I'd like to return to a piece that I have been in love with for a long time now. I will cover it musically soon, but for now here is a translation of the libretto. The piece premiered in 1888 to mediocre reviews. It was a
symphonic poem,
a three-part, seven movement work for orchestra and women's chorus
which took
its inspiration from the Greek myth of Psyché and Eros. However it was never published as such. Its
most common form in performance was -and is - in the arrangement Franck wrote
for four-hand piano and chorus, or in the four orchestral fragments
that Franck later extracted (which is almost the only form it is
heard in today).
The chorus is used only in certain
climactic points during the piece (three of the seven movements), and
addresses the character of Psyche through the drama, similar to how
the Greek chorus was used in dramatic plays. You'll notice in the text that it tends to describe and dramatize the action.
As it was never published, the original libretto attributed to Sicard and Fourcard is terrifically difficult to find. I was originally looking for a direct transcription to go with this, but that will have to wait. Here is a translation which was done by Mike George and Mark Seto (libretto and program description respectively).
PART ONE
Psyche’s Slumber (Sommeil de Psyché) (orchestra): Psyche is sleeping and dreaming; while she dreams, she has a premonition of absolute, otherworldly happiness.
Psyche Carried Off by the Zephyrs (Psyché enlevée par les Zéphyrs) (orchestra): Suddenly the air trembles, filled with strange noises. Psyche, carried off by the Zephyrs, is transported into the gardens of Eros.
PART TWO
The Gardens of Eros (Les jardins d’Eros) (orchestra and chorus): More beautiful than beauty itself, Psyche rests among flowers, greeted like a sovereign by Nature in celebration: voices whisper in her ear of the power of Love. She awakens, gently touched. The voices sing again, and speak of the invisible bridegroom who approaches. Delighted, she listens, she waits. The voices still sing, but more seriously: “Remember,” they say, “you must never know the face of your mystery lover… Remember!”
Chorus:
Love! Source of all life!
Young, strong god with the strength to conquer!
Hail, O hallowed power,
Hail, O charming ruler of hearts!
You fill everything with holy joy,
In your wake the furrows turn fertile.
Mother Earth produces with rapture
When the ineffable kiss
From the brightest sun, her bridegroom, beams down on her.
O white sister of the lily, gentler than the dawn
And more beautiful than beauty itself,
Do you not long to feel a sweet desire bursting open
In your tormented breast?
Listen to the invisible lyres in the distance
Sighing gently on the melodious air!
Your mysterious bridegroom is coming,
To your innocent breast, to share this divine ecstasy.
For you the palace gates are thrown open.
But, Psyche, remember that you must never
Look at the face of your mystery lover.
Obey without understanding your ever virtuous fate.
Psyche! Remember.
Psyche and Eros (Psyché et Eros) (orchestra): The spirits have fallen silent: another voice already resonates, soft but penetrating: it is that of
Eros himself. Psyche responds hesitantly… soon their souls merge… All is passion, all is light,
all is happiness… forever, if Psyche can remember.
PART THREE
The Punishment – Psyche’s Suffering and Laments (orchestra and chorus): Psyche did not remember! “The punishment begins,” the voices declare, but she weeps. Eros
will forgive her, perhaps.
Psyche weeps; she feels infinite sorrow, because she has known infinite happiness. Consumed by
impotent desires, she visits the earth to suffer, and to die with a sorrowful and supreme fervor for
the ideal love which she has lost forever, but which she still hopes for…
Chorus:
Love, your secret is known.
Woe on her!
Among the sweet mystery, and pure happiness,
Her heart was filled with an eternal youthfulness.
Her punishment begins and its pain is cruel.
Far from the gardens and sacred temples of Eros,
She wanders aimlessly,
On paths that are rough under her bruised feet.
A lonely traveler on a sad journey,
Sobbing with regret at the mystery of
The blue gardens and sacred temples of Eros.
And the dark night grows even deeper,
And the wind alone hears her hopeless cries!
There is no glimmer of hope.
Love, Psyche has discovered your secret, and yet she weeps.
Take her back to the blue gardens and sacred temples.
Apotheosis (orchestra and chorus): Eros has forgiven, the mysterious choir announces, and the whole world rejoices. Rest, poor
Psyche! Your desire, which outlasts your death, is lifted up to God and God descends to you; his
mouth repeats the same love, Nature sings the same revelry. And here in the arms of her
immortal bridegroom, Psyche leaves the world in triumphant glory!
Chorus:
Eros has forgiven.
Heaven and earth quake with delight!
Psyche, lift up your pallid forehead.
Let the pain of your first mistake
Be forgotten for ever.
Heavenly couple, soar into the light.
The miracle of love is at last complete.
