Elégie (1874)

Romance de Mignon (1869)

Au pays où se fait la guerre (1870)

The appeal of Goethe’s Mignon was not, of course, restricted to Germany and Austria. Of the French composers who were attracted to her (including also Gounod and Ambroise Thomas) Duparc was particularly susceptible to German influence. The two-note sighing motif of his Élégie for example - a setting of his brother-in-law’s translation of Thomas Moore’s lament for Robert Emmett - is a clear echo of Träume from Wagner’ Wesendonk Lieder. If Victor Wilder’s translation, or abbreviated adaptation, of Kennst du das Land put the composer at a disadvantage, the poetic atmosphere created by such simple means at the beginning of each stanza of Romance de Mignon is Duparc’s personal contribution to the genre. There are more German associations in the Gautier settings Au Pays où se fait la guerre. Written during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, it is curiously prophetic of Mahler in the rueful little theme that opens the song and returns to haunt it in both the voice and the piano parts.