Читать книгу The Faure Song Cycles - Stephen Rumph - Страница 20

If “Lydia” is the locus classicus of Fauré’s Parnassian style, then Poème d’un jour is its ars poetica, a worthy companion to the programmatic poems of Leconte de Lisle and Gautier. Little information survives about the poet Charles Grandmougin. Best known today for his librettos to César Franck’s Hulda and Jules Massenet’s La vierge, Grandmougin distinguished himself as a regionalist poet devoted to his native Franche-Comté.²⁶ He published two poems in the third volume of Le Parnasse contemporain (1876), and two years later, in the year of Poème d’un jour, he composed a “drame antique,” Prométhée (unrelated to Fauré’s 1900 lyric drama of the same name). The Parnassian influence in Grandmougin’s play peeks out in an original plot twist not found in Aeschylus. In the third scene, Venus appears with a chorus of Cupids to tempt Prometheus, promising him eternal love if he will but renounce humanity and join the immortal gods. With firm mind and manly resolve, the Titan resists the pull of the flesh:

Dans mes yeux apparâit mon âme courroucée;

Tu peux y voir le feu de toute ma pensée;

Le charme de ton corps les laisse indifférents.

Que peut leur importer la splendeur d’une femme?

My enraged soul appears in my eyes;

You can read therein the fire of my full mind;

The allure of your body leaves them unmoved.

What could a woman’s splendor matter to them?

By 1878, Grandmougin had published only one collection of poetry, Les siestes (1874), which treats the familiar Parnassian themes. “L’été” ends by mourning the lost vitality of antiquity:

Notre soleil paraît plus froid, nos cieux plus ternes;

Adieu, flamboîment pur des étés primitifs!

Qui rendra la vaillance aux poëtes plaintifs?

Qui rendra la lumière à nos âmes modernes?

Our sun seems colder, our skies duller;

Farewell, pure radiance of primitive summers!

Who will restore courage to the sorrowful poets?

Who will restore light to our modern souls?

Grandmougin included the obligatory ode to the Venus de Milo (“À la Vénus de Milo enfermée pendant la Commune dans une cave de la préfecture de police”), but Les siestes also takes gentle aim at the Parnassian sculptural fetish. The sonnet “Sur une Psyché” recounts a museum visit:

C’était au Louvre, dans la salle de sculpture;

Fatigué de Vénus et d’amours assez laids,

J’étais debout devant Psyché: je contemplais

Son corps aérien et sans musculature.

Once at the Louvre, in the sculpture hall,

Weary of Venus and the rather ugly Cupids,

I stood before Psyche: I contemplated

Her light, unmuscled body.

The poet embraces the lifelike statue, but alas, he does not experience the mystical palingenesis of “Lydia”:

Moi jaloux, j’embrassai la Psyché, plein de fièvre,

Désirant ardemment cette pâle beauté,

Et ne trouvai qu’un peu de poussière à sa lèvre.

Jealously, I embraced the Psyche in a fever,

Ardently desiring that pale beauty,

And found nothing but a bit of dust on my lips.

Les siestes reveals a poet who embraced the Parnassian project yet remained capable of a critical, even satiric distance.

Since the source of Poème d’un jour remains unknown, we cannot determine whether Grandmougin wrote the three poems as a triptych. Nevertheless, they suggest an intriguing historical progression. While the third (“Adieu”) is a quintessentially Parnassian artifact, the first (“Rencontre”) in many ways exemplifies the Romantic style rejected by the Parnassians:

J’étais triste et pensif quand je t’ai rencontrée,

Je sens moins aujourd’hui mon obstiné tourment;

Ô dis-moi, serais-tu la femme inespérée,

Et le rêve idéal poursuivi vainement?

Ô passante aux doux yeux, serais-tu donc l’amie

Qui rendrait le bonheur au poète isolé,

Et vas-tu rayonner sur mon âme affermie,

Comme le ciel natal sur un coeur d’exilé?

Ta tristesse sauvage, à la mienne pareille,

Aime à voir le soleil décliner sur la mer!