Attributed to “Sicard and Fourcaud”
Showing posts with label choral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choral. Show all posts
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Monday, February 6, 2012
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 2, Op. 52 "Lobgesang" - I. Sinfonia (cont.): Adagio religioso
this movement has been criticized as being sanctimonious. i'm not really sure mendelssohn had it in him to write anything bordering on irreverent, but i find this movement quite beautiful regardless of what he intended.
d major, the first and only theme is a choir-like hymn given by the strings in a sort of mini-rounded binary form, the second phrase with the winds exploring a bit of A Major before the strings yank it back into D major.
from 2:00 begins a short section. i'm really not sure why litton gets so much faster in this recording, i would prefer he just kept his former tempo and let the harmonies do the tension-building. but anyway, this section features a bit of an agitato string accompaniment with a little bit of anguished interjections from the winds.
this leads us into a restatement of the theme at 2:38 in the wrong key of A major (the accompaniment figure remains to give it a bit of a push). the difference here is that when he blossoms the theme, instead of a major predominant chord, we get a d minor chord (iv in a major). this requires us to take a bit of a detour so he introduces a bit of a new material to finish it. but since we are in the wrong key, he cadences in a surprise G7-C and takes some time to do a short development on the opening themes, over a gentle rolling accompaniment of thirty-second notes which will last until the end of the movement. this development lasts until 4:03 where finally he gets to bring back D Major with the delicious g minor chord at 4:13. he repeats all this material in the right key.
4:53 represents the big A7 chord which will allow us to cadence affirmatively in D Major, and he puts a punctuation on that with the big arpeggio in the violins at 5:15. coda begins right after this, and takes us to a cadence which concludes the sinfonia quietly and sets us up for the cantata to follow.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 2, Op. 52 "Lobgesang" - I. Sinfonia: Maestoso con moto - Allegro - Allegretto
The structure of this symphony is a bit complicated. "lobgesang" translates roughly to "hymn of praise," and it is mendelssohn's one choral symphony. the wiki page is pretty uniquely unhelpful for those looking at this symphony from an orchestra view. the orchestra plays three orchestral movements, all chunked together in a "sinfonia," and then the chorus joins for ten more movements, bringing the whole thing to a healthy total of over an hour (about 70 minutes), which was pretty extreme for a symphony (beethoven 9 is 70-80 minutes at a pretty glacial pace).
anyway we shall just cover the sinfonia, which itself is comprised of three smaller movements.
I. Maestoso con moto - Allegro
II. Allegretto
III. Adagio religioso
written in 1840 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press, it nevertheless makes no explicit reference to writing or printing, instead using primarily sacred text which often refers to the general idea of enlightenment, which was strongly tied to the culture of printing and reading. but it was also known as the "gutenberg cantata" and he also insisted on the genre label as "symphony-cantata," suggesting that he really wasn't thinking much of beethoven 9 when he composed it, formally. musically it has much more in common with bach's cantatas, which were also written with recitative-aria form.
while this symphony is published as no. 2, it was written fourth of the five. mendelssohn was quite hard on his other symphonies and never was satisfied with either of his most popular symphonies, the scotch (#3) and the italian (#4).
the symphony is scored for 2/2/2/2 4/2/3/0, timp + str, adding two cornets, an organ, and of course the SATB chorus for the latter movements.
these two videos are the first two segments of the sinfonia, which basically act as two different movements played attacca, the first in the home key of Bb major and the second in the relative minor of G. the recordings are andrew litton and the bergen philharmonic.
I.
the first movement is in a standard sonata-allegro form. there is a grand fanfare of a b-flat major theme first given by the trombones and echoed by the rest of the orchestra, and this is one of the most important themes in the symphony, recurring throughout the sinfonia as well as the cantata section, set to the words "alles was odem hat, lobe den herrn" or "all things that draw breath, praise the lord." the exposition proper begins at 1:04 and features a typically joyous mendelssohn theme characterized by dotted-rhythm arpeggios and a leap upwards descending by scale. he starts this theme twice and then springs off into one of his characteristically frenzied cascading runs, upon which he once again imposes the fanfare theme at 2:08 and even takes it through some development culminating in a big C major chord acting as the dominant of F (minor). instead he then gives us the second theme set in A-flat major (f-minor's relative major) at 2:40. as typical, the second theme is more lyrical, characterized by lots of parallel thirds. with a surprise c major chord (III of A-flat) he pivots into f-major, which will set us up for the animato at 3:20, introducing a bit of new material in the vein of the first theme and wrapping up the exposition nicely at the big f-major cadence at 4:21.
this part is the development, which goes on steadily using the fanfare theme as the primary modulating motive. he reaches a point where the strings are in e-flat, and uses the brass fanfare as the motivator for further modulation, eventually ending up at 5:31, a long section featuring running triplets in the strings and a big pedal Bb which destabilizes the fact that it's actually a I chord and perpetuates the development. there's a big pause after a long set-up for a g minor cadence. instead he does a development of the second theme set up in e-flat major but quickly springing upwards to a build-up to the recap (beginning of the second vid), which begins right at 0:46.
not much more to say about this movement, both the first and second theme material are abbreviated, with the second theme being stated in the right key of Bb at 1:07 with no gap/misleading key setup in between and the animato material at 1:39 also in the right key. 2:48 is the beginning of the coda, which begins like the development but takes us into a big cadence of Bb instead of other keys. the cool part is he jumps back into the maestoso version of the fanfare theme at 3:47 to conclude the "movement."
then cue a pivot from the tonic into the relative minor and we're off to the second movement.
