Soirée en Mer

Description

In his poem Soirée en mer, Victor Hugo describes how the sea can be perceived very differently by two lovers at the same time in the same place. While the man perceives the deepening shadows on the dancing waves, the woman marvels at the stars shining ever brighter in the firmament. In nature, as in the words of the poem, the painful ambiguity that represents life at its core can be experienced. Like no other poet, Hugo captures this almost unbearable simultaneity of living and dying, of love and suffering. Saint-Saëns translates this into music – probably the most ephemeral and contemporary of all art forms. His balanced musical form leaves plenty of room for the poetry and his subtle variations in timbre, which also inspired Denis Rouger to his choral arrangement, create a seething motion under the surface of the sea.

This art song was originally composed not for chamber choir, but for solo voice and piano. Denis Rouger has carefully adapted it to suit the requirements and expressive possibilities offered by a larger ensemble, without losing any of the qualities of the original in the process. Each part in the choir has a melodic line drawn from the harmonic and rhythmic framework. In the process, the variety and refinement of the choral language combines with an enormous flexibility in form and expression, as French melodies or German art song demand from a soloist and pianist.