Rhené-Bâton: Sérénade Mélancolique

With your body, with your arms, make a tomb

My love for the International Musical Scores Library Project grows by the day! Today, I discovered scores by a conductor and composer from the early 20th Century named Rhené-Bâton. His music sounds like a hybrid of Debussy and Fauré – not a bad thing!

The fourth song of Rhené-Bâton’s Op. 16 has an unabashed romantic flair. Much of the text describes the beauty one finds in a lover. At the end, though, the text turns dramatically, and the singer asks the beloved to “make a tomb” with his or her body within which the singer can hide from pain, hence the “melancholy” of the title.

• Audio (Sonia de Beaufort) – last.fm
• Score (Song #4) – IMSLP
• Article – wikipedia

Text (Jean Lahor) and new translation behind cut:

Emmanuel Chabrier: L’île heureuse (The happy isle)

"We are the monarchs of luminous maritime deserts"

This song positively sparkles! The light glints off the water while the boats rock gently in the waves. Amid this scenery painted by the piano, the voice moves very much like the impassioned lovers it represents — at times impulsive, at others, tender and caressing.

• Audio (Martyn Hill) – Rhapsody
• Text & Translation (Éphraïm Mikhaël) – recmusic.org
• Score – IMSLP
• Article on Chabrier – wikipedia