The ''Poème de l'amour et de la mer'' (literally, ''Poem of Love and the Sea''), Op. 19, is a

song cycle A song cycle () is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in sequence, as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combinat ...

for

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 produ ...

and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

Ernest Chausson Amédée-Ernest Chausson (; 20 January 1855 – 10 June 1899) was a French Romantic composer. Life Born in Paris into an affluent bourgeois family, Chausson was the sole surviving child of a building contractor who made his fortune assisting Ba ...

. It was composed over an extended period between 1882 and

1892 In Samoa, this was the only leap year spanned to 367 days as July 4 repeated. This means that the International Date Line was drawn from the east of the country to go west. Events January * January 1 – Ellis Island begins processing imm ...

and dedicated to Henri Duparc. Chausson would write another major work in the same genre, the '' Chanson perpétuelle'', in 1898. The Poème consists of two parts separated by an orchestral interlude, based on the

poems Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

''La Fleur des eaux'' (''The Flower of the Waters'') and ''La Mort de l'amour'' (''The Death of Love'') by Chausson's friend

Maurice Bouchor Maurice Bouchor (18 November 1855 – 18 January 1929) was a French poet. He was born in Paris. He published in succession ''Chansons joyeuses'' (1874), ''Poèmes de l'amour et de la mer'' (1875), ''Le Faust moderne'' (1878) in prose and verse, ...

(1855–1929). Bouchor also provided the lyrics for another fifteen

mélodie A ''mélodie'' () is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German '' Lied''. A ''chanson'', by contrast, is a folk or popular French song. The literal meaning of the word in the French language is " ...

s by Chausson. One such song was ''Le Temps des lilas'' (''The Time of Lilacs''), the last four verses of which Chausson transcribed and incorporated into the ending of the second part of the ''Poème''. At the premiere on February 21, 1893, in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Chausson himself played the

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

to accompany the

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

Désiré Demest. The orchestral version was first performed on April 8 the same year by the

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical 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 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...

Éléonore Blanc and the Orchestre de la

Société Nationale de Musique Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

, conducted by Gabriel Marie. The piece typically takes just under 30 minutes to perform. The first complete recording of ''Poème de l'amour et de la mer'' was made by soprano Verna Osborne in 1956 but with the pianist Robert Vetlesen rather than an orchestra accompaniment.

References

External links

Program notes from the American Symphony Orchestra
* ttp://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=26899 French text and English translation of ''La mort de l'amour''br>Scores at IMSLP
Song cycles by Ernest Chausson Classical song cycles in French Songs in French 1892 compositions Music based on poems Orchestral songs {{classical-composition-stub