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.

Angelina's Leg: can you say "Pilates"?

I don't know what it is about the Oscars. All right, I do: it's kind of like Christmas, with a huge buildup that lasts weeks or even months, and a lot of attention paid to tinsel, glitz and appearances. The other common point is money: the whole thing is so bloody expensive. And over so soon, leaving a sort of hangover, ashes in the mouth, a "maybe next year" feeling.

Last night I was looking forward to Billy Crystal's return as emcee: he was boffo in the '90s, after all, riding in on a horse the year City Slickers came out (but then I realized, with a twinge of shock, that it came out in 1992!). His much-celebrated montage of Oscar-nominated pictures at the start fell flat, lacking the full-tilt craziness of his former. . . scratch that, it's unfair. "Former"
 means 20 years ago, the guy's about 68 now, and to be honest a lot of the younger viewers didn't even know who he was. And I could have done without that strange-looking shoe-polish-blackened hair. Give me a grey head, or even a bald head, over Hair in a Can.

But we don't watch the Oscars for the host, his hair or any other sort of content, not even for the actual awards. I groaned when The Artist grabbed some of the biggies, including That French Guy (who honestly creeps me out with his greasy smile) getting Best Actor for leaping around and not saying anything. I live and die for silent film, but maybe that's why I just couldn't warm up to this now-Best-Picture, which failed to capture the intimacy and magic of that flickering black-and-white world.

So why do we watch this 3-1/2 hour parade of show-biz superficialtiy and blatant narcissism? It comes down to one question: "Who are you wearing?" Not "what". Now we wear a person, evidently. Octavia Spencer even said that her designer "did" her, which sounded a little off . It's fun to watch these mostly-slender, mostly-young women slink around in gowns that look too tight to sit down in (and how on earth do they go to the bathroom?). But some can pull it off (or put it on), and others can't.


To quote the title of one of the nominated films, Hollywood celebrates its war horses, which is not to say they can't be handsome. Meryl Streep has won the right to wear anything she damn well pleases, and if she wants to drape herself in gold lame, so be it. And this made her third Oscar a nicely-co-ordinated accessory, if a little hard to slip into her clutch purse.

But early reviews of this lumbering ceremony complained that the heavy-looking metallic dress, combined with an acceptance speech that conveyed more embarrassment than gratitude, just added to a certain awkwardness that pervaded the evening.  Meryl, after 16 nominations, made the trifecta, but seemed to wish someone else had won instead.

The most elegant Oscar gowns always seem to strive for a retro flavor, but if Hollywood really looked back, it would be in for a few surprises. Not that the gowns this year weren't elegant - there were a few that I loved, including one that stuck up for us war horses over 50.  But there is something - what, tasteful? What an awful word, but that's it - about Old Hollywood that is never matched in the new, no matter how retro the designers try to be.

That ubiquitous Mother Courage/Mia Farrow stand-in Angelina Jolie has never been one of my favorites: she emanates a certain brittle sense of entitlement that turns me off.  But this dress was. . . no, it was not the dress, it was the way she wore it, or rather didn't wear it,  thrusting her leg out so far that everything showed, not just up to but past crotch-level.

One cannot imagine Grace Kelly ever doing that.

The fact that the leg screamed "Pilates" didn't make much difference, because the sinewy Jolie has the kind of lean-to-the-point-of-painful look required in order to have these bizarre creations painted on.

Who designed this thing? Did they forget to sew a seam at the front? To use a haute couture expression, who gives a rip. Let's move on.

A dress should not embarrass or frighten an audience, but this one did. Again, it wasn't the dress, which is the standard skin-fitting thing with all sorts of busy starburst details. It was the way Jennifer Lopez wore/didn't wear it. As I was watching her up there on live TV beside Cameron Diaz, I said to my husband, "Isn't that her. . . " "No." "I see it, though, just the edge of it." "No, they put tape on them." "But if the dress moves 1/8 of an inch or

something. . . " "Then yeah."

It was a nip slip.

Or at least it came perilously close, and some Tweeters and Woofers out there insisted they did see the edge of the little nipper just peeking out. But why wear such a risky dress, unless you want to create the kind of suspense that makes most people cringe?

But there was someone who knew how to wear Old Hollywood and bring it off with stunning style. Wearing an Oscar gown requires runway skills that many actresses just don't possess: sticking your leg out (or your nipple, for that matter)  just doesn't cut it. But Milla Jovovich posed with elegance and class, while avoiding the self-absorption rampant among these celebrity clothes-horses. This was one of those gowns that reminded me of Ginger Rogers in movies like Top Hat and Flying Down to Rio.

                                                                                                                                               

But I've saved the best 'til last. Oscar usually gives "older" actresses (i.e. over 50) short shrift in the Best and Worst-Dressed departments. I always watch out for Helen Mirren and Judi Dench, whom I didn't see last night. But Glenn Close swept in and mowed them down like a row of dominoes.

I've sometimes had the thought - one of my stranger thoughts, admittedly - "if I ever had to wear one of those really chi-chi gowns, would I have to expose that much arm and shoulder?" How good does the average 50-year-old look in those stiff strapless stand-up-by-themselves things, unless she Pilates-es like mad for months before?

Voila: the solution. A jacket! I have always loved jackets anyway, but to make one work with a gown this dramatic is true genius. Everything comes together here, the intense evening-green (and green is not usually one of my favorites), the satin lapels, the flared-out mermaid hemline. I only wish I could see the shoes.

The hair and the smile and the utter confidence and joie de vivre of her stance made Glenn Close the queen of the evening. Even if she didn't win anything, she nevertheless  carried it off to perfection.


(Post-script. I just looked up Glenn Close's birth date. Let no one ever again make snide remarks about senior citizens! At 65, Close swept the field and left all those skinny little fillies in the dust.)

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm