Last week we
looked at lieder: popular songs in 19th-century Germany that
featured a vocal melody with piano accompaniment. These popular “art songs” as
they are often referred to, took on similar form in other countries around the
globe. The mélodie, for instance, is what the French called their own art song.
The French mélodie used the German lied as a model and set serious poetry to
music for voice with keyboard accompaniment. While many French composers took
to the task of composing mélodies, this week we are going to look at just two:
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) and Francis Poulenc (1899–1963).
Gabriel Fauré
knew the human voice quite well, having worked as choirmaster at Madeleine
Church in Paris for many years. He typically set poetry that could be flexible
rather than restricting himself to something that already conveyed a clear
image. His song cycles are known to depict French ideals. Serving as a bridge
between 19th-century Romanticism and Impressionism, Fauré influenced
many composers to follow him including Maurice Ravel.
Let’s look at one
of Fauré’s mélodies. La bonne chanson,
Op. 61 uses the literary organization he was known to follow in many cycles
after the year 1891. Literary organization arranges the chosen poetry in an
order that tells a story. In this case, Paul Verlaine’s poems form a story
while Fauré musically organizes the piece based on recurrent themes. Like
Schubert and Schumann, whom we talked about last week, Fauré gave equal
importance to the keyboard accompaniment as he did the vocal line. His cycle is
expressive with a free vocal part, pushing his limits to the point that
following this work’s completion, Fauré turned to a simpler style for the
remainder of his life.
La
bonne chanson was
composed between 1892 and 1894. Fauré uses nine poems by Paul Verlaine that the
poet dedicated to future wife Mathilde. While working on this piece, Fauré
himself dreamed of love, love with the dedicatee Emma Bardac, who later married
Claude Debussy.
A Saint in Her
Halo
A Saint in her
halo,
A Mistress of a
chateau in her tower,
Everything that
human speech contains
Of grace and
love;
The golden note
sounded by
A horn far off in
the woods,
United with the
tender pride
Of noble Ladies
of yesteryear!
Together with the
remarkable charm
Of a fresh
triumphant smile
That has opened
within the whiteness of a swan
And the blushing
of a child bride;
Pearly hues,
white and pink,
A gentle
patrician harmony:
I see, I hear all
these things
In her
Carolingian name.