Devant l’immensité ton extase s’éveille,

Et le charme des soirs à ta belle âme est cher;

Une mystérieuse et douce sympathie

Déjà m’enchaîne à toi comme un vivant lien,

Et mon âme frémit, par l’amour envahie,

Et mon cœur te chérit sans te connaître bien!

I was sad and pensive when I met you,

I feel my stubborn torment less today;

O tell me, will you be the unexpected woman

And the ideal dream I pursued in vain?

O passerby with the sweet eyes, will you then be the lover

That restores happiness to the isolated poet?

And will you shine upon my restored soul

Like the native sky upon an exile’s heart?

Your wild sadness, so like my own,

Loves to watch the sunset on the sea!

Before its immensity your ecstasy awakens,

And the charm of the evenings is precious to your dear soul;

A mysterious and sweet sympathy

Already enchains me to you like a living tie,

And my soul trembles, invaded by love,

And my heart cherishes you without knowing you well!

The sentimentality and confessional tone, perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, belong to an earlier age, as do the bland commonplaces—isolated poet, ocean sunset, ideal dream. The leisurely alexandrines also lack the concision prized by the Parnassians. In fact, the poetic meter grows more concentrated across Poème d’un jour, shifting to octosyllables in “Toujours” and ending with alternating eight- and two-syllable lines in “Adieu.” Fauré’s musical forms follow the same path: the cycle begins with the loose strophes of the salon romance, moves to a modified da capo, and ends with a perfectly symmetrical da capo form.

The negligent lyricism of Grandmougin’s “poète isolé” finds an analogue in the harmonic structure of “Rencontre” (see example 2.2). Let us begin with a small detail: Fauré’s melody ends with a retrograde of its first three notes, D♭-C-B♭. The line descends as -- in m. 2 and reascends as -- in mm. 20–21. Moreover, the first phrase ends with the same descending line (m. 4) but now functioning as -- of B♭ minor. The third phrase also cadences on the relative minor, descending through the same three notes (m. 9). Accordingly, when the three-note line returns inverted in the final cadence, rising in ponderous augmentation and supported by an emphatic IV-V⁷-I progression, it corrects the tonal drift of the first and third phrases.

Tonal instability runs deeper still in the first half of Fauré’s strophes. The four phrases form an ABABʹ period, but Fauré has deformed the harmonic structure. The antecedent does not reach a half cadence in the tonic but ends instead with a half cadence in F minor, the mediant (m. 6). The consequent begins in the tonic, but it also drifts away and reaches a full cadence in F minor (mm. 11–12). The first half of “Rencontre” persistently evades the tonic, gravitating toward keys a third above or below.

In the second half of the strophe, as the poet addresses the beloved, the drooping melody reverses direction and climbs to a triumphant climax. The first phrase surges to the upper tonic twice then breaks through this ceiling to reach high F (m. 15). The second phrase repeats the pattern in sequence, pushing twice against F before reaching the climactic A♭ above a cathartic I^6/4 chord. Meanwhile, the harmony returns to the secure orbit of the tonic. The first phrase reaches a firm half cadence in D♭ (mm. 15–16), answered by the emphatic final cadence and its inverted -- line. Fauré’s retrograde of the opening three notes, therefore, plays both a melodic and harmonic role in the expressive design of “Rencontre.” The rising line not only reverses the hangdog contour of the opening melody but also corrects the entropic drift away from the tonic.

EXAMPLE 2.2. Tonal ambivalence in Fauré, “Rencontre,” Poème d’un jour, op. 21, mm. 1–21.

EXAMPLE 2.2. (continued)

EXAMPLE 2.2. (continued)

Yet this victory has a false note. There is an operatic bravura foreign to Fauré’s customary reserve in this vocal climax. “Rencontre” unabashedly indulges the vocalist, showcasing the singing subject. As Marshall Brown put it, “Fauré reveals absorption in a vision as self-absorption.”²⁷ The second song, “Toujours,” will end on an even more flamboyant high note as the opera house fully invades the salon. The vehemence of both songs betrays a lack of control, as if the poet can only express himself through sheer rhetorical force.

