Complainte de la bonne défunte, for solo voice, strings & harp

Hello everyone,

Here is a little thing that I wanted simple, in the spirit of the beginning of the century, evoking a little a song, to stick with the bittersweet character of this poetry of Laforgue.

Thank you for your opinions and comments,

JC

https://youtu.be/Ta7B6IZlmfo?si=xCh0K7gY20E74zYd

Lovely!

Partiture?

9 hours ago, maestrowick said:

Partiture?

Hello

The minimised partition is readable on YouTube. Orchestration is not available.

Thank you for your interest and have a nice day.

Hi Jean @Krisp !

I have left a few words in Youtube, and I will reiterate here that I love your orchestration! To me it's more like an orchestra playing in a chamber setting which gives different contrasting mood in different passages.

The use of harp definitely makes this one a lovely romantic lied. The subject of this lied really reminds of the film "Last Year at Marienbad" when the male protagonist insisted in recognizing the female protagonist, who always refuted it. All the harmonic progression in the piece well serves the narrative structure and mood change of the poem, and to me the most magical touch is the end-the narrator admits he never truly knew her and the chords ends on a suspended B minor chord, while the fantasy continues in the harp and other instruments. This heavily reminds me of the ending of Dichterliebe when the narrator and singer abruptly ended his singing by "sinking to the Rhine" and the music continues with the piano. Truly magical touch here.

Thx for sharing!

Henry

Thank you so much once again, Henry, for your beautiful comment and for listening so attentively.

Your references to Schumann and to Last Year at Marienbad — a film by Resnais that I have long wanted to see, but have not yet had the opportunity to watch — were both flattering and deeply meaningful to me. So thank you as well for pointing me in that direction.

My intention was indeed to follow as closely as possible the dreamlike path of a love that never truly came to life. As so often with Laforgue, everything unfolds in an ambiguous space, made up of appearances, half-truths, and the strange feeling that the beloved may exist only as a memory, or perhaps only as a dream.

The ending seemed to call quite naturally for this musical treatment: the poet evokes the lost beloved — or perhaps love itself, who knows? — while life quietly continues its indifferent course. In French, Laforgue’s language has a very particular flavour, constantly oscillating between sublime images — “the eyes are azure carnations,” “the innocent mouth,” the elusive woman whom he tries to follow — and the wonderfully prosaic final line, “I shall go home without dinner,” which suddenly brings everything back to ordinary life.

As for the orchestration, I wanted something as ethereal as possible. The harp seemed inevitable, together with violin "fragile" harmonics and a constant alternation between solo strings and the full ensemble. The ternary, circular motion also seemed essential to me: it continues endlessly, because life itself never stops moving forward, while the poet remains motionless in his grief.

In any case, I am very happy that both the poem and the musical response I tried to give it were able to resonate with you.