Au clair de la lune

Hector Berlioz - Les nuits d'ete (Janet Baker with Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia)

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• published: 09 Jun 2014
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Mezzo-soprano: Janet Baker Conductor: Richard Hickox Orchestra: City of London Sinfonia I. Villanelle - 0:00 II. Le spectre de la rose - 2:08 III. Sur les lagunes - 9:04 IV. Absence - 14:37 V. Auclimetiere - 19:52 VI. L'ile inconnue - 24:57 _____English Translations_____ I. Villanelle - 0:00 When the new season has come, when the cold has disappeared, together we will go, my lovely one, to gather lilies-of the valley in the woods. Beneath our feet picking the pearls that one sees trembling in the morning. We will go to hear the blackbirds whistle. Spring has come, my lovely one, this is the month blessed by lovers; and the bird, smoothing its wing, speaks its verses from the rim of its nest. Oh! Come here, onto this mossy bank to speak of our beautiful love, and say to me, in your sweet voice, Forever! Far, very far, wandering from our path, setting to flight the hidden rabbit, and the buck, in the mirror of the spring admiring its great twisted antlers; then home, all happy and at ease, lacing our fingers together like baskets, we'll return, carrying wild strawberries. _________________________ II. Le spectre de la rose - 2:08 Lift your closed eyelids, touched by a virginal dream! I am the ghost of a rose which you wore last night at the ball. You took me, still pearled with silver tears from the watering can, and, throughout the star-filled festival you carried me all the evening. Oh you who were the cause of my death, without your being able to chase it away, every night my rose-colored ghost will dance by your pillow. But fear nothing; I claim neither mass nor requiem. This light perfume is my soul, and I have come from paradise. My destiny is worthy of envy and to have a fate so beautiful more than one might have given his life; since your bosom is my tomb, And upon the alabaster where I rest a poet has written with a kiss: "Here lies a rose which all kings might envy." ____________________ III. Sur les lagunes - 9:04 My beautiful friend is dead; I will weep forever. Into the tomb she has carried my soul and my heart. To heaven, without waiting for me, she has returned; the angel who led her did not want to take me. How bitter is my fate! Ah! To go to sea without love! The fair creature is lying in her coffin; how everything in nature seems to me to be in mourning! The forsaken dove weeps and dreams of the absent one. My soul weeps and feels that it has lost its partner! How bitter is my fate! Ah! To go to sea without love! Over me the immense night spreads itself like a shroud. I sing my romance which only heaven hears: Ah! How beautiful she was and how I loved her! I will never love another woman as much as I loved her... How bitter is my fate! Ah! To go to sea without love! _________________ IV. l'Absence - 14:37 Return, return, my beloved! Like a flower far from the sun, the flower of my life is closed far from your brilliant smile! Between our hearts what distance! What space between our kisses! O bitter fate! O hard absence! O great, unappeasable desires! Return, return... Between here and there what fields, what cities and towns, what valleys and mountains to weary the feet of the horses! Return, return... ________________________________ V. Au Cimitière (Claire de lune) - 19:52 Do you know the white tomb, where floats, with a plaintive sound, the shadow of a yew-tree? On the yew a pale dove, sad and alone in the sunset, sings its song: A melody morbidly tender, at once charming and deadly, which will do you harm and which one wishes to listen to forever; a melody like the sighing in heaven of an angel in love. One might say that an awakened soul weeps beneath the earth together with the song, and, in sorrow at having been forgotten, laments by cooing very sweetly. On the wings of the music one slowly feels returning a memory. A shadow, an angelic form passes in a ray of trembling light, veiled in white. The half-closed Marvels of Peru spread their delicate and sweet perfume about you, and the ghost, standing limply, murmurs, holding her arms out to you: "You will return!" Oh! Never again will I go near the tomb when evening falls in its black robe, to listen to the pale dove singing, on the branch of the yew-tree, its plaintive song. _____________________ VI. L'Ile inconnue - 24:57 Tell me, pretty young girl, where do you wish to go? The sail spreads its wing, the breeze is beginning to blow. The oar is of ivory, the flag of silk, the rudder of pure gold; for ballast I have an orange, for sail the wing of an angel, for cabin-boy, a seraph. Tell me... Is it to the Baltic sea? To the Pacific ocean? To the island of Java? Or is it rather to Norway, to gather snow-flowers, or the flowers of Angsoka? Tell me, tell me, where do you want to go? "Take me," says the pretty one, "to the faithful shore where people love forever!" That shore, my dear, is almost unknown in the country of love. Where do you want to go? The breeze is beginning to blow.