op. 7 Hol. 81B / Six Songs-Hector Berlioz: Les nuits d'Ete for Solo Voice & Orchestra Op.7 Hol.81B . Version for medium voice. BA 5786-90: Vocal score voice & piano Berlioz composed these songs in 1840–41 between the composition of Roméo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust. The poems were taken from a collection entitled La comédie de la mort by Théophlie Gautier published in 1838. The songs were for mezzo-soprano or tenor with piano accompaniment and were published as a cycle under the title Les nuits d’été in 1841. The second and fourth songs Le spectre de la rose and Absence were performed a few times at that period and Absence was sung twice in February 1843 by Marie Recio on Berlioz’s first tour of Germany. For Marie who later became his second wife Berlioz at once orchestrated the song for mezzo-soprano and small orchestra. A dozen years later Berlioz orchestrated the remaining five songs of the cycle which appeared in its orchestral form in 1856. Two of these songs Le spectre de la rose and Sur les lagunes were now transposed to a lower key so that the cycle was no longer within the compass of a single voice. 1: Villanelle F major 2: Le spectre de la rose B major 3: Sur les lagunes F minor 4: Absence E-flat major 5: Au cimetière B-flat major 6: L’îsle inconnue D major Urtext of the New Berlioz Edition Full scores and parts available for hire (BA5786-72) English & German translations of the song texts printed sepatarely

The text for this piece is taken from five poems by W.H. Auden and one by Louis MacNiece.

The words for Panis Angelicus form an extract taken from St Thomas Aquinas’s hymn Sacris solemniis and frequently treated as a separate hymn. Of the many settings César Franck’s from 1872 is the best known.He included it in his Messe á Trois Voix for Tenor Harp Cello and Organ some years after that piece was written. Of all the works by Franck the Panis Angelicus with its serene meditative Vocal line and restrainedaccompaniment is the best known and certainly the most frequently recorded in all Voices and in many arrangements.