“Toujours” intensifies every disruptive element of the first song as the rejected poet hurls reproaches at his unfaithful lover:

Vous me demandez de ma taire,	You ask me to be quiet,
De fuir loin de vous pour jamais,	To flee far from you forever
Et de m’en aller, solitaire,	And to depart alone
Sans me rappeler qui j’aimais!	Without thinking of the one I loved!
Demandez plutôt aux étoiles	Rather ask the stars
De tomber dans l’immensité,	To fall from the sky,
À la nuit de perdre ses voiles,	Or the night to lift its veils,
Au jour de perdre sa clarté,	Or the day to lose its brightness!
Demandez à la mer immense	Rather ask the immense ocean
De dessécher ses vastes flots,	To dry up its vast waves,
Et, quand les vents sont en démence,	And the madly raging winds
D’apaiser ses sombres sanglots!	To calm their dismal sobbing!
Mais n’espérez pas que mon âme	But do not hope that my soul
S’arrache à ses âpres douleurs	Can ever tear itself from its sorrow
Et se dépouille de sa flame	And shed its flames
Comme le printemps de ses fleurs!	Like the spring sheds its flowers!

The suave arpeggios of “Rencontre” return here as violent waves, crashing on the weak beats. The melody again begins with an impetuous double upbeat but now stretched into emphatic quarter notes. The harmony of “Toujours” also follows the same wayward path as “Rencontre,” plunging immediately to the submediant, D major.

Indeed, the third relations that ruffled the surface of “Rencontre” usurp the tonal structure itself in “Toujours.” The middle section is the most audacious harmonic passage Fauré had yet composed and will require a detour into some rather complex technical analysis (see example 2.3). In Grandmougin’s second and third stanzas, the poet unleashes a barrage of similes whose hyperbolic rhetoric reverberates in Fauré’s harmony. The passage rotates through a complete minor-third cycle, rising a third with each new poetic conceit: after a half cadence in F♯ minor, the passage modulates to A major (m. 12), C major (m. 16), D♯ major (m. 20), and back to F♯ minor (m. 24). Moreover, another symmetrical formation, the augmented triad, governs the progression at a lower level. The modulation from A to C major in mm. 12–16 hinges on the augmented triad [B♯ E G♯]. The progression begins with an E-major triad, V of A major; the fifth of the triad, B, rises a semitone, producing the augmented triad; the third, G♯, then sinks a semitone to yield a C-major triad. Fauré repeated the same maneuver in mm. 17–20, moving between G and D♯ triads through another augmented triad [D♯ G B]. The final modulation back to F♯ minor in mm. 21–24 passes from E♯ major to F♯ minor via the augmented triad [C♯ E♯ G] (see Ex. 2.3, mm. 20–22).

EXAMPLE 2.3. Modulation by Weitzmann regions in Fauré, “Toujours,” Poème d’un jour mm. 11–25.

EXAMPLE 2.3. (continued)

EXAMPLE 2.4. Weitzmann region in Fauré, Introït, Requiem, op. 48, mm. 50–61. Derived from Cohn, Audacious Euphony, 55.

This passage demonstrates the alternative diatonic syntax explored by neo-Riemannian theory in which chromatic voice-leading, rather than root progression, governs the movement between triads. Richard Cohn has located a similar passage in the Introït of Fauré’s Requiem, composed ten years after Poème d’un jour (see example 2.4).²⁸ The augmented triad [A C♯ F], spelled in various ways, provides a pivot between F♯-minor, B♭-minor, F-major, and D-minor triads. All four triads belong to a single “Weitzmann region,” Cohn’s term for the six consonant triads that result from displacing the notes of an augmented triad by one semitone: lowering any note by a semitone yields a major triad, while raising any note produces a minor triad.²⁹ Fauré exploited three of the four possible Weitzmann regions in “Toujours,” using three different augmented triads to modulate through the minor-third cycle. In the first two modulations, he reached the second triad in the rotation by lowering the fifth of the augmented chord (G♯ → G, B → B♭). He broke out of the pattern in the third modulation (mm. 22–24), raising the fifth of the augmented triad [A C♯ E♯] to lead back to F♯ minor (E♯ → F♯).

