Showing posts with label Faure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Faure. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Goodbye. . . and hello: Faure's Pavane




Gabriel Fauré: Pavane/en Lyrics


C'est Lindor, c'est Tircis et c'est tous nos vainqueurs!
C'est Myrtille, c'est Lydé! Les reines de nos coeurs!
Comme ils sont provocants! Comme ils sont fiers toujours!
Comme on ose régner sur nos sorts et nos jours!


Faites attention! Observez la mesure!

Ô la mortelle injure! La cadence est moins lente!
Et la chute plus sûre! Nous rabattrons bien leur caquets!
Nous serons bientôt leurs laquais!


Qu'ils sont laids! Chers minois!

Qu'ils sont fols! (Airs coquets!)


Et c'est toujours de même, et c'est ainsi toujours!
On s'adore! On se hait! On maudit ses amours!
Adieu Myrtille, Eglé, Chloé, démons moqueurs!
Adieu donc et bons jours aux tyrans de nos coeurs!
Et bons jours!






It is Lindor, it is Tircis, and it is all our victors!
It is Myrtille, it is Lyde! The queens of our hearts.
As they are defying! As they are always proud!
As we dare rule our fates and our days!

Pay attention! Observe the measure!

Oh mortal insult! The cadence is less slow!
And the fall more certain! We'll make them sing a different tune!
We will soon be their running dogs!
They are ugly! Dear little face!
They are madmen! (Quaint airs and tunes!)

And it is always the same, and so forever!
We love! We hate ! We curse our loves!
Farewell Myrtille, Egle, Chloe, mocking demons!
Farewell and goodbye to the tyrants of our hearts!

And a good day!






So what does it all mean?

Faure's famous Pavane (and a pavane, by the way, is a slow processional dance from the Renaissance, not a lament as so many people think) suffers from a serious disconnect between the music and the lyrics, which upon analysis seem insufferably silly. 

According to wonderful Wikipedia (and I quote it here not to be lazy, but to provide you with links to finer details of the story):

The original version of the Pavane was written for piano and chorus in the late 1880s. The composer described it as "elegant, but not otherwise important." Fauré intended it to be played more briskly than it has generally come to be performed in its more familiar orchestral guise. The conductor Sir Adrian Boult heard Fauré play the piano version several times and noted that he took it at a tempo no slower than 100 quarter notes per minute. Boult commented that the composer's sprightly tempo emphasised that the Pavane was not a piece of German romanticism, and that the text later added was "clearly a piece of light-hearted chaffing between the dancers".





Fauré composed the orchestral version at Le Vésinet in the summer of 1887. He envisaged a purely orchestral composition, using modest forces, to be played at a series of light summer concerts conducted by Jules Danbé. er Fauré opted to dedicate the work to his patron, Elisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe, he felt compelled to stage a grander affair and at her recommendation he added an invisible chorus to accompany the orchestra (with additional allowance for dancers). The choral lyrics were based on some inconsequential verses, à la Verlaine, on the romantic helplessness of man, which had been contributed by the Countess's cousin, Robert de Montesquiou.

The orchestral version was first performed at a Concert Lamoureux under the baton of Charles Lamoureux on November 25, 1888. Three days later, the choral version was premiered at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique. In 1891, the Countess finally helped Fauré produce the version with both dancers and chorus, in a "choreographic spectacle" designed to grace one of her garden parties in the Bois de Boulogne.




This is one of those pieces that evolved from a trifle into a classic. Faure didn't  think much of it, probably tossed it off and filed it somewhere until he was called upon to use it at "light summer concerts". But soon things escalated. If you have a rich patron like the Countess, and it's her birthday, and she's the one that pays the rent, you give her pretty much anything she wants. What she wanted was Faure's lovely little piece - but with words written by her cousin (the one with the unspellable name). What Faure thought of that idea is not on record, but he went ahead, orchestrating the piece and adding an "invisible chorus" (and it must have been a chore to find that many invisible singers), dancing girls, elephants with ostrich-plume headdresses, plate-spinners (for all we know), and various other garden party accoutrements.