II.
this movement is simpler and shorter, characteristic of a typical ternary or song-form second movement. in 6/8, the flanking sections are waltzlike and melancholy. the a-section is itself a sort of rounded binary, with a first section that repeats and a section that explores the dominant major (D), rounding off with a recall of first section material that wraps up in a gray unison pizz on g.
the middle section starts at 7:00 in G Major and features a 6/8 version of the fanfare theme we have come to know so well, presented by a wind chorale (one set of program notes i found describes this section as the sacred to the flanking sections' "secular."). it alternates every four bars or so with string material taken straight out of the A section. it cadences at 8:23 in g major and there is a bridge section with pizz bringing it back to the A section. all the thematic material returns to the home key, proven by a g minor coda at 9:14. like the first section, the movement itself ends with two final pizzes.
anyway we shall just cover the sinfonia, which itself is comprised of three smaller movements.
I. Maestoso con moto - Allegro
II. Allegretto
III. Adagio religioso
written in 1840 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press, it nevertheless makes no explicit reference to writing or printing, instead using primarily sacred text which often refers to the general idea of enlightenment, which was strongly tied to the culture of printing and reading. but it was also known as the "gutenberg cantata" and he also insisted on the genre label as "symphony-cantata," suggesting that he really wasn't thinking much of beethoven 9 when he composed it, formally. musically it has much more in common with bach's cantatas, which were also written with recitative-aria form.
while this symphony is published as no. 2, it was written fourth of the five. mendelssohn was quite hard on his other symphonies and never was satisfied with either of his most popular symphonies, the scotch (#3) and the italian (#4).
the symphony is scored for 2/2/2/2 4/2/3/0, timp + str, adding two cornets, an organ, and of course the SATB chorus for the latter movements.
I.
the first movement is in a standard sonata-allegro form. there is a grand fanfare of a b-flat major theme first given by the trombones and echoed by the rest of the orchestra, and this is one of the most important themes in the symphony, recurring throughout the sinfonia as well as the cantata section, set to the words "alles was odem hat, lobe den herrn" or "all things that draw breath, praise the lord." the exposition proper begins at 1:04 and features a typically joyous mendelssohn theme characterized by dotted-rhythm arpeggios and a leap upwards descending by scale. he starts this theme twice and then springs off into one of his characteristically frenzied cascading runs, upon which he once again imposes the fanfare theme at 2:08 and even takes it through some development culminating in a big C major chord acting as the dominant of F (minor). instead he then gives us the second theme set in A-flat major (f-minor's relative major) at 2:40. as typical, the second theme is more lyrical, characterized by lots of parallel thirds. with a surprise c major chord (III of A-flat) he pivots into f-major, which will set us up for the animato at 3:20, introducing a bit of new material in the vein of the first theme and wrapping up the exposition nicely at the big f-major cadence at 4:21.
this part is the development, which goes on steadily using the fanfare theme as the primary modulating motive. he reaches a point where the strings are in e-flat, and uses the brass fanfare as the motivator for further modulation, eventually ending up at 5:31, a long section featuring running triplets in the strings and a big pedal Bb which destabilizes the fact that it's actually a I chord and perpetuates the development. there's a big pause after a long set-up for a g minor cadence. instead he does a development of the second theme set up in e-flat major but quickly springing upwards to a build-up to the recap (beginning of the second vid), which begins right at 0:46.
not much more to say about this movement, both the first and second theme material are abbreviated, with the second theme being stated in the right key of Bb at 1:07 with no gap/misleading key setup in between and the animato material at 1:39 also in the right key. 2:48 is the beginning of the coda, which begins like the development but takes us into a big cadence of Bb instead of other keys. the cool part is he jumps back into the maestoso version of the fanfare theme at 3:47 to conclude the "movement."
then cue a pivot from the tonic into the relative minor and we're off to the second movement.
II.
this movement is simpler and shorter, characteristic of a typical ternary or song-form second movement. in 6/8, the flanking sections are waltzlike and melancholy. the a-section is itself a sort of rounded binary, with a first section that repeats and a section that explores the dominant major (D), rounding off with a recall of first section material that wraps up in a gray unison pizz on g.
the middle section starts at 7:00 in G Major and features a 6/8 version of the fanfare theme we have come to know so well, presented by a wind chorale (one set of program notes i found describes this section as the sacred to the flanking sections' "secular."). it alternates every four bars or so with string material taken straight out of the A section. it cadences at 8:23 in g major and there is a bridge section with pizz bringing it back to the A section. all the thematic material returns to the home key, proven by a g minor coda at 9:14. like the first section, the movement itself ends with two final pizzes.
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