amore, non si dolore; more, non langue.
(That's love, not pain; death, without languishing.)
This piece is a reflection upon our ideas about romantic love, and through the juxtaposition of musics separated by hundreds of years attempts to place them in a dialogue that sheds light upon what these very different times and places might have in common: ways we think about romantic love, what we hope for from it, how we experience it, how we cherish both the pain and bliss of it.