''Correspondances'' is a song-cycle for soprano and orchestra written by the French composer
Henri Dutilleux
Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux (; 22 January 1916 – 22 May 2013) was a French composer active mainly in the second half of the 20th century. His small body of published work, which garnered international acclaim, followed in the tradition of ...
in 2002–2003.
It consists of five episodes and an interlude. The work was premiered by
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British-German conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal ...
and
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw (born July 17, 1960) is an American soprano. She is the recipient of several Grammy Awards and has released a number of Edison Award-winning discs; she performs both opera and art song, and her repertoire spans Baroque to contempor ...
with the
Berlin Philharmonic
The Berlin Philharmonic (german: Berliner Philharmoniker, links=no, italic=no) is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world.
History
The Berlin Philharmonic was fo ...
on 5 September 2003 and has since been performed all over the world. It lasts 22 minutes.
Overview
''Correspondances'' consists of five
movement
Movement may refer to:
Common uses
* Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece
* Motion, commonly referred to as movement
Arts, entertainment, and media
Literature
* "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
s based on various letters and poems as well as an interlude. The movements are
The title refers both to letter writing and to
synaesthesia
Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who rep ...
in the
Baudelairian sense i.e. symbolic "correspondences" between the senses and the world.
It is based on texts by
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...
,
Prithwindra Mukherjee
Prithwindra Mukherjee ( bn, পৃথ্বীন্দ্রনাথ মুখোপাধ্যায়; born 1936), who retired in 2003 from his career as a researcher in the Human and Social Sciences Department (Ethnomusicology) of the Fr ...
,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...
and
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...
. Although they come from disparate sources, they are unified by their mystical inspiration and especially their concern about the place of humanity in the Cosmos.
Each episode highlights a particular family of instruments. For instance, woodwinds and brass are prominent in ''De Vincent à Théo...'', echoing the painter's use of colour
while an accordion and strings, in particular a cello quartet, dominate in ''À Slava et Galina'' (that letter was addressed to legendary cellist
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. He is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was wel ...
and his wife, soprano
Galina Vishnevskaya
Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya (russian: links=no, Галина Павловна Вишневская, Ivanova, Иванова; 25 October 192611 December 2012) was a Russian soprano opera singer and recitalist who was named a People's Artist o ...
). ''Danse cosmique'', opens with timpani and pizzicato strings before the whole orchestra surrounds the singer.
The work contains quotations from
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
's ''
Boris Godunov
Borís Fyodorovich Godunóv (; russian: Борис Фёдорович Годунов; 1552 ) ruled the Tsardom of Russia as ''de facto'' regent from c. 1585 to 1598 and then as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. After the end of his ...
'' as well as Dutilleux's own ''
Timbres, espace, mouvement ''Timbres, espace, mouvement'' (''Timbre, space, movement'') is a work for orchestra composed by Henri Dutilleux in 1978. Dutilleux subtitled the work ''La nuit étoilée'' (''The Starry Night''), in reference to The Starry Night, the 1889 painting ...
'' in Solzhenitsyn's letter and van Gogh's respectively.
It was recorded by
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and music di ...
and
Barbara Hannigan
Barbara Hannigan (born 8 May 1971) is a Canadian soprano and Conducting, conductor, known for her performances of Contemporary classical music, contemporary opera.
Education
Hannigan's initial musical education came from music teachers in her ...
(for whom the composer wrote a new finale) with the
Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France
The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France is a French radio orchestra, affiliated with Radio France. The orchestra performs principally at the auditorium of the Maison de la Radio in Paris, along with several concerts at the Philharmonie de Pa ...
in 2013.
Text
I. Gong I (Rilke)
Timbre
qui n'est plus par l'ouïe mesurable.
Comme si le son qui nous surpasse de toutes parts
Était l'espace qui mûrit.
Timbre
that is no longer for measurable hearing.
As if the sound that surpasses us
Was the space that ripened.
''(1999 Les Éditions Verdier, French translation by Jean-Yves Masson)''
II. Danse cosmique (Mukherjee)
Des flammes, des flammes qui envahissent le ciel,
Qui es-tu, ô Danseur, dans l'oubli du monde ?
Tes pas et tes gestes font dénouer tes tresses
Tremblent les planètes et la terre sous tes pieds.
Des flammes, des flammes qui envahissent la terre,
Des flammes de déluge pénétrant tous les cœurs,
Effleurant les ondes de l'océan des nuits
Des foudres se font entendre au rythme des éclairs.
Des flammes, des flammes dans les gouffres souterrains,
Des bourgeons de tournesol ouvrent leurs pétales,
Des squelettes du passé dans la caresse du feu
Engendrent les âmes d'une création nouvelle.
Des flammes, des flammes dans le cœur de l'homme,
Qui es-tu, ô barde céleste, qui chantes l'avenir ?
Flames, the flames that invade the sky,
Who are you, o Dancer, in the oblivion of the world?
Your steps and your motions undo your tresses
As the earth and the planets tremble beneath your feet.
Flames, the flames that invade the earth,
Flames in a deluge penetrating all our hearts,
Teasing the waves in the ocean of nights,
Thunder pealing to the rhythm of lightning.
Flames, the flames in the depths below,
The sunflower buds open their petals,
The skeletons of the past in the caresse of fire
Beget the souls of a new creation.
Flames, the flames in the heart of man,
Who are you, o celestial bard, who sings of the future?
