By Lucy Caplan
Lucy Caplan is Assistant Professor of Music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She is the author of Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera, published by Harvard University Press.
If this evening’s program has a theme, it might be connection. Some of these connections are concrete: composers Henri Duparc and Ernest Chausson, for instance, were close friends; Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer is even dedicated to Duparc. Others are more circumstantial, having to do with shared artistic paths: Two other featured composers, Frederic Mompou and Joaquín Turina, both pursued musical study in Paris, where they were introduced to the vibrancy of the city’s artistic culture. The mid-century songs which conclude the program take connection as a point of thematic inspiration, emphasizing the enduring power of love. What’s more, across their stylistic differences, these various songs share a commitment to emotional sincerity. From Romantic art songs to tuneful chansons, this is music that comes from the heart.
Henri Duparc
L’Invitation au voyage (1870)
Chanson triste (1868)
Phidylé (1882)
Tragedy befell Henri Duparc when he was only in his mid-thirties: he fell ill, stopped composing, and lost his vision. The songs he wrote prior to this series of misfortunes stand as a testament to the intensity and depth of his artistic vision. Each is based on a text by a French poet, evoking Duparc’s immersion in nineteenth-century France’s vibrant literary and musical culture. “L’Invitation au voyage” features a near-obsessive oscillating figure, which vanishes abruptly during the song’s refrain. “Chanson triste” has a similarly atmospheric accompaniment, with near-continuous arpeggiated figures in the piano. (Duparc later returned to this song, crafting a lush orchestration for harps, horns, flutes, and strings.) “Phidylé” emphasizes harmonic variety, with the piano’s rich chromaticism enveloping the delicate vocal line.
Ernest Chausson, Poème de l’amour et de la mer (1882–1893)
La fleur des eaux
La mort de l’amour
It took Chausson nearly a decade to complete his monumental Poème de l’amour et de la mer, a work for voice and piano on a grand scale. By the 1880s, he was well established in his musical career, and he benefited from close relationships with other French composers and a prominent position as secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique. He also sought out a deep knowledge of other European traditions; an aficionado of Wagner, he took his wife on an 1883 honeymoon to Bayreuth to hear Parsifal. Something of an operatic scale permeates the Poème, which was originally conceived as a song cycle for voice and orchestra. The work uses text by Chausson’s friend Maurice Bouchor, a poet and sculptor who favored the mystical and natural imagery associated with Symbolism. A love story is told with scant reference to the actual people involved; instead, sand, sky, flowers, and birds, described in vivid detail, come to represent the inner emotional world of the narrator.
Chausson’s music is layered, allusive, and frankly dramatic. Within “La fleur des eaux,” the first part of the cycle, the harmonies are complex and unstable, creating a sense of constant movement. Themes emerge, dissipate, and emerge again. The work’s structure feels coherent even if it is not formally predictable. In “La mort de l’amour,” the work gains a new sense of confidence and momentum. Diatonic harmonies bloom, and the mood settles into one of growing–if not yet fully achieved–peace.
Frederic Mompou, Damunt de tu només les flors (1942–48)
The Catalan composer Frederic Mompou described his work using the term “primitivista”–a word meant to evoke both the simplicity of his notated music and its correspondingly direct emotions. He eschewed such details as bar lines and key signatures, preferring to let the performers figure things out themselves. Yet for all his stated commitments to simplicity, he was an extensively educated and well-connected figure who studied in Barcelona and Paris. He also drew upon a range of musical influences; Catalan folksong was an especially rich source of inspiration. “Damunt de tu només les flors” exemplifies these qualities. Part of the song cycle Combat del Somni, it is hauntingly beautiful: a somber melody with straightforward accompaniment briefly blossoms into something more complex before returning to its original, bare presentation.
Joaquín Turina, Los dos miedos (1923)
Unlike Mompou, who wrote almost exclusively for piano and voice, Joaquín Turina explored various musical forms: operas, symphonies, chamber music, and more. His songs reflect the breadth of his formal and stylistic influences, which encompassed Andalusian folk music as well as French impressionistic composition. “Los dos miedos” is part of Poema en forma de canciones, a song cycle from 1923 on texts by the poet Ramón de Campoamor. The harmonies and ostinato-like figures of the piano introduction evoke Ravel, while the vocal line is arrestingly straightforward. The piano often recedes or disappears entirely upon a vocal entrance, allowing the melody to take center stage.
Alberto Ginastera, Canción al arbol del olvido (1938)
Part of an early set of two songs, “Canción al arbol del olvido” speaks to Ginastera’s celebration of nature and landscapes in music. It is a vidalita, a type of melancholic love song popular in northern Argentina and across South America. From beginning to end, a repeated rhythmic figure sounds in the piano–quiet and smooth, a gentle ground over which the voice can float. Right-hand melodic interjections from the piano comment gently on the vocal line, which tells of a mysterious “tree of forgetting” and its appeal to the lovelorn. A strange chord caps the brief song, leaving the listener with a sense of irresolution.
Giacomo Puccini
Mentìa l’avviso (1883)
Terra e mare (1902)
Sole e amore (1899)
It can be difficult to think of Puccini as anything other than a composer of opera, but in fact he also composed art songs, a handful of piano pieces, and even a string quartet. The melodies of these art songs, however, will sound familiar to devotees of his operas–he often found new homes for them within larger-scale works. “Mentìa l’avviso,” reappears in Manon Lescaut as an expression of des Grieux’s love for Manon, while “Sole e amore” shows up in the Act 3 quartet of La Bohème. As an art song, “Mentìa l’avviso” is deeply dramatic, foreshadowing the grandeur of the composer’s works for the stage. Just as ambitious is “Terra e mare,” an expansive portrayal of the natural world. Its vocal range is quite limited, but it requires a dense range of expression. “Sole e amore” is the cheeriest of the bunch. A joyful love song with a bouncy accompaniment, it was dedicated to the violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini.
Joseph Kosma, Les feuilles mortes (1945)
Before it was a jazz standard, “Autumn Leaves” was “Les feuilles mortes.” Its composer was Joseph Kosma, a Hungarian Jew, who lived and worked in Berlin before fleeing to France in 1933. Kosma had an eclectic range: he wrote opera and film music, worked as a cabaret pianist, and collaborated closely with poets and writers. “Les feuilles mortes,” which first appeared in the 1946 film Les portes de la nuit, quickly became a sensation within and beyond France, beloved for its melancholic elegance.
Charles Trenet, Douce France (1943)
Singer-songwriter Charles Trenet wrote an astounding number of songs, close to one thousand in total. “Douce France” is among the most celebrated of them all. A nostalgic ode to his rural childhood, it rose to fame during World War II and was widely revered for its patriotic message.
Jacques Brel, Quand on n’a que l’amour (1956)
In 1952, Jacques Brel was just getting his start as a performer. By 1957, he was a household name in France and Belgium, widely regarded as a master of the chanson and in constant demand as a performer and recording artist. This transformation was due in large part to the success of “Quand on n’a que l’amour,” which he first recorded in 1956. Heartfelt and soaring, it became a sensation and has since been covered by artists from Dionne Warwick to Barry Manilow.
