Gian Carlo Menotti's   The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore

Here resides information on Gian Carlo Menotti's musical piece The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore OR The Three Sundays of a Poet -- a "madrigal fable" (or operetta, if you prefer!) for chorus, ten dancers, and nine instruments, composed in 1956.

Table of Contents:

In sad news, Gian Carlo Menotti passed away on February 1, 2007, in Monaco, at the age of 95. You can find a full story here.

Was born in Italy in 1911. He began composing music at age 7, and began formal training at 12. He immigrated to the U.S. with his mother at age 17. His relationship with Samuel Barber began soon thereafter and is well chronicled. Further (and much more complete) biographical information can be found at the following locations:
   http://www.schirmer.com/composers/menotti/bio.html
   http://www.schirmer.com/composers/menotti/essay.html
   http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/menotti.html
   http://www.indegayforum.org/articles/varnell69.html
   http://www.xrefer.com/entry/242607
   http://www.karadar.net/Dictionary/menotti.html
   http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mcgoni/menotti.html

The piece was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and was first performed under the sponsorship of the Foundation in the Library of Congress (in the Coolidge Auditorium) on 21 October 1956. The New York premiere, presented by the New York City Ballet, took place on 15 January 1957, at the New York City Center of Music and Drama. The picture at left shows Menotti directing the Washington Opera in a rehearsal of The Unicorn... in 1957.

THE STORY:
The text focuses on a well-to-do but eccentric poet who lives in a castle. It presents his life in three stages: his youth, middle, and old age. Three unusual pets symbolize these stages -- a unicorn, a gorgon, and a manticore (see descriptions below). As an aside, the behavior of these beasts mimics Menotti's own career (and his idea of artists in general). The unicorn, the young artist, is capricious, foolish, and susceptible to temptation, but beautiful all the while. The gorgon, the artist at mid-life, having achieved some success, is loud, proud, and fearless, ignores the critics, and can be quite ugly (and, naturally, in reaching this stage, the unicorn [youth] dies off [or, taken another way, is actually killed off by mankind and its critics, i.e., youthful creativity is worn down by criticism and fickleness]). (Note that Menotti had a well-documented constant fight with literary and musical critics - one critic dismissed him as "the Puccini of the poor" to which he countered "Better that than 'the Boulez of the rich' ". He doesn't hide his dislike for critics in this piece, calling them 'critical crickets', and 'sententious cows'.) The manticore, the aging artist, is lonely (payment for his haughty behavior as the gorgon!), and shy, avoiding contact as much as possible. He regrets his earlier ways, and although he means well, he often hurts those around him, having been embittered by the years of criticism. In passing into old age, the gorgon of middle age dies off (or, again, is killed off by mankind).

In the piece, each appearance of the poet in the town with a new beast sets off a series of events. When he first appears with his unicorn on a Sunday stroll, the astonished townsfolk ascribe this oddity to insanity. Yet the sheer novelty of the unicorn compels at least the Countess to overcome her amazement and persuade the Count to obtain a unicorn for them. The townsfolk soon follow suit, obtaining unicorns of their own. The next Sunday, the strange man appears, this time not with the unicorn, but with the hideous gorgon. This further astonishes the townsfolk who take the unicorn for dead, apparently murdered by the strange man. The arrival of the new creature gives the Countess the opportunity to dispense with her unicorn (it has grown commonplace) and to acquire a gorgon. To follow this new fashion, the townsfolk kill their own unicorns. Not surprisingly, the same set of events takes place when a manticore appears instead of the gorgon on the man's next Sunday walk. But the subsequent disappearance of the manticore so scandalizes the townsfolk that they proceed directly to the castle to pass judgement on the strange man. When they arrive, however, they find him on his deathbed, with the three creatures at his side. Deriding all those who blindly live through social conventions, all those who value things blest only by fashion, he finally suggests that only in the artist will society find redemption, for it is the artist who lives by and for truth.

Full libretto

Unicorn

The unicorn is a well recognized mythological creature, but many may be surprised to find that it was not always considered a kind, benevolent, peaceful creature. From Pliny's description in Natural History : "a very ferocious beast, similar in the rest of it's body to a horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, a deep, bellowing voice, and single black horn, two cubits in length, standing out in the middle of its forehead." Despite this, Menotti was almost certainly intending the more gentle version in this piece. Some decent unicorn places on the web: http://www.unicorn-dream.co.uk/unicorn2.html http://www.unicorncollector.com/legends.htm

Gorgon

The gorgon is much less recognized than the unicorn, and in fact, there are 2 very distinct versions of this beast.

