Giacomo Leopardi's Poem "L'Infinito"

On my birthday in 2004, weeks before my graduation from Boston College, two of my fellow music ministers from St. Ignatius Church in Boston got together with me to record this musical setting of Giacomo Leopardi's "L'Infinito" (1819).

With this setting, I sought to give voice to the poem's haunting images in the way that only music can do.  Thanks to my mentor, Susan Michalczyk, for introducing me to the work of Leopardi. Text is below the video.

And below the text is a surprise worth scrolling down for!

---

"L'Infinito"

Michelle Abadia, Soprano

Stephanie Pile, Piano

"L'Infinito" (1819)

Sempre caro mi fu quest’ermo colle,

e questa siepe, che da tanta parte

dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.

Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati

spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani

silenzi, e profondissima quiete

io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco

il cor non si spaura. E come il vento

odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello

infinito silenzio a questa voce

vo comparando: e mi sovvien l’eterno,

e le morte stagioni, e la presente

e viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa

immensità s’annega il pensier mio:

e il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare.

---

English Translation:

Always dear to me was this solitary hill

and this hedge, which, from so many parts

of the far horizon, the sight excludes.

But sitting and gazing endless

spaces beyond it, and inhuman

silences, and the deepest quiet,

I fake myself in my thoughts; where almost

my heart scares. As the wind

I hear rustling through these trees, I, that

infinite silence, to this voice

keep comparing: and I feel the eternal,

the dead seasons, the present,

and living one, and the sound of her. So in this

immensity drown my own thoughts:

and sinking in this sea is sweet to me.

---

And now, just for fun, check this out.  Best version of "Happy Birthday" I've ever heard!  Thanks, Michelle and Steph!