Songs of Gabriel Fauré
L’hiver a cessé
L’hiver a cessé is the final song from La Bonne Chanson, a song cycle that sets a collection of Paul Verlaine poems of the same name. Superficially this poem is about the end of winter and long-awaited joy and excitement that accompanies the transition into springtime, much like the feeling one gets during the first sunny week in March (In Nebraska we sometimes must wait until April or May). In this recital, it, is the optimistic feeling that I am getting closer to the ‘springtime’ of my life. I am about the graduate college and my future is yet to be determined: “All my hopes have their turn at last. Let summer come, and let autumn and winter come after. Every season will be dear.” The future may be great, ugly, wonderful, and terrifying and I embrace each possibility with open arms.
Le pays de rêve
The message of this song is that the journey is often more important than the destination, so enjoy it! Although in this dreamy song we do not reach a destination, we savor the delicate beauty of the dream-land through which we are travelling. The 12/8 meter along with the gentle rocking of the piano is very much in the style of a boat song, however, the accompaniment is in a higher range than usual, suggesting that our voyage is not through the sea, but perhaps through the clouds. Like L’hiver a cessé, there is a sense of getting closer to something, but in this piece, there is even less consideration of what is to come, and more emphasis on exploring the celestial body of one’s own dreams. Notice in the middle of the song when the rocking motion of the song rather abruptly switches to a stagnant 4/4 as the voyager takes a step back and considers her journey and place in the universe. Indeed profound, it is a beautiful place, and we soon continue our journey through the land of dreams.
Aprés un rêve
One of Fauré’s earlier works, Aprés un reve is a setting of Romain Bussine’s poem of the same title, translated from Italian. This is also the simplest of the three Fauré pieces programmed today. Where the first two were a duet between piano a voice, the singer is merely supported by chords of the piano, symbolic of the lonely circumstances the lyrics depict. The song is composed in a minor key, yet the lyrics are only sad because they use the past-tense, clearly dwelling on a love that once existed. There is to me in this song an expression of not only loss and denial, but the inability to understand why something so wonderful came to an end.
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