Though it is an acceptable trick for most classical vocalists to sacrifice word clarity for musical expression, it is not the case for the art songs of late 19th-century French composers like Claude Debussy and Gabriel Faure. In these works - set to brilliant texts by poets such as Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and others - listeners must be able to understand every word.
On Friday night in a packed Grant Recital Hall, three faculty musicians presented "The Art of the French Song: Debussy, Faure and the Poets." This recital showed how effective French 'melodie' can be when the words get as much attention as the music.
Dean of the College and mezzo-soprano Katherine Bergeron performed "La Chanson d'Eve" ("The Song of Eve"), a set of 10 songs by Faure. Baritone Fred Jodry, senior lecturer in music and director of choral activities, opened the program with works by Debussy. Assistant Professor of Music Dana Gooley accompanied both singers and performed solo piano pieces, also by Debussy.
Faure and Debussy's overlapping careers serve as important milestones in music's historical development from Romanticism to Modernism. Debussy's works made radical use of unusual scales and modes, producing textures that did not conform to traditional tonality. The older Faure was more conservative, but his works became more harmonically adventurous as his career progressed.
The "Chanson d'Eve," composed between 1906 and 1910, is an example of Faure's later, more unconventional style. Set to poems by Charles van Lerberghe, the song cycle depicts the beginning of the world as seen through the eyes of Eve. It begins with a surprising musical gesture.
On the words "C'est le premier matin du monde" ("It is the first morning of the world"), the singer leaps her voice up an interval of a fifth to enter into a tight, dissonant minor second with the piano.
The effect of this movement is a discord that resonates with the biblical narrative as Faure, in only a few bars of music, seems to foreshadow humanity's expulsion from Eden.
With a full spectrum of tempo, the "Chanson d'Eve" makes enormous emotional demands of the singer, who must portray everything from exuberance and joy to desperation and disillusionment over the course of the 25-minute cycle. Bergeron was strongest in the second half of the set, as Eve's naivete turns into fear and melancholy. In those songs, Bergeron emphasized the darker shades of her voice and allowed the longest notes to fade into a questioning silence. Throughout the piece, her diction was impeccable, making Lerberghe's poetry clearly understandable.
For Bergeron, this clarity of text is essential to French art song. "Singing any art song requires that the performer develop a close relationship with the language," she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, "but with the melodie, the connection is even more important."
She continued, "The emotion is contained not inside the notes of the melody, but inside the words, and in the way they are pronounced."
Bergeron wrote that she is planning to collaborate with Gooley on a recording that will accompany her forthcoming book, "Voice Lessons," a cultural history of turn-of-the-century France and the art song. The book is scheduled to be published in 2009.
"Because this cycle is so centered on text," Gooley wrote in an e-mail, "and Katherine's connection to the text is so powerful, I found myself listening less to her notes than to her declamation, and trying to support that with my accompaniment."
"I really enjoyed working on this song-cycle," he added.
Singing Debussy's song sets "Trois chansons de France" and "Fetes galantes," Jodry, like Bergeron, seemed to delight in the expressive potential of the French language. In this respect, "Fetes galantes," with poetry by Verlaine, provided particularly rich material. In the first song of the set, "En Sourdine" ("Muted"), Jodry turned the word "langueurs" ("languors") into a kind of musical sigh, and in "Fantoches" ("Puppets"), he highlighted rapid-fire declamations of text, foregrounding the song's playfully sinister character.
In his three Debussy piano preludes, Gooley elicited unexpected elements that reflected his jazz piano background, In "Bruyeres" ("Heathlands"), he brought out the improvisatory quality of the runs and never got in the way of the piece's disarming simplicity. For "La cathedrale engloutie" ("The sunken cathedral"), which depicts the legend of a church that rises from the ocean, Gooley drew a bright, clear tone with no trace of harshness, just right for mimicking the sound of bells. Throughout, he showed complete control over the piano's dynamic range.
