An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment, and usually in the classical art music tradition. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the collective genre of such songs. An art song is most often a musical setting of an independent poem or text, "intended for the concert repertory" "as part of a recital or other relatively formal social occasion". While many pieces of vocal music are easily recognized as art songs, others are more difficult to categorize. For example, a wordless vocalise written by a classical composer is sometimes considered an art song and sometimes not.
(Achille) Claude Debussy was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Paul Charles Joseph Bourget was a French novelist and critic. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times.
Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses Et qu'un tiède frisson court sur les champs de blé, Un conseil d'être heureux semble sortir des choses Et monter vers le coeur troublé.
Un conseil de goûter le charme d'être au monde Cependant qu'on est jeune et que le soir est beau, Car nous nous en allons, comme s'en va cette onde: Elle à la mer, nous au tombeau.
Where the rivulets are rosy in the setting sun, And a mild tremor runs over the wheat fields, An exhortation to be happy seems to emanate from things And rises towards the troubled heart.
An exhortation to enjoy the charm of being alive While one is young and the evening is beautiful, For we are going on, as this stream goes on: The stream to the sea, we to the grave.
A less literal and more colloquial translation: [citation needed]
When the rivers are rosy in the setting sun, And a warm shiver runs over the wheat fields, Advice to be happy seems to rise up from things And climb toward the troubled heart.
Advice to taste the charm of being in the world While one is young and the evening is beautiful, For we are going away, as this stream goes away: The stream to the sea, we to the grave.
A translation which honors the intended meaning of the original language but translates the poetic content into the English language more seamlessly than the preceding translations do: [citation needed]
When streams turn pink in the setting sun, And a slight shudder rushes through the wheat fields, A plea for happiness seems to rise out of all things And it climbs up towards the troubled heart. A plea to relish the charm of life While there is youth and the evening is fair, For we pass away, as the wave passes: The wave to the sea, we to the grave.
A translation most commonly used by choirs: [citation needed]
When 'neath the setting sun, Glows a river in evening, And the warm summer wind blows out across the fields, And it calls us and tells us to be happy And it climbs up towards the troubled heart. A plea to relish the charm of life While there is youth and the evening is fair, For we shall go away; like water that is flowing: Into the sea, we to the tomb.
As the sun sets rivers run red A lukewarm quiver through fields of wheat 'Be happy' seems to sort things out Comes close to a troubled heart
'Taste the joy' of being alive While we are young the evening still beautiful For on we go As goes this wave She to the sea Us to the grave
Description
Beau Soir, which translates to "beautiful evening," is set to a text based on a poem by Paul Bourget. The poem paints the picture of a beautiful evening where the rivers are turned rose-colored by the sunset and the wheat fields are moved by a warm breeze. Debussy uses a gently flowing triplet rhythm in the accompaniment, which contrasts the duplets that drive the light melody. The piano and voice partner to create the sensation of peace that one might feel in the evening in nature, fitting the post-Romantic style. As any evening fades, however, so does the mood of the piece, and the song modulates from E major to F-sharp minor. The piece reaches its climax when the melody reaches a high F-sharp, paired with the word "beau". The combination of the text and melody powerfully depicts the beauty of the sun.
It was long thought that this was Debussy's first composition, written at age 15 or 16 in 1877 or 78, to impress a girl he liked, but it has since been shown that the song was actually written when he was around 28 in 1890 or 91 and already an accomplished composer, though he had yet to write his major break-through compositions (such as "Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faune" and La Mer).[1]
It has also been successfully arranged for various instruments, including for violin and piano by Jascha Heifetz[2] (recorded by Midori Gotō), and cello and piano by Julian Lloyd Webber.[3] There also exists a 1979 arrangement for mixed chorus with piano by Richard Gard.
Use in other media
The piece is used as a backdrop near the very end of the 1927 film The Jazz Singer, which is generally credited as the very first "talkie" motion picture. It is also featured in the 1950 film All About Eve.
An arrangement of the song for orchestra and voice by Larry Mayfield was the theme song of religious DJ Bill Pearce's Nightsounds broadcast from 1970 to 2007.
An arrangement of the song for solo piano by Koji Attwood has been recorded by pianists Michael Lewin and Ernest So.
The piece is used as performance with Gustav Klimt-like decor in the episode "The Master Blackmailer", from the TV-series The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes (1991).
Notes
↑ Debussy's true first composition was indeed a song, written in 1879 when he was 17, called "Madrid, Princess of Spain", to a text by Alfred de Musset, followed the next year by several settings of poems by his favorite poet at the time, Théodore de Banville.
The pantoum is a poetic form derived from the pantun, a Malay verse form: specifically from the pantun berkait, a series of interwoven quatrains.
Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. His best-regarded films formed part of the poetic realist movement, and include Les Enfants du Paradis (1945).