The end result was a piece which put Faure on the map, and is easier to listen to than the Requiem because it only lasts six minutes. It would be interesting to find a version closer to the original, but the piece we know today is deeply melancholy, achingly romantic. So we ended up with this sad, scrumptious piece of music with the dumbest words ever written. It's just court gossip, stuff whispered slyly behind fans.  It translates awkwardly, and each line is followed by an exclamation mark, which is affected enough. I misheard it for years, barely understanding a word here and there. "Observez la mesure" was, surely, "Behold, the misery!" Not even close. It just means, "Keep the rhythm", perhaps a reference to people who can't gossip and dance at the same time. "Coeur" kept popping up, summoning up images of lovers clutching their damaged hearts. Instead it was a quite mundane "queen of hearts" reference.

One thing, though. It ends strangely upside-down, with "adieu. . . et bonjour",  which I like. Perhaps this reflects the shallowness of courtly life, the lapdogs, the intrigue, the feathered lorgnettes. And all that stuff.





But it still blows me away, this music. In spite of its rather strange garden-partyesque origins, it has evolved into an eternal classic. It intrigues me how it progressed from a nice piano piece Faure put together while eating his scrambled eggs (or was that Paul McCartney?) to - this, this lavish, heartbreakingly beautiful lament.

This pavane. Which everyone gets wrong anyway. It's a dance.


POST-SIGH. I sigh because this is the second time I wrote this post. This thing is acting so strangely, the screen sort of moving back and forth. Then, all at once, 3/4 of the text - disappeared. It was just nowhere. I thought of giving up, but I am constitutionally incapable of giving up, even when it would  be a much wiser course. SO - I pieced it back together again, minus whatever inspiration I had initially to write it.

The YouTube video I initially posted mysteriously vacated the building, as sometimes happens, so I had to find a substitute. I couldn't. The only truly lyrical versions of this piece are the ones without a chorus. Not sure why this is, except that it's kind of a lame choral bit. I think the piece would stand nicely without it. But this was all about the strange words and how they don't fit the music. So maybe it goes without saying that in this particular recording, the choir doesn't go with the orchestra. The band is great, soulful, etc., but I don't know what the deal is with the singers. They come in late, they're flat, certain sour razzy female voices stick out. They're not together. The only version I really liked has been taken back by YouTube. But you're welcome to keep on looking! There are only 957 versions to go.




Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Perez Hilton in the 16th century?




I've always loved Faure's Pavane, hadn't heard it in a long time, maybe even years.  I knew there were two versions, the original orchestral setting and another with chorus. The first time I heard the less-often-performed choral version, I was shocked. Here were these two groups of singers, men and women, alternating lines, obviously singing of aching, longing, yearning, thwarted desire, mortality, grief, loss, and - well, that's what I thought for the longest time. It laid the piece bare, gave it a stunningly human voice and changed it for me forever. 

There's something a little heavy and sad about the beauty of that chorus and the call-and-response structure of the song, reminding me of wilting roses and lilies in a hot room in which a pale dead girl lies in state. In her waterfall of black hair is a gardenia placed there by her lover, who sneaked into her bier at midnight in a last act of tender devotion before stabbing himself through the heart and (etc., etc., etc.).






Every once in a while I wondered what the words meant - but no I didn't, because I thought I knew already. "Observez la misere!" could only be "See, see what misery we are in!" "Mon coeur" was repeated and repeated: o, my heart! The way the sad elongated phrases were looped and draped upon the sombre, pensive melody was elegiac and even a bit funereal. Wasn't the meaning pretty obvious?


I also thought I knew the meaning of "pavane": surely it meant a threnody, a song of mourning. Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess seemed to be a potent example.

