Le Colibri Op.2 No.7 (1882)

There is a whole anthology to be made of French songs inspired by birds and insects, including particularly distinguished contributions by Chabrier, Saint-Saëns, Chausson and Ravel. They are not all to be taken at face value of course. It is clear even from the short piano introduction that Le Colibri is not about a humming bird in the same way that a later Chausson setting of a poem by Leconte de Lisle, La Cigale, is about a cicada. The humming bird in this case is a symbol of the late-romantic association of love and death. 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. The last stanza makes the metaphor entirely explicit.