“Toujours” thus presses the harmonic dialectic of “Rencontre” to the breaking point, abandoning traditional tonality altogether. The first song had drifted into keys a major and minor third from the tonic; the second song uses these same intervals to construct an alternative harmonic system. The tonal structure becomes literally rootless, like the isolated poet. Located at the heart of Poème d’un jour, this astonishing passage threatens the disintegration of the musical language.

The final song, “Adieu,” must resolve these tensions and rebuild the harmonic structure on more solid foundations. Grandmougin’s poem is a paragon of Parnassian verse:

Comme tout meurt vite, la rose

Déclose,

Et les frais manteaux diaprés

Des prés;

Les longs soupirs, les bienaimées,

Fumées!

On voit dans ce monde léger

Changer,

Plus vite que les flots des grèves,

Nos rêves,

Plus vite que le givre en fleurs,

Nos cœurs!

À vous l’on se croyait fidèle,

Cruelle,

Mais hélas! les plus longs amours

Sont courts!

Et je dis en quittant vos charmes,

Sans larmes,

Presqu’au moment de mon aveu,

Adieu!

How quickly all dies, the rose

In bloom,

And the fresh iridescent mantles

Of the meadows;

The longs sighs, the beloveds,

Up in smoke!

One sees in this world how lightly

Change,

More quickly than the waves against the shores,

Our dreams,

More quickly than the frost on the flowers,

Our hearts!

One believed you to be faithful,

Cruel one,

But, alas! the longest loves

Are short!

And I say, as I leave your charms,

Without tears,

Almost at the moment of declaring myself,

Farewell!

The chiseled form and two-syllable lines recall Gautier’s “L’Art.” Grandmougin’s poem also abounds in rich rhymes—“diaprés”/“prés,” “grèves”/“rêves,” “charmes”/“larmes.” Form and content create an admirable unity: the short lines emphasize ephemeral images (bloom, smoke, change, dreams), creating a cadence into which the final “Adieu!” drops with fatalistic certainty. Line 16 even comments on the meter—“Sont courts!” says the two-syllable line, “They are short!” The confessional tone has vanished and the pronoun “je” occurs only once, replaced by the impersonal “on.” Emotion has receded into form; personal expression into detached reflection.

Fauré reached back to “Lydia” to set this Olympian poem (see example 2.5). The chorale texture, portato articulation, and steady quarter notes all recall the earlier song. The Lydian fourth, C♮, appears on cue in the third phrase, harmonized by the modal dominant, B♭ minor. James Kidd also noted the influence of Niedermeyer and d’Ortigue’s treatise on plainchant accompaniment in “Adieu,” both in the left hand’s parallel thirds and in the unusual iii-IV progression in m. 7.³⁰ Fauré has purged all operatic vulgarity: the expression remains dolce (or even dolcissimo) throughout the song; the dynamics rarely swell above piano; and the one sustained high note is to be sung pianissimo. Critics have unfailingly singled out “Adieu” as the jewel of the cycle, perhaps because its reticence fits with an idealized vision of Fauré’s style—for Jankélévitch, “Adieu” possessed “more conviction” than the first two songs.³¹ Yet the song owes this conviction, or authenticity, to a deliberately archaic style that Fauré cultivated in response to the Parnassian poets. The neoclassical restraint of “Adieu,” no less than the theatricality of “Rencontre” and “Toujours,” plays its role within the poetic allegory of Poème d’un jour.

EXAMPLE 2.5. Fauré, “Adieu,” Poème d’un jour, mm. 1–12.

EXAMPLE 2.6. Hypothetical half cadence in Fauré, “Adieu,” Poème d’un jour, m. 8.

The old church modes allow “Adieu” to resolve the tonal issues that plagued the first two songs. The opening vocal phrase awakens obvious memories of “Rencontre”: as in the opening song, the melody descends from D♭ and then outlines a ii⁷ chord as it reascends. Of course, the first note plays a different tonal role in the outer songs, functioning as of D♭ major in “Rencontre” and of G♭ major in “Adieu.” Yet the C♮ in m. 7 forges a common link between the two songs, reactivating the D♭-C-B♭ line that persistently derailed the key in “Rencontre.” Indeed, the Lydian fourth also threatens to shunt “Adieu” into B♭ minor, the key into which the first phrase of “Rencontre” drifts. The first half of m. 8 strongly implies a half cadence in B♭ minor, as can be seen in a hypothetical version (see example 2.6). But the implied cadence is thwarted by the A♭ on beat 3. Without the A♮ leading tone, the half cadence cannot convincingly tonicize B♭ minor. The phrase lights instead on an inconclusive F-minor triad and returns smoothly to the tonic as the outer voices expand in contrary motion.