''(Prithwindra Mukherjee, Éditions, "Le Décaèdre")''
III. À Slava et Galina... (Solzhenitsyn)
À l'approche du dixième anniversaire de mon exil, des scènes des années terribles et
accablantes reprennent vie devant mes yeux. Alia et moi avons repensé à ces moments :
sans votre protection et votre soutien, jamais je n'aurais pu supporter ces années-là. J'aurais
fait naufrage, car ma vigueur était déjà près de s'éteindre. Je n'avais pas de toit pour
m'abriter : à Riazan, on m'aurait étouffé. Et vous, vous avez protégé ma solitude avec un
tact tel que vous ne m'avez même pas parlé des contraintes et du harcèlement auxquels
vous étiez soumis. Vous avez créé une atmosphère que je n'aurais pas imaginée possible.
Sans elle, j'aurais probablement explosé, incapable de tenir jusqu'en 1974.
Se rappeler tout cela avec gratitude, c'est bien peu dire. Vous l'avez payé bien cruellement,
surtout Galia qui a perdu à jamais son théâtre. Toute ma gratitude ne suffira jamais à
compenser de telles pertes. Tout au plus peut-on retirer une certaine force de la conviction
qu'en ce siècle, nous autres Russes sommes tous voués au même terrible destin de d'espérer
que le Seigneur ne nous punira pas jusqu'au bout.
Merci mes chers amis. Bien à vous pour toujours.
At the approach of the tenth anniversary of my exile, scenes of terrible and
trying years come to life before my eyes. Alia and I thought back to those moments:
without your protection and your support, I never would have been able to go on. I would have
foundered, for my strength had almost already left me. I had no roof over
my head: in Ryazan, I would have been suffocated. And you, you protected my solitude with such grace
that you never even told me about all the restrictions and harassment to which
you were subject. You created an atmosphere that I could not have imagined to be possible.
Without it, I would have gone to pieces, unable to hold out until 1974.
To remember all this graciously is to say little. You paid a cruel price for it,
above all Galya who lost her theater forever. All my gratitude will never
make up for such losses. We can only take a little strength from the conviction
that in this century, we Russians are dedicated to the same terrible destiny of hoping
that the Lord will not punish us until the end.
Thank you, my dear friends. Wishing you the best, always.
''(1985 Librairie Arthème Fayard, for the French translation)''
IV. Gong 2 (Rilke)
Bourdonnement épars, silence perverti,
Tout ce qui fut autour, en mille bruits se change,
Nous quitte et revient : rapprochement étrange
De la marée de l'infini.
A scattered buzzing, perverted silence
All that was around us, in a thousand noises changes,
Leaving us and returning: the strange convergence
Of infinity’s tide.
V. De Vincent à Théo... (van Gogh)
...Tant que durera l'automne, je n'aurai pas assez de mains, de toile et de couleurs pour
peindre ce que je vois de beau.
...J'ai un besoin terrible de religion. Alors, je vais la nuit, dehors, pour peindre les étoiles.
Sentir les étoiles et l'infini, en faut, clairement, alors, la vie est tout de même presque enchantée.
...Tout et partout, la coupole du ciel est d'un bleu admirable, le soleil a un rayonnement de
soufre pâle et c'est doux et charmant comme la combinaison des bleus célestes et des
jaunes dans les Vermeer de Delft. Malheureusement, à côté du soleil du Bon Dieu il y a,
trois quarts du temps, le Diable Mistral.
...Dans mon tableau « café de nuit », j'ai cherché à exprimer que le café est un endroit où
l'on peut se ruiner, devenir fou, commettre des crimes. Enfin, j'ai cherché par des
contrastes de rose tendre et de rouge sang et lie de vin, avec les verts-jaunes et les vertsbleus durs,
tout cela dans une atmosphère de fournaise infernale, de soufre pâle, à exprimer
comme la puissance des ténèbres d'un assommoir.
...As long as autumn lasts, I will not have enough hands, canvas, or colors
to paint the beauty I see.
...I have a terrible need of religion. So, I go into the night, outside, to paint the stars.
Feeling the stars and infinity, clearly, life is then all the same almost enchanted.
...In everything everywhere, the dome of the sky is an admirable blue, and the sun radiates
a pale sulfur, sweet and charming like a combination of celestial blues and the yellows
in the Vermeers of Delft. Sadly, next to the sun of the Good Lord there is,
three quarters of the time, the Mistral Devil.
...In my painting ''Night Café'', I sought to express that the café is a place where
you can ruin yourself, go mad, commit crimes. And finally I sought
the contrasts of tender pink and blood red and wine red, with yellow-greens and harsh blue-greens,
and all this in the atmosphere of an infernal furnace, of pale sulfur, to be expressed
as the power of darkness in an assommoir.
''(1960 Éditions Bernard Grasset, French translation by Maurice Beerblock and Loui Roëlandt)''
Instrumentation
;
Woodwinds
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed ...
:
piccolo
The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...
:2
flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
s
:2
oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range.
A ...
s
:
cor anglais
The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto ...
:B
bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...
:2 B
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
s
:2
bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...
s
;
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
:3
horns Horns or The Horns may refer to:
* Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells
* The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain
* ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
:3
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
s
:3
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
s
:
tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
;
Percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
:5
timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...
(1 player)
:
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
:
vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...
:2 suspended
cymbal
A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs soun ...
s (high/medium)
:
tam-tam
A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...
(medium)
:3
bongo drum
Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...
s
:3
tom-tom drum
A tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snares, named from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala language. It was added to the drum kit in the early part of the 20th century. Most toms range in size between in diameter, though floor toms can go as la ...
s
:
snare drum
The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used ...
:
bass drum
The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...
;
Voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...
:
soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
solo
;
Strings
String or strings may refer to:
*String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
:
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
:
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
s I
:violins II
:
viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
s
:
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
s
:
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
es
;Others
:
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
:
celesta
The celesta or celeste , also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five-octave), albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music box ( ...
References
{{authority control
2003 compositions
Classical song cycles in French
Compositions by Henri Dutilleux
Song cycles by Henri Dutilleux
Musical settings of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke