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Micheline's Blog

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Daily Archives: October 6, 2012

Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré & Alexandre Cabanel: a Canticle

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Literature, Music, The Human Condition

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Alexandre Cabanel, Cantique de Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré, Hippolytus, Jean Racine, Phaedra, Theseus, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

 

Phèdre, by Alexandre Cabanel (1880)

Alexandre Cabanel  (28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jean Racine’ Phèdre

Jean Racine (22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) is the foremost dramatist (tragedy) of 17th-century France.  Racine is best known for his tragedies the most powerful of which may be Phaedra EN (Phèdre FR) which premiered 1 on January 1677, at l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, the best venue in Paris.

In Greek mythology, Phaedra is the daughter of Pasiphaë, the granddaughter of Helios, the personification of the Sun, and the daughter of Minos, king of Crete and the son of Zeus.  She is married to Theseus, the founding hero of Athens, who slayed the Minotaur, aided by Ariadne, Phaedra’s sister.  Ariadne gave Theseus a thread (le fil d’Ariane) to guide him to the Minotaur, was enclosed in the Cretan labyrinth.  The Minotaur is the child of Pasiphaë and a bull and, therefore, a half-brother to Phaedra and her sister Ariadne.  As for the bull, he may be the Sacred Bull, a White Bull. Europa was seduced by Zeus disguised as a bull. (See Europa, Wikipedia.)

Europa and the Bull - Red-Figure Pottery, Stamnos, Tarquinia Museum, circa 480 BCE (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Europa and the Bull, Greek Red-Figure Pottery, circa 480 BCE (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

In Racine’s tragedy, Theseus, Phèdre’s husband, has a son by a previous marriage, Hippolytus.  During a lenghty absence, it is reported that Theseus has died. Phaedra, who has fallen in love with Hippolytus, tells him she loves him.  Hippolytus is horrified.  However, Theseus has not died.  When he returns home, a jealous Phaedra—she has learned that Hippolytus loves Aricie—tells Theseus that she was seduced by Hippolytus.

Theseus calls on Poseidon (Neptune), who has promised to grant him wishes, and asks him to avenge him.  A monster comes out of the sea and kills an innocent Hippolytus who is riding on a horse.  Guilt-ridden Phaedra commits suicide.

Racine’s play is based on Euripides’s Hippolytus, but Jean Racine’s play is the work of a writer who views love as devouring passion.

Jean Racine’s Phèdre is a Gutenberg publication.

Gabriel Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine

As for Gabriel Fauré‘s Cantique de Jean Racine, it was composed when Fauré was 19.  The text itself is a paraphrase, by Racine of a Medieval hymn entitled Consors paterni luminis.  In Racine’s paraphrase (see below) God seems distant as He also seems in Phèdre.  This hymn is sung at the beginning of Matins, the Canonical Hour that ends as day breaks.  Set to Fauré’s music, the meaning of the text, an almost despairing hope that God “notre unique espérance” (our only hope) will have mercy on powerless humanity is expressed in a poignant yet resigned manner.  Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine is the centrepiece of this post. 

Alexandre Cabanel: a portrait of Phèdre

Our featured artist is Alexandre Cabanel (28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889), an academic painter.  He won the Prix de Rome and was awarded the Grande Médaille d’Honneur at the Salons of 1865, 1867, and 1878.  In 1863, Cabanel was elected a member of the Institute, founded on 25 October 1795, and appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. 

Cabanel’s art has been described as art pompier (pompous), but his portrait of Phèdre is exquisite and renders her inability to fight a fatal love. She looks powerless.  Cabanel’s most famous work is The Birth of Venus, 1863, housed at the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris.

The Birth of Venus, by Alexandre Cabanel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Le Cantique de Jean Racine: the Text

I have not provided an English translation of Racine’s Cantique.  However, translations of the canticle are available, in several languages, at ChoralWiki (simply click).

Verbe, égal au Très-Haut, notre unique espérance,
Jour éternel de la terre et des cieux ;
De la paisible nuit nous rompons le silence,
Divin Sauveur, jette sur nous les yeux !

Répands sur nous le feu de ta grâce puissante,
Que tout l’enfer fuie au son de ta voix ;
Dissipe le sommeil d’une âme languissante,
Qui la conduit à l’oubli de tes lois !

Ô Christ, sois favorable à ce peuple fidèle
Pour te bénir maintenant rassemblé.
Reçois les chants qu’il offre à ta gloire immortelle,
Et de tes dons qu’il retourne comblé !

 
 
composer: Gabriel Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924)
work: Cantique de Jean Racine, Op 11
performer: unidentified
 
imagesCA1Z0ES3© Micheline Walker
October 6th, 2012
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Clément Janequin’s “Le Chant des oyseaulx”

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Music, polyphony

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Canon, chanson, Clément Janequin, La Pléiade, Le Chant des oyseaulx, onomatopoia, Pierre de Ronsard, polyphony

Students of musicology smile or laugh when they hear the onomatopoeic effects of Clément Janequin‘s Le Chant des oyseaulx.

composer: Clément Janequin (c. 1485  – 1558)
work: Le Chant des oyseaulx
performers: Ensemble Clément Janequin
director: Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse (countertenor), Michel Laplénie (tenor), Philippe Cantor (baritone), Antoine Sicot (bass), Claude Debôves (lute)
 
 
1)
Reveillez vous, cueurs endormis/ Le dieu d’amour vous sonne.
À ce premier jour de may/ Oyseaulx feront merveilles/ Pour vous mettre hors d’esmay. / Destoupez vos oreilles./ Et farirariron, Et farirariron, Et farirarison,/
ferely, ioly, ioly, ioly, ioly, ioly,/ Et farirariron, farirariron, ferely, ioly/ Vous serez tous en joye mis,/ Car la saison est bonne. 