I have no idea why TODAY, when I was busy, when I had to make a milk-run trip in to Vancouver, when I spent the day kind of turning in circles and eating too much, why TODAY was the day I actively began to wonder what the lyrics meant. I wanted to do a particularly poetic post on it, illustrating those shining, tear-dripping, grief-stricken lines.






When I finally found a YouTube version I could live with, on perhaps the 19th or 20th try, I thought Wikipedia might give me some help on the meaning of the words. I was a little disappointed, nay, taken aback,  to find out that the choral version was just an add-on to impress a girl:


Fauré composed the orchestral version at Le Vésinet in the summer of 1887.[5] He envisaged a purely orchestral composition, using modest forces, to be played at a series of light summer concerts conducted by Jules Danbé.[5] After Fauré opted to dedicate the work to his patron, Elisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe,[6] he felt compelled to stage a grander affair and at her recommendation he added an invisible chorus to accompany the orchestra (with additional allowance for dancers). The choral lyrics were based on some inconsequential verses, à la Verlaine, on the romantic helplessness of man, which had been contributed by the Countess's cousin, Robert de Montesquiou.[7]





Wiki was good enough to provide the French version of the lyrics, which looked so peculiar that at first I thought they must have made a mistake:


C'est Lindor, c'est Tircis et c'est tous nos vainqueurs!
C'est Myrtille, c'est Lydé! Les reines de nos coeurs!
Comme ils sont provocants! Comme ils sont fiers toujours!
Comme on ose régner sur nos sorts et nos jours!

Faites attention! Observez la mesure!


Ô la mortelle injure! La cadence est moins lente!

Et la chute plus sûre! Nous rabattrons bien leur caquets!
Nous serons bientôt leurs laquais!
Qu'ils sont laids! Chers minois!
Qu'ils sont fols! (Airs coquets!)

Et c'est toujours de même, et c'est ainsi toujours!

On s'adore! On se hait! On maudit ses amours!
Adieu Myrtille, Eglé, Chloé, démons moqueurs!
Adieu donc et bons jours aux tyrans de nos coeurs!
Et bons jours!

So where was all that grief, l'angoisse, wilting flowers, etc.? This just sounded like a bunch of people babbling, even gossiping. "Observez la mesure" merely meant "keep time", as in following an elaborate dance step. The pavane, far from being a song of mourning, turned out to be a formal, courtly dance from the 1500s: 


The pavane, pavan, paven, pavin, pavian, pavine, or pavyn
(It. pavanapadovana; Ger. Paduana) is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century (Renaissance).

They couldn't even figure out how to spell it!





But it got even worse than that when I found the English translation.


It’s Lindor! it’s Tircis! 
and all our conquerors! 
It’s Myrtil! it’s Lydé! the queens of our hearts! 
How provocative they are, 
how forever proud! 
How they dare reign over our destinies 
and our lives! 
Watch out! Keep to the measure! 
O the mortal injury! 
The cadence is not so slow! 
And the fall more certain! 
We’ll tone down their chatter! 
Soon we’ll be their lackeys! 
How ugly they are! Sweet faces! 
How madcap they are! Coquettish airs! 
And it’s always the same! And will be so 
always! 
They adore one another! They hate one another! 
They curse their loves! 
Farewell, Myrtil! Eglé! Chloe! Mocking demons! 
Farewell and good days 
to the tyrants of our hearts! 


—Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac 



(1855–1921)

Who's Lindor? Who's Tircis? Why this list of meaningless-sounding names? It begins to resemble some Perez Hilton screed about the latest tits-and-ass starlet, But it sounded so wonderful! It sighs, it even seethes a little. Bosoms heave, the men and women sing as across a huge gulf, the vast abyss separating male and female, etc. etc. But it's nothing like that at all. 






Faure had a great tune and just needed a few verses; this Montesq-whatever knocked them out for a price.  All calculated to please his "patron" the Countess, and if he wasn't boinking her I don't know who was, because this is just going to too much trouble for someone you're NOT boinking. And Faure was no fool - he knew full well that no one listens to the words anyway.



 

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