La Caravane, Op.14 (1887)

Sérénade italienne Op.2 No.5 (1880)

Le Temps des lilas (1886)

Les Papillons Op.2 No.3 (1880)

Le Colibri Op.2 No.7 (1882)

While no one would accuse Fauré of frivolity, he is levity itself in comparison with Ernest Chausson. A disciple of César Franck, Chausson was convinced of the high seriousness of his profession and, as the recipient of a considerable private income, he was also in a position to respect it. La Caravane, the longest of his forty or so songs, is an extreme example. Clearly not written for the market place, it was a great success in the composer’s lifetime even so, in both its orchestral and its piano versions, and it is worthy of more than the occasional revival today. Constructed like a passacaglia, or a slow march with an impressive piano interlude and postlude, it transcends the apparent inevitability of a desolate ending by finding ethereal harmonic consolation in Gautier’s closing lines.

The extraordinary quality of the Sérénade italienne, in comparison with Fauré’s Sérénade toscane and Hahn’s Venezia, is its avoidance of Italian pastiche - unless, that is, the Neapolitan harmonies at the end count as such. Chausson is more concerned about securing a floating rhythmic motion and sustaining a gently water-splashed piano figuration in conjunction with a discreetly ecstatic vocal line. Le Temps des Lilas is more characteristic of Chausson in its elegiac quality and, in its melodic beauty, perhaps the most inspired of all his songs. The concluding item of the orchestral cycle Poème de l’amour et de la mer (but frequently performed separately in the composer’s own exquisite piano arrangement), it is one of eight settings of poems by Maurice Bouchor who, though not the greatest of Chausson’s chosen poets, was certainly the one he knew best.

Les Papillons is a Gautier setting at the opposite extreme to La Caravane. The vocal line is as light in the air as that of the later song is heavy on the ground and as delightfully playful in its piano accompaniment as the other is philosophical. As a symbol of the late-romantic association of love and death, the humming bird in Leconte de Lisle’s Le Colibri has rather more on its mind than Gautier’s butterflies. After hovering in a supple quintuple time over piano chords in an even rhythm, it sinks to its death on a sensual downward curve of linear figuration in the pianist’s right hand.