Songs
Pantomime
(1882)
L31
Pantomime
Pierrot, qui n’a rien d’un Clitandre,Vide un flacon sans plus attendre,Et, pratique, entame un pâté.Cassandre, au fond de l’avenue,Verse une larme méconnueSur son neveu déshérité.Ce faquin d’Arlequin combineL’enlèvement de ColombineEt pirouette quatre fois.Colombine rêve, surpriseDe sentir un coeur dans la briseEt d’entendre en son coeur des voix.
Pantomime
Pierrot, who is no Clitandre,Gulps down a bottle without delayAnd, being practical, starts on a pie.Cassandre, at the end of the avenue,Sheds an unnoticed tearFor his disinherited nephew.That rogue of a Harlequin schemesHow to abduct ColombineAnd pirouettes four times.Colombine dreams, amazedTo sense a heart in the breezeAnd hear voices in her heart.
Translations by Richard Stokes, from A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000)
If you would like to use our texts and translations, please click here for more information.
Composer
(Achille) Claude Debussy was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Please click here for the full Wikipedia article.
See Full Entry
Poet
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
Born in Metz, Verlaine was educated at the Lycée Impérial Bonaparte (now the Lycée Condorcet) in Paris and then took up a post in the civil service. He began writing poetry at an early age, and was initially influenced by the Parnassien movement and its leader, Leconte de Lisle. Verlaine's first published poem was published in 1863 in La Revue du progrès, a publication founded by poet Louis-Xavier de Ricard. Verlaine was a frequenter of the salon of the Marquise de Ricard (Louis-Xavier de Ricard's mother) at 10 Boulevard des Batignolles and other social venues, where he rubbed shoulders with prominent artistic figures of the day: Anatole France, Emmanuel Chabrier, inventor-poet and humorist Charles Cros, the cynical anti-bourgeois idealist Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Théodore de Banville, François Coppée, Jose-Maria de Heredia, Leconte de Lisle, Catulle Mendes and others. Verlaine's first published collection, Poèmes saturniens (1866), though adversely commented upon by Sainte-Beuve, established him as a poet of promise and originality.
Taken from Wikipedia. To view the full article, please click here.
See Full Entry
Sorry, no further description available.
Previously performed at:
- 13 Oct 2018: Debussy: A Life in Song
-
- 23 Oct 2017: Mastercourse Day One
-
Pantomime
Pantomime
If you would like to use our texts and translations, please click here for more information.
Composer
(Achille) Claude Debussy was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Please click here for the full Wikipedia article.
See Full Entry
Poet
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
Born in Metz, Verlaine was educated at the Lycée Impérial Bonaparte (now the Lycée Condorcet) in Paris and then took up a post in the civil service. He began writing poetry at an early age, and was initially influenced by the Parnassien movement and its leader, Leconte de Lisle. Verlaine's first published poem was published in 1863 in La Revue du progrès, a publication founded by poet Louis-Xavier de Ricard. Verlaine was a frequenter of the salon of the Marquise de Ricard (Louis-Xavier de Ricard's mother) at 10 Boulevard des Batignolles and other social venues, where he rubbed shoulders with prominent artistic figures of the day: Anatole France, Emmanuel Chabrier, inventor-poet and humorist Charles Cros, the cynical anti-bourgeois idealist Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Théodore de Banville, François Coppée, Jose-Maria de Heredia, Leconte de Lisle, Catulle Mendes and others. Verlaine's first published collection, Poèmes saturniens (1866), though adversely commented upon by Sainte-Beuve, established him as a poet of promise and originality.
Taken from Wikipedia. To view the full article, please click here.
See Full Entry
Sorry, no further description available.
Previously performed at:
- 13 Oct 2018: Debussy: A Life in Song
- 23 Oct 2017: Mastercourse Day One