The first, and more common one, is represented by Medusa of Greek mythology. According to the myth, the gorgons were three sisters, daughters of the ancient (pre-titan) gods Phorkys and Keto. The sisters Sthenno and Euryale were immortal but the third, Medusa, was mortal. The gorgons were monsters with serpents for hair, brazen claws and staring eyes whose glance turned men to stone. Their wings were of gold, their bodies were covered with impenetrable scales and their teeth were as long as the tusks of wild boars. Medusa was called the gorgon or simply, gorgon. Web info: http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/papers/kottkegorgon/gorgons.html http://www.panphobia.com/monsters/monsters_medusa.htm http://www.monstrous.com/medusa.htm http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/art/koslow/essays/medusa/text.htm

The second, less common one, is a ferocious beast which is more like an ox, or gnu. This description was propagated by Edward Topsell in his 1607 book The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes . An excerpt: "It is a feareful and terrible beast to beholdd, it hath high and thicke eie lids, eies not very great, but much like an Oxe or Bugils, but all fiery-bloudy, which neyther looke directly forwarde, nor yet upwards, but continuallye downe to the earth, and therefore are called in Greeke Catobleponta. From the crowne of their head downe to their nose they have a long hanging mane, which maketh them to looke fearefully. It eateth deadly and poysonfull hearbs, and if at any time he see a Bull or other creature whereof he is afraid, he presently causeth his mane to stand upright, and being so lifted up, opening his lips, and gaping wide, sendeth forth of his throat a certaine sharpe and horrible breath, which infecteth and poysoneth the air above his head, so that all living creatures which draw in the breath of that aire are greevously afflicted thereby, loosing both voyce and sight, they fall into leathall and deadly convulsions. For more on this: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/oddnotes/topsellgorgon.html

Manticore

There seems to be little dispute about the manticore - nearly always a quite ferocious beast in literature. One description: "It has a red lion's body; a human face, ears and blue eyes; and a voice like the mingling of panpipes and trumpet. But the distinctive and terrible features are three rows of teeth in each jaw, a fatal sting like a scorpion's in the end of the tail, and poisoned spines along the tail which may be shot like arrows in any direction. It is exceedingly swift, with leaps so powerful that the loftiest objects and largest spaces cannot hold it. Finally, it is a man-eater." Menotti's manticore seems to be much gentler, however. For more information: http://users.vianet.ca/~grizelda/fur/mard.html

Here are the recordings that I know about. If you know of others, let me know!

LP album (Columbia EMI 33 CX 1543) Ensemble: ??? Conductor: Thomas Schippers Chorus Master: Walter Baker Year: ??? I'm guessing that this is the poet with the unicorn and the gorgon in the album cover picture :)...

LP album (University of Michigan Recordings SM0012) Ensemble: University of Michigan Chamber Choir Conductor: Thomas Hilbish Year: 1979 Note: this album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1980!

CD (ALBANY RECORDS 452) Ensemble: Carolina Chamber Chorale + Empire Chamber Concert Ensemble Conductor: Timothy Koch Year: 2001 - but actually recorded in 1992 You can see a comparative list of places to purchase it online at: shopping.yahoo.com

CD (NEWPORT CLASSICS 85621) Ensemble: Boston Cecelia Ensemble Conductor: Donald Teeters Year: 1997 You can see a comparative list of places to purchase it online at: shopping.yahoo.com

For a pretty good list of lots more online classical CD stores, check out: http://indigo.ie/~pamolo/faq.html

Here are some performances that I know about. If you know of others, let me know!

Of course I have to start with our own (New Mexico Tech Chamber Choir) performance, which was on May 9-11, 2003.
the concert poster
the program, Word version
the program, PDF version

And then some others that I've found by googling or from direct contact by performers:

Below are electronic files for the piece. These files are for use by the NMTech Chamber Choir members only, and are not for redistribution, resale, or reuse.

The files noted as 'Recording' below are from the Albany Records CD above.

The part files were created by the ScoreWriter software (as an aside - it's not great software, but alot cheaper [~$50] than Overture, [~$350] Finale, [~$600 {$300 educational}] Sibelius, [~$600 {$300 educational}] etc...!). I put in the notes, and have it create the MIDI files for me. The MIDI files are all pretty small - but you need to be able to play them on your computer. Most (all?) PCs running windows or Mac can do this, but Linux/Unix/Solaris often cannot. If you are on a Linux box, try the Playmidi package (find some help here ) or the Timidity package (find some help here ), or one of the xmms plugins. Or, just try a google search with 'Linux' and 'MIDI' in it, and follow the links. If you're still having trouble, send me an email.

Some caveats about the part files:
    - There are undoubtedly mistakes in them! Let me know if you find any.
    - The tempos are mine, and Doug can change them at will for rehearsal/performance.
    - Dynamics are not included.
    - Even valued tuplets aren't done quite right (stupid software - grrr...). They are close, but be warned.
    - Some of the individual parts aren't there yet - I just haven't gotten them done yet. The parts for the movements we are doing this winter are there though (Introduction and Madrigals 1, 2, and 5)...

INTRODUCTION

Last Modified on 2007-Feb-26