Georges Auric was a French composer, born in Lodève, Hérault. He was considered one of Les Six, a group of artists informally associated with Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. Before he turned 20 he had orchestrated and written incidental music for several ballets and stage productions. He also had a distinguished career as a film composer.
"Ons Heemecht" is the national anthem of Luxembourg. The title in Luxembourgish translates as "Our Homeland". Michel Lentz wrote the words in 1859, and they were set to music by Jean Antoine Zinnen in 1864. The song was first performed in public in Ettelbruck, a town at the confluence of the Alzette and Sauer rivers on 5 June 1864.
"Ma Normandie" is the semi-official anthem of the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British Crown dependency in the Channel Islands, and was written and composed by Frédéric Bérat. Jersey is historically part of the Duchy of Normandy, and French has been for centuries an official administrative language of Jersey, whose inhabitants have traditionally spoken a variety of Norman language.
Jessye Mae Norman is an American opera singer and recitalist. A dramatic soprano, Norman is associated in particular with the Wagnerian repertoire, and with the roles of Sieglinde, Ariadne, Alceste, and Leonore. Norman has been inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and is a Spingarn Medalist. Apart from receiving several honorary doctorates and other awards, she has also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, and is a member of the British Royal Academy of Music.
Schwanengesang, D 957, is a collection of songs written by Franz Schubert at the end of his life and published posthumously.
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, known in English as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, is a symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration. It was composed in the year 1894, the same year that the piece was first performed. It was first performed in Paris on 22 December 1894, conducted by Gustave Doret. The flute solo was played by Georges Barrère.
The Pavane in F-sharp minor, Op. 50, is a pavane by the French composer Gabriel Fauré written in 1887. It was originally a piano piece, but is better known in Fauré's version for orchestra and optional chorus. Obtaining its rhythm from the slow processional Spanish court dance of the same name, the Pavane ebbs and flows from a series of harmonic and melodic climaxes, conjuring a haunting Belle Époque elegance. The piece is scored for only modest orchestral forces consisting of string instruments and one pair each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns. A typical performance lasts about six minutes.
Sea Shells is an album by jazz singer Peggy Lee that was released in 1958.
Raymond Berthiaume was a Canadian jazz singer, musician, producer and composer from Quebec, Canada.
Les nuits d'été, Op. 7, is a song cycle by the French composer Hector Berlioz. It is a setting of six poems by Théophile Gautier. The cycle, completed in 1841, was originally for soloist and piano accompaniment. Berlioz orchestrated one of the songs in 1843, and did the same for the other five in 1856. The cycle was neglected for many years, but during the 20th century it became, and has remained, one of the composer's most popular works. The full orchestral version is more frequently performed in concert and on record than the piano original. The theme of the work is the progress of love, from youthful innocence to loss and finally renewal.
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is a twelve-line poem composed of three quatrains written by William Butler Yeats in 1888 and first published in the National Observer in 1890. It was reprinted in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics in 1892 and as an illustrated Cuala Press Broadside in 1932.
Made in England / Gentle Dreams is a two-CD-set album released by the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber in 2003.
Trois mélodies is a set of mélodies for solo voice and piano, by Gabriel Fauré. It is composed of "Après un rêve", one of Faure's most popular vocal pieces, "Hymne", and "Barcarolle". The songs were written between 1870 and 1877, and published in 1878. They were not, however, originally conceived together as a set of three; the opus number 7 was imposed on them retrospectively in the 1890s, almost 20 years after their first publications.
La fille aux cheveux de lin is a musical composition for solo piano by French composer Claude Debussy. It is the eighth piece in the composer's first book of Préludes, written between late 1909 and early 1910. The title is in French and translates roughly to "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair". The piece is 39 measures long and takes approximately two and a half minutes to play. It is in the key of G♭ major.
The Love Songs of Hafiz is the name of two song cycles by Karol Szymanowski, Op. 24 with piano accompaniment, and Op. 26 with orchestral accompaniment. There are six songs in Op. 24, three of them orchestrated in Op. 26, and five additional songs, unique to Op. 26. They were composed in Vienna, Austria in 1911 and 1914, respectively. The works represent a transition between the first and second periods of the composer's style.
Clarence R. Kohlmann was an American keyboardist and composer. He achieved renown for his arrangements of sacred music for the piano and organ.
Clair de Lune is a French poem written by Paul Verlaine in 1869. It is the inspiration for the third and most famous movement of Debussy's 1890 Suite bergamasque of the same name; Debussy also made two settings of the poem for voice and piano accompaniment. The poem has also been set to music by Gabriel Fauré and Jozef Szulc.
American composer Richard Faith has been known primarily in university music circles as a concert pianist, professor of piano, and a published composer of piano pedagogy literature, orchestral and chamber works, opera and most prolifically, song. A neo-romantic, Faith has always been first and foremost a melodist.
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