Classical Music | Bass

Recorded on 10/23/2009, uploaded on 01/27/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The great expanse of the oceans, the entrancing motion of water, the mighty power of the sea, each has over time, in part or in full, inspired some aspect of a piece of music from a composer’s pen. There is Liszt’s Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este, the opening torrents of the overture to Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Debussy’s La Mer, and Ravel’s Jeux d’eau. Another example, small in stature compared to these works, but certainly no less moving—indeed, perhaps even more so—is Gabriel Fauré’s setting of Sully Prudhomme’s Les Berceaux (“Cradles”), the first song of his opus 23 triptych. Within the three four-line stanzas of Prudhomme’s lyrics, a powerful summation is created of a man’s life. Just as the babe is rocked in his cradle by the hand of his mother, the ships are gently swayed in their havens by an unseen hand. Like a child as he grows beyond his maternal protection, called to face the broader world, so the ships are “tempted” to face the horizons. Fauré’s setting is remarkably straightforward, but is powerful in its effect. A gently rocking accompaniment is established by the piano in 12/8 time and a solemn B-flat minor with a prevalence at first towards the open sound of perfect intervals to conjure the enormity of the sea and vastness of the horizon. Throughout the song, the accompaniment hardly changes, instilling a sense of constancy. Atop this, the voice utters Prudhomme’s lyrics to a simple, but fervent, melody that likewise has a gentle rising and falling motion that mimics the ebb and flow of the sea, or the rocking of a cradle.    Joseph DuBose