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Harmonie du Soir
2008
women's chorus
strings (8.6.6.4.2)
duration 4'
first performance:
The Boston Conservatory Women's Chorus, cond. Miguel Felipe
Kresge Hall, MIT / November 22, 2008
RECORDING—first performance
SCORE
PROGRAM NOTE
Baudelaire's poem is in the form of a pantoum, where the second and fourth lines of one stanza become the first and third lines of the next, but with altered meaning or emphasis (it actually is an 'irregular pantoum' because it departs from the expected rhyme scheme). This form seems to me to lend itself so well to Baudelaire's subject matter – waves of sound and scent in the evening air. In this setting the women's chorus sing simple alternating arpeggiated chords (essentially G major and F major triads) while the strings provide a hazy backdrop of buzzing and coiling activity. The rhythm of the vocal line is taken directly from Debussy's setting of this poem while the pitches and melodic contour are my own, and quite different from Debussy's. The music of both the strings and the chorus becomes plainer, stiller, darker, and calmer as this short work continues; the three-part chorus becomes unison and the lower strings take over from the high swirls heard at the opening.