Many composers have been inspired by Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Divine Comedy, yet Walls has drawn the texts for this set of songs from one of Dante’s earlier works, Vita nova.  The collection of poems reveals the personal and multifaceted meditations and feelings Alighieri experienced with his infatuation with Beatrice Portinari.  The maiden may have gone to her untimely grave in 1290 completely unaware of the poet’s esteem for her as the ideal woman, and without sharing his inner conflict over such disparate thoughts of love as reflected in the first sonnet, Tutti li miei penser, which opens the set.

Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare, the second song, is the most famous of all of Dante’s sonnets.  The poem, inspired by Beatrice’s virtues, embodies many of the ideals of the late Middle Ages’ dolce stil nuovo.  With its refined imagery and graceful linguistic nuances, it exudes even today a sweetness which surpasses many verses that might presume to be its equal.

O voi che per la via d’Amor passate, the final song of the triptych, dramatically reveals the poet’s misery over the loss of his love, and his incomprehension of how happiness and heartbreak can cohabit such a relatively short span of time.  Walls expresses this emotional dichotomy musically by juxtaposing dirge-like passages with lush musical settings that reflect the depth of Dante’s love for Beatrice.

Walls, having lived in Florence, Italy, for ten years, feels a certain kinship with Dante and a love for and loyalty to the Italian language.  In Three Sonnets he seeks to convey musically Beatrice’s charm, albeit a spiritual-intellectual attraction, that so enraptured the poet of long ago.  Walls attempts to accomplish this not by imitating the music of the period, but instead by setting this timeless prose to contemporary music inspired by the natural rhythm of the words and the grace and poetic refinement found in every line of Dante’s masterpiece.