Awake, sleepy hearts,/ The god of love calls you./ On this first day of May,/ The birds will make you marvel./ To lift yourself from dismay,/ Unclog your ears./ And fa la la la la (etc…)/ You will be moved to joy,/ For the season is good.

2)
Vous orrez, à mon advis,/ Une doulce musique,/ Que fera le roy mauvis,/ D’une voix authentique :/Ti, ti, pi-ti (etc…)/ Rire et gaudir c’est mon devis,/ Chacun s’i habandonne.

You will hear, I advise you,/ A sweet music/ That the royal blackbird will sing/ In a pure voice./ Ti, ti, pi-ti (etc…)/ To laugh and rejoice is my device,/ Each with abandon.

3)
Rossignol du boys joly,/ À qui la voix resonne,/ Pour vous mettre hors d’ennuy
Votre gorge iargonne:/ Fuyez, regretz, pleurs et soucy,/ Car la saison l’ordonne.

Nightingale of the pretty woods,/ Whose voice resounds,/ So you don’t become bored,/ Your throat jabbers away:/ Frian, frian (etc…)/ Flee, regrets, tears and worries,/ For the season commands it.

4)
Arrière; maistre coucou,/ Sortez de no chapitre,/ Chacun vous donne au hibou /
Car vous n’estes qu’un traistre,/ Car vous n’estes qu’un traistre,
Coucou, coucou, coucou, coucou,/ Par tra-i-son,/ en chacun nid,/ Pondez sans qu’on vous sonne,/ Reveillez vous, cueurs endormiz, reveillez vous, / Le dieu d’amours vous sonne.

Turn around, master cuckoo/  Get out of our company./  Each of us gives you a ‘bye-bye’/  For you are nothing but a traitor./  Cuckoo, cuckoo (etc…) / Treacherously in others’ nests,/  You lay without being called./  Awake, sleepy hearts,/ The god of love is calling you.

—ooo—

There are several versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx. I used the lyrics provided by l’Ensemble Clément Janequin on YouTube. I believe our version has four stanzas. In order to look at various versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx, and translations into English, simply click on lyrics.*

* Retrieved from “http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Le_Chant_des_Oiseaux_(Cl%C3%A9ment_Janequin)&oldid=378489“

Clément Janequin

Clément Janequin (c. 1485  – 1558) was born in Châtellerault, near Poitiers, and was a French composer of the Renaissance. Clément Janequin’s music is programmatic[i] in that it has an extra-musical narrative, the singing of birds. Janequin’s main musical challenge was polyphony, mixing voices, an art that was developing in his era and was a challenge to all composers. At times, Le Chant des oyseaulx sounds like a canon and is just that, a canon.

By and large, Janequin held positions that earned him a meagre income, a matter he mentions in his will. He was a clerk to Lancelot du Fau the future Bishop of Luçon until the bishop’s death in 1523. He then held a similar position with the Bishop of Bordeaux. During that period of his life, he also became a priest and held appointments in Anjou.

His lifestyle improved after he met Jean de Guise and Charles de Ronsard, Pierre de Ronsard‘s brother. Pierre de Ronsard (11 September 1542 – 28 December 1585), the “Prince of Poets,” was the leader of an informal académie known as La Pléiade, named after the Alexandrian Pleiad, 3rd century BCE.

Clément Janequin was a very prolific songwriter. Guise and Ronsard helped him secure a position as curate at Unverre, near Chartres. At that point, he started to live in Paris and his chansons were extremely popular. In fact, Pierre Attaingnant[ii] (c. 1494 – late 1551 or 1552) printed five volumes of Janequin’s chansons. In Paris, Janequin also became “singer ordinary” of the King’s Chapel and later “composer ordinary.” Janequin composed very few sacred works.

Clément Janequin is best-known for Le Chant des oyseaulx and La Bataille, but also composed love songs, some of which are quite explicit. In fact, Le Chant des oyseaulx is a love song.

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Sources and Resources

As noted above, other versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx, and translations into English, can be found at http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Le_Chant_des_Oiseaux_(Cl%C3%A9ment_Janequin)&oldid=378489

_______________
 

[i] As opposed to “absolute” music, which is self-referential.
[ii]
 Significant figures in music printing are Ottaviano Petrucci, Pierre Attaingnant and, it would appear, John Rastell. In 1591, Petrucci  (18 June 1466 – 7 May 1539) published a book of chansons entitled Harmonice Musices Odhecaton.
Grigory Sokolov – Jean-Philippe Rameau ‘Le Rappel des oiseaux’ – YouTube

 
John James Audubon 1785 – 1851
Passenger Pidgeon
Musée de la Civilisation 2003 (QC) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Micheline Walker
6 October 2012
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