Proses lyriques (L. 84)
I. De rêve 00:00
II. De grève 06:52
III. De fleurs 11:04
IV. De soirs 17:17
Debussy, Claude (1862-1918) -composer
Christine Schäfer -soprano
Irwin Gage -piano
Score: javanese.imslp.info/files/imgl...
Playlist "The art of French song: Faure, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, Satie...": • The art of French song...
Claude Debussy wrote Proses lyriques for voice and piano, L. 84 in 1892-93 and penned the poems himself. This constitutes one of the stranger experiments of the composer's career. He was no poet, but for listeners who are interested in charting the evolution of his psychological and artistic development, they are a revealing set of songs. The attempt to write his own lyrics comes with an idea he had about being a writer that stayed with him throughout the 1890s. Because the words don't match the quality of the music, the songs are not as successful as others, which feature poets that Debussy admired.
Certain events preceding the writing of Proses lyriques seem likely to factor into their conception. When Debussy returned home from Rome in 1889, Paris was under the spell of Richard Wagner. Writers were particularly inspired by the full aesthetic conception of the German composer's music dramas, combining every element available to musical and stage productions, gelling into a more holistic arts experience than known before. The Symbolists, writers working in Paris, wanted to capture the effect of Wagner's music dramas through poetry only. Because Wagner's leitmotifs betrayed the real meaning of a singer's words, the Symbolists were interested in dealing with subjects indirectly, through implication and association, leaving the reader to unlock the text's actual subject matter. The assonance of the words was intended to be as musical as linguistically meaningful, which is why so much successful symbolist poetry is nearly impossible to translate. Debussy was interested in writing poems this way as well, and perhaps was influenced by Wagner's use of his own texts. Another inspiration in Debussy's poetic experiment was perhaps his association with Eric Satie, which began in 1891. Ingenuity of any sort requires one to "think outside the box." Satie had nothing but contempt for the box. Even a casual knowledge of Satie's biography and output makes this obvious, and close contact with the gifted eccentric would have made anyone imagine or try something as courageous and unlikely as Debussy's poetic ventures.
The four songs that make up Proses lyriques include "de Rêve" [a dream], "de Grève" [the shore], "de Fleurs" [flowers], and "de Soir" [evening]. The second two, the ones written in 1893, seemed to please him more. They were included in concert programs of 1894 to the exclusion of the first two. The texts are derivative of Mallarmé, Baudelaire, and Maeterlinck among others, and the music bears traces of Borodin, Wagner, and Massenet. "De Fleurs" is genuinely compelling in its near-psychotic, opaque associations, which are closer to surrealism than symbolism. The text describes a love/hate relationship with flowers, which are described as hard on the heart but desirable for the head. The greater evil in all this, only gradually introduced, is the sun, which flowers cannot do without. The sun is accused of destroying dreams, among other things, while the melodic line carries off into a higher range that suggests hysteria. The singer begs to be relieved of her excruciating boredom caused by the sun, which can be alleviated by flower petals of boredom falling upon her head. There is more to the poem than this description, and even in translation, many readers may find themselves rereading it, attempting to discern its meaning. The reference to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, who loved during the evening and concealed their love during the day, is clear. But like Hugo Wolf, Debussy is contracting a Wagnerian innovation into a few minutes, leaving behind many open questions. If it isn't among Debussy's best songs, it is among his most interesting.
Source: www.allmusic.com/composition/p...
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