Spikes, blood, throbbing waves of pain

At this point in the opera, Scarpia is describing Cavaradossi's torture. It is pure brawn, and the textures are heavy. We will be discussing the importance of the rhythmic motif within the strings, for it is through them we get the basis of our tonal painting. The audio is Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo, and Renato Bruson. James Levine, MET

figure 1

figure 2

figure 3

figure 4

Scarpia says he is bound hand and foot and for every negation Mario gives, the spikes jab into his temples and draw blood without mercy. In figure 1, we see some tonal paintings here. Through figure 2, we see the continuation of the structure.The violins and cellos as well as the timpani steadily increase the rhythmic motif, starting off with only two 32nds, then 32nd triplet, then four 64ths. This creates a steady jabbing..the spikes get deeper and deeper. The faster successive groupings are tonal paintings for the rush of the blood spurting out of Mario's temples. The trumpets are muted here giving a strained color. The syncopation in the horns, clarinet, and English Horn seen in figure 3 creates a throbbing sound after the strings have their rhythmic painting...almost like a panting there, as if Mario is catching his breath momentarily after screaming in pain. Interestingly, the rest of the orchestra is relatively quiet there so the off-beat lines really come through. In figure 4, we hear a drop of harmony and get a stark texture within the orchestra on 'sangue". 

​On the second half of figure 4, we see a tremendous difference in harmony on Tosca's scream (her high C). As listeners, we are used to the C# that came previously, but now we enter a stark C minor chord, creating a sudden brightness here. This jives with Tosca's absolute horror at the situation here.
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