In this way, the ancient modes correct the tonal slippage of “Rencontre.” In “Adieu,” Fauré rewrote the opening melody of Poème d’un jour according to the modal system that he pioneered in “Lydia,” using the raised fourth as a pivot between the keys of G♭ major and B♭ minor. Yet since the Lydian scale does not include A♮, the chromatic tone needed for a modern applied dominant, it prevents the song from settling on the mediant. The song hovers between tonal centers, but never drifts off course as in “Rencontre.” With this modal reinterpretation of the D♭-C-B♭ line, “Adieu” reintegrates the dissociated harmony of the first song, grounding the modern tonal language in the timeless forms of antique art.

EXAMPLE 2.7. Fauré, “Adieu,” Poème d’un jour, mm. 28–34.

The symmetrical da capo form also allows “Adieu” to contain the turbulent energies of “Toujours.” The middle section returns to the key of the second song, oscillating between F♯ minor and D major, tonic and submediant. The restless arpeggios return along with the melodic upbeats, ruffling the serene hymn. The da capo restores order in m. 23, even as the piano’s broken chords quietly absorb the restless energies of the middle section. “Adieu” thus recapitulates the journey of Poème d’un jour, absorbing the cycle’s violent emotions within the sturdy symmetry of the da capo form. Nevertheless, the specter of chaos peeks out once more at the end. On the penultimate line, as the poet recalls his first declaration of love, “Adieu” drops abruptly into E♭ major (see example 2.7). Orledge perhaps exaggerated in writing that “Fauré comes close to disaster at the end of ‘Adieu,’ ” but the effect is certainly jarring within this Apollonian song.³² The tonic returns after two bars, and a pair of plagal cadences smooth away the brief disruption. This final harmonic detour bids farewell to the third relations that troubled Poème d’un jour from the opening bars and seals the victory of form over passion.

Fauré composed Poème d’un jour at a turning point in his career. He had just published his first work, the Violin Sonata in A Major (op. 13), and the following year he would complete two major works, the Ballade (op. 19) and the Piano Quartet in C Minor (op. 15). As Fauré broke with Pauline Viardot’s theatrical family, he gradually divested himself of the operatic ambitions that she had foisted on him, which had led to a string of vain projects.³³ As the composer would reflect years later, “This break was perhaps not so bad for me, since within the dear Viardot family I would surely have been diverted from my true path.”³⁴ Within the coming-of-age plot of Poème d’un jour, the operatic tone of the first two songs perhaps represents the stage career that had tempted the young composer chez Viardot, while the third song points to a higher path, embodying the poise, craftsmanship, and historicity prized by the Parnassians. These qualities make “Adieu” a worthy prize song for the apprentice composer as he embarked on a new stage in his career.

Poème d’un jour also marks a milestone in Fauré’s conception of the word-music relationship. In a 1911 article, the composer surprisingly disparaged his settings of Leconte de Lisle. While few listeners will agree with his assessment, Fauré’s explanation bears repeating. The poetry, he wrote, is “too full, too rich, too complete for music to adapt to it successfully.”³⁵ The rich rhymes and intricate forms of the Parnassians do indeed present a daunting challenge to the composer, and the strain can be felt in “Adieu.” Grandmougin’s two-syllable lines fit awkwardly into the symmetrical melodic structure; they either tumble out quickly or echo redundantly like afterthoughts. The lonely iambs introduce a note of hesitancy, complicating the flow of the vocal melody. The Parnassian form thus clips the wings of the operatic muse who fluttered so freely through the first two songs. In the end, Poème d’un jour exalts poetry, guardian of the manly virtues of reason, logic, and form, above pure music. But the balance of power would shift radically in Fauré’s next song cycle after he met his most congenial poet.