The opening song of Lili Boulanger's epic song cycle, Clairières dans le ciel.
World War I broke out as Lili was working on this cycle, and even though the piece was finished well before her death, her publisher, Ricordi, was not able to publish it until after her passing, as most of his staff was mobilized during the war. The cycle of 13 songs tells the story of a young and inexperienced man reminiscing on his relationship with a young woman. While a break-up is never mentioned within the context of the cycle, the narrator looks back with nostalgic sadness on the relationship, and the final song is the first clue to the freshness of the relationship’s end: he delineates a timeline by noting in the opening line that tomorrow it will have been a year since they first met.
Lili Boulanger died at the young age of 24 on March 15, 1918, just one week after the cycle's world premiere in Paris.
The entire cycle is featured on the Grammy nominated album, Clairières:
nicholas-phan.com/boulanger-cl...
Filmed at Guarneri Hall on September 30, 2020 as part of CAIC's 2020 Collaborative Works Festival.
www.caichicago.org
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Myra Huang, piano
VIDEO: Mike Grittani | SOUND: Christopher Willis
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TEXT:
Elle était descendueau bas de la prairie,
et, comme la prairie était toute fleurie
de plantes dont la tige aime à pousser dans l’eau,
ces plantes inondées je les avais cueillies.
Bientôt, s’étant mouillée, elle gagna le haut
de cette prairie-là qui était toute fleurie.
Elle riait et s’ébrouait avec la grâce
dégingandée qu’ont les jeunes filles trop grandes.
Elle avait le regard qu’ont les fleurs de lavande.
TRANSLATION:
She had gone down to the bottom of the meadow,
and because the meadow was full of flowers
that like to grow in the water,
I had gathered the drowned plants.
Soon, because she was wet, she came back to the top
of that flowery meadow.
She laughed and moved with the lanky grace
of girls who are too tall.
She looked the way lavender flowers do.
Негізгі бет Музыка LILI BOULANGER: Elle était déscendue from 'Clairières dans le ciel'
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