Au Bord De L'Eau (FAURE GABRIEL)

SKU: CA.925400

ISBN M-007-24916-8. Key: C sharp minor. Language: French. Text: Prudhomme, Sully.

In Au bord de l'eau (By the water) two lovers sit as in a dream, removed from the real world with all its conflicts. They only take themselves seriously, the surrounding nature lies as beneath a dream-like veil: steadily like the river flowing by, the passing clouds, the babbling brook, time also passes. The poet Sully Prudhomme, the first Nobel prizewinner for literature (1901), ends the poem with the assertion that only love is immortal. With this knowledge, Gabriel Faure's setting turns from a dreamy, deceptive C sharp minor to a more promising C sharp major. These art songs were originally composed not for chamber choir, but for solo voice and piano. Denis Rouger has carefully adapted them to suit the requirements and expressive possibilities offered by a larger ensemble, without losing the any of the qualities of the original in the process. Each part in the choir has a melodic line drawn from the harmonic and rhythmic framework. In the process, the variety and refinement of the choral language combines with an enormous flexibility in form and expression, as French melodies or German art song demand from a soloist and pianist. The songs have been recorded by the figure humaine chamber choir on the CD Kennst du das Land ... (Carus 83.495).

SKU: HL.48186452

UPC: 888680828363. 9.0x12.0x0.192 inches.

Widely acclaimed by music lovers for over a century, Selected Songs of Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) are here collected into an anthology, complete with an audio version in the form of a download card. Excerpted from the 1st collection published in 1879, Au bord de l?eau and Ici bas bestow an aura of internal reverie on Sully Prudhomme?s simple poems, made palpable by the harmonic refinement and vocal fluidity that constitutes the very essence of Faurean charm. Several vocal pages selected in the 2nd volume (1897) continue to be favourites: Les Roses d?Ispahan restored to their dreamy stillness, Les Berceaux whose oscillation evokes the swaying of boats, and the very nostalgic Clair de lune in which Verlaine?s words, set to music for the first time, inspired Faure to write what would become one of his masterpieces: La Bonne Chanson. From this cycle, drunk on lovelorn lyricism, the collection retains Puisque l?aube grandit, an exalted melody if there ever was one, and La lune blanche luit dans les bois, a nocturnal landscape in F sharp major ? two pearls that distil the same mystery of solace..