The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci is written for SATB Choir and either Full Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, or Chamber Ensemble of 14 players. Notebooks isn’t available in any other instrumentation. Here’s a comparison:

The practice tracks are designed for the benefit of distant / isolated singing in your personal spaces, and to encourage independent learning. These audio tracks work best with earphones / headphones on. The tracks are professionally mixed so singers are ensured high quality audio recordings to support their learning!

Important licensing & purchasing terms: The purchase of this resource allows your choral organization to distribute it to your singers and staff for their own learning at any time, but not to be duplicated, edited in any way, and/or shared beyond the organization.

1. PAINTING AND DRAWING

O Painter!

A painter is not admirable unless he is universal.

A painting is a poem seen but not heard, a poem is a painting heard but not seen. Hence these two poems, or two paintings, have exchanged the senses by which they pierce the intellect.

2. PRACTICE

Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whither he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this, perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.

3. RIPPLES

Just as a stone flung into the water becomes the center and cause of many circles, and as sound diffuses itself in circles in the air; so any object, placed in the luminous atmosphere, diffuses itself in circles, and fills the surrounding air with infinite images of itself. And is repeated, the whole everywhere, and the whole in every smallest part.

4. THE GREATEST GOOD

The greatest good of all is knowledge.

Obstacle cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to firm resolve.

The acquisition of any knowledge is always useful to the intellect, because it will be able to banish useless things and retain those that are good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.

5. THE VITRUVIAN MAN
Vitruvius, the architect, says in his work on architecture that the measurements of the human body are distributed by Nature as follows:

four fingers make one palm,
four palms make one foot,
six palms make one cubit;
four cubits make a man’s height.
These measures he used in his building.

If you open your legs so much as to decrease your height one- fourteenth and spread and raise your arms till your middle fingers touch the level of the top of your head you must know that the centre of the outspread limbs will be in the navel and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle.

From the roots of the hair to the bottom of the chin is the tenth of a man’s height;
from the bottom of the chin to the top of his head is one eighth of his height;
from the top of the breast to the top of his head will be one sixth of a man.
From the top of the breast to the roots of the hair will be the seventh part of the whole man.
From the nipples to the top of the head will be the fourth part of a man.

The greatest width of the shoulders From the elbow
The whole hand
below the knee

The length of a man’s outspread arms is equal to his height.

The face forms a square in itself.

The distance from the attachment of one ear to the other is equal to that from the meeting of the eyebrows to the chin, and in a fine face the width of the mouth is equal to the length from the parting of the lips to the bottom of the chin.
The ear is exactly as long as the nose. The ear should be as high as from the bottom of the nose to the top of the eyelid. The space between the eyes is equal to the width of an eye.

6. INVENTION (ORCHESTRA ONLY)

7. NATURE

Though human ingenuity may make various inventions, it will never devise inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, nothing is superfluous.

Necessity is the teacher and tutor of Nature.

8. PERCEPTION

All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.

9. LOOK AT THE STARS

O Time! Consumer of all things; O envious age! Thou dost destroy all things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little by little in a slow death.

If you look at the stars, cutting off the rays, you will see those stars so minute that it would seem that nothing could be smaller; it is in fact their great distance that is the reason of their diminution, for many of them are many times larger than the star which is the earth with water.

Now reflect what this, our star, must look like at such a distance, and then consider how many stars might be added — both in longitude and latitude — between those stars that are scattered over the darkened sky.

Look at the Stars. O Time!

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

-crafted by Jocelyn Hagen using various public domain English translations from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook pages

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned and designed to be the second half of a program. It is a satisfying and brilliant closer to end a concert.  I’ve seen it partnered with some really creative programming these past few years, so I wanted to share some ideas with you as you start to envision yours.

• Bach’s Magnificat, which centers on a female subject, composed by a man, is a lovely foil to Notebooks, which centers on a male subject (the Vitruvian Man), and is composed by a woman.
• Gaffurio’s Mass. I source excerpts of this work by da Vinci’s contemporary in the third movement, “Ripples.”
• “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine” by Eric Whitacre
• Ottorino Respighi’s Botticelli Triptych, with the paintings projected above the orchestra
• Cecilia McDowall’s Da Vinci Requiem

There are some additional costs associated with mounting a larger multi-media work like Notebooks beyond purchasing the scores and parts for you and your ensemble. All in all, you can most likely make this happen with your ensemble for under $5000 depending on your screen and lighting set-up and not inclusive of any venue costs you might have. Here are some things to think through as you budget:

• Scores, parts, and projections in Muséik software: Please contact Laura Krider at kr****@****************ng.com to request a quote for your ensemble.
• Venue’s tech, lighting, and projection capabilities: What is built-in and what needs to be rented? These are great questions to ask when you’re considering venues for performance. A large projection screen and projector along with lighting manipulation are required for this work. Some venues may have everything you need and some may require you to rent a projector, screen, and more along those lines. 
• Ion Premium Fee and Musèik Operator: Ion will charge $195 for the licensing of projections through the Muséik platform, personalized training on the platform, and tech support. This fee will be billed directly to your ensemble and is in addition to the film screening fee.  If you are self-producing the multimedia you will also need to budget for your Muséik operator. For anyone new to Muséik software, it is required that you obtain training and support from Ion Concert Media. I could also help put you in touch with others who have run it before.
• Stand and folder lights: The darker the hall, the better the immersive multimedia experience. Musician lights are therefore strongly encouraged. You may want to buy these for your ensemble to have on hand for other projects or ask your players to provide their own. I can also rent them to you for a small fee plus shipping, so please reach out if you’re interested in a price quote. Don’t forget to budget for batteries whether you purchase your lights or rent them from me!
• Number of performances: Aside from the obvious venue and tech costs tied to each performance, those considering more than three performances might be subject to an additional video licensing fee. Performances outside the United States will also incur an additional international fee.
• Workshop with me!: If you’d like to invite me to do a residency or workshop with you and your ensemble, please contact Laura Krider at kr****@****************ng.com to offer some details and request a quote.