Classical Music | Mezzo-Soprano

Recorded on 04/07/2010, uploaded on 05/02/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Known for his grandiose compositions—the Symphonie fantastique, Harold en Italie and Roméo et Juliette—that established him as the leading exponent of Romanticism in France, Hector Berlioz also contributed to the genre of art song, answering in part the call for vocal music of a French character that would be brought to fulfillment by a later generation of composers. Completed in 1841, the song cycle Les Nuits d’été (Summer Nights) is based on a collection of poems by the poet Théophile Gautier. Concerning itself with the theme of romantic love, the poems also invoke the setting indicated by the title. Berlioz originally composed the songs for low voice (mezzo-soprano, contralto or baritone) but later adapted the cycle for soprano while also rescoring the songs with orchestral accompaniment.

After the melancholy and pensive songs that precede it, an optimistic and hopeful demeanor is returned to in the final song, “L'île inconnue.” Berlioz sets Gautier’s text in a lively 6/8 meter and one can hear the waves of the sea throughout the piano accompaniment. The poet asks his beloved where she would like to go, offering her the chance to see far-off and exotic lands. She rejects all these and asks to be taken to an unknown land (“L'île inconnue”) where there is always love. The melody becomes more passionate during the woman’s request and at the close of the song the boat sails off into the distance in the murmuring figurations of the piano.        Joseph DuBose

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.