Classical Music | Baritone

Recorded on 07/31/2011, uploaded on 09/24/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The author and poet Jules Renard often mocked the characters in his own work, treating them in a particularly sarcastic, even cruel manner. This is particularly the case in his Histoiries naturelles, a collection of poems based on the 44-volume zoological treatise by the 18^th-century French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon. In this work, Renard elevates the animals by making them archetypes of human personalities, and in doing so rather animalize men. Published in 1895, it became quite popular, and eleven years later Maurice Ravel selected five of Renard’s poems to set to music under the same title. Ravel’s settings are witty and humorous, certainly taking their cue from the lighthearted nature of the poems themselves, and which was seemingly lost on the audience at its premiere performance in 1907. Nonetheless, the charm of Ravel’s picturesque settings has nonetheless made Histoires naturelles a favorite among the composer’s vocal music.

Leading the song cycle is “Le paon”, or “The Peacock.” The elegant and spectacular plumage of the bird is depicted in the song’s majestic and grandiose manner. Yet, there is an underlying hint of loneliness, coaxing the listener to feel sorry for the bird, despite its haughty manner. Each day he waits for his fiancée. Each day she does not come. So sure of himself and his beauty, he maintains his proud and stately demeanor, thinking that it is inevitable that she will eventually come. He climbs the rooftop and calls for her. The other birds, tired of his show, pay him no heed. Receiving no answer, he retreats, confident that his wedding will be the next day.

Second is “Le grillon,” or “The Cricket.” Renard’s imagery here is somewhat more cryptic than in “Le paon,” comparing the eventide chirping of crickets to human labors that, to the imagination at least, conjure its sound. Renard imagines that the cricket is nervous, cautious of his own safety, that his song has been but the sound of his efforts to protect himself. Finally, forced to resign from his work, he descends slowly into the earth, and in the final lines of the poem, the reader is at last given a concrete depiction of the scene—a mute countryside, with poplars pointing towards the moon.

Le cygne (“The Swan”), third in the cycle, is the most optimistic of its companions. Renard imaginatively captures the graceful movements of the elegant bird, comparing its long neck to “a woman’s arm,” and its gentle trek across the water as if on “little pillows of feathers.” The swan is chasing the reflection of the clouds and attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to catch them with his beak. When he emerges from the water, he sees the clouds scattered and imagines that they are frightened. Then he spots the clouds gathering again at the edge of ripples he has created in the water, and paddles toward them to continue his unlucky pursuit. Renard muses that the swan exhausts himself in his futile pursuit of reflections, and may perhaps die without ever catching a cloud. Suddenly, he brings everything into perspective with a final comment, that with each dive, the swan catches a worm to eat.

Unlike the previous songs, “Le martin-pêcheur” (“The Kingfisher”) is presented not from the perspective of the animal itself, but instead of an unknown narrator. This narrator sits plaintively by the waterside, fishing to no avail. Suddenly, a kingfisher, a brightly-colored bird generally associated with lakes and rivers in the Old World, lands on his fishing pole. He muses that the bird has mistook him for a tree branch, and quietly admires the bird’s brilliant plumage. Typically shy birds around humans, the narrator takes pride in the fact the bird does not immediately fly away.

Concluding Histoires naturelles is the humorous and brusque “La pintade,” or “The Guinea-fowl.” Renard describes the bird’s torment of the other fowls, her cantankerous mood, and her incessant cries, feeling the other birds are mocking her because of “her size, bald head and low tail.” But, then, she disappears, giving the others a moment’s rest, while she lays an egg in the country. There is a touch of sympathy for the poor bird, however, in Renard’s text as he refers to her as his “beloved hunchback” and “a cunning prankster.”

Ravel’s piano accompaniments to each of these songs are imaginative, heightening the imagery and emotions of each poem. Atop these accompaniments, he treats Renard’s text as if the voice must only recite the words to musical tones, the only exception being “Le cygne” which is the most lyrical of the set. The natural and fluid rhythm of the poetry is unhindered by Ravel’s melodic line, highlighting the haughtiness of the peacock, the pensiveness of the fisherman, and the humor of the guinea-fowl.      Joseph DuBose

The Steans Music Institute is the Ravinia Festival's professional studies program for young musicians.