Composers › Jacques Ibert › Programme note
Quatre Chansons de Don Quichotte
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
Chanson du départ de Don Quichotte
Chanson à Dulcinée
Chanson du Duc
Chanson de la mort de Don Quichotte
A silent-cinema pianist and composer, eventually, of scores for no fewer than sixty films, including the Orson Welles Macbeth, Jacques Ibert was one of the great professionals of the film score. He was more than a match for the ailing Maurice Ravel - who adored Cervantes and loved the cinema but knew nothing of the unscrupulous world of film-making - when the producers of Pabst’s Don Quixote set them in competition against each other in 1932. Neither was aware that the other was involved in the project - or that Manuel de Falla, Darius Milhaud and Marcel Dalannoy had also been invited to take part - and both of them were duly horrified by the way they had been treated when, Ibert having won the contract, the truth came out.
The star of the film was to be Feodor Chaliapin, who would have a number of short songs to sing. Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, his last completed work, was delivered late and never even paid for, which was not unnaturally a cause of some bitterness. He would probably have agreed, however, that Ibert’s songs are scarcely less attractive, even though he might have reflected that his younger colleague would scarcely have been so fluent in the Spanish idiom without his prior example. Ibert was successful too in his characterisation of Cervantes’s hero, not least in the doleful dignity of Chanson du départ de Don Quichotte where, within the framework of the guitar-style figurations of the piano ritornello, the voice has a largely declamatory line with just a hint of flamenco inflection. Guitar chords accompany also the brisk refrain of Chanson à Dulcinée which retains its heroic character for no more than two lines at a time before Quixote gets lost in amorous reverie. Chanson du Duc is, as its title suggests, a more aristocratic invention, a courtly pastiche with no trace of the popular Spanish idiom. Chanson de la mort de Don Quichotte, on the other hand, cleverly allies its pathetic sentiment to the rhythm of the most familiar of hispanic dances. Matching the last image of the film, which restores Don Quixote from the flames by reversing the sequence, it ends on an idiomatic sigh.
Chanson du départ de Don Quichotte
Ce château neuf, ce nouvel édifice
Tout enrichi de marbre et de porphyre
Qu’amour bâtie château de son empire
Où tout le ciel a mis son artifice,
Est un rempart, un fort contre le vice,
Où la vertueuse maîtresse se retire,
Que l’oeil regarde et que l’esprit admire
Forçant les coeurs à lui faire service.
C’est un château, fait de telle sorte
Que nul ne peut approcher de la porte
Si des grands rois il n’a sauvé sa race
Victorieux, vaillant et amoureux
Nul chevalier tant soit aventureux
Sans étre tel ne peut gagner la place.
(Pierre de Ronsard)
The Song of Don Quixote’s Departure
This new castle, this new edifice
All enriched with marble and porphyry
Built by love as a castle of its empire
Where all heaven has applied its skill,
Is a fortress, a stronghold against vice,
A haven for the virtuous lady
Whom the eye and the spirit both admire
Who compels hearts into her service.
It is a castle made in such a way
That no one can approach the gate
If he is not descended from great kings
Victorious, brave and amorous.
No knight however adventurous
Without such merit can gain entry here.
Chanson à Dulcinée
Un an, me dure la journée
Si je ne vois ma Dulcinée.
Mais, amour a peint son visage,
Afin d’adoucir ma langueur,
Dans la fontaine et le nuage,
Dans chaque aurore et chaque fleur.
Un an, me dure la journée
Si je ne vois ma Dulcinée.
Toujours proche et toujours lointaine,
Etoile de mes longs chemins.
Le vent m’apporte son haleine
Quand il passe sur les jasmins.
Un an, me dure la journée
Si je ne vois ma Dulcinée.
(Alexandre Arnoux)
Song to Dulcinea
A day seems like a year
When I do not see my Dulcinea.
But love has painted her face,
So as to sweeten my longing,
In the fountain and the clouds,
In every dawn and every flower.
A day seems like a year
When I do not see my Dulcinea.
Always close and always far,
Star of my long journeys.
The wind brings me her breath
When it passes over jasmine.
A day seems like a year
When I do not see my Dulcinea.
Chanson du Duc
Je veux chanter ici la dame de mes songes
Qui m’exalte au-dessus de ce siècle de boue.
Son coeur de diamant est vierge de mensonges
La rose s’obscurcit au regard de sa joue.
Pour elle j’ai tenté les hautes aventures:
Mon bras a délivré la princesse en servage,
J’ai vaincu l’enchanteur, confundu les parjures
Et ployé l’univers à lui rendre l’hommage.
Dame par qui je vais, seul dessus cette terre,
Qui ne soit prisonnier de la fausse apparence,
Je soutiens contre tout chevalier téméraire
Votre éclat non pareil et votre précellence.
(Arnoux)
The Duke’s Song
I will now sing of the lady of my dreams
Who exalts me above this muddy age.
Her diamond heart is innocent of untruth
Roses pale besides her cheek.
For her I have undertaken high adventure:
My arm has delivered the captive princess,
I have defeated the wizard, confounded liars
And compelled the universe to do her homage.
Lady for whom I live, the one on this earth,
Who is not taken in by false appearances,
I champion against every rash knight
Your beauty without equal and your perfection.
Chanson de la mort de Don Quichotte
Ne pleure pas Sancho, ne pleure pas mon bon
Ton maître n’est pas mort, il n’est pas loin de toi
Il vit dans une île heureuse
Où tout est pur et sans mensonges
Dans l’île enfin trouvée où tu viendras un jour.
Dans l’île désirée, O mon ami Sancho!
Les livres sont brûlés et font un tas de cendres
Si tous les livres m’ont tué
Il suffit d’un pour que je vive
Fantôme dans la vie, et réel dans la mort
Tel est l’étrange sort du pauvre Don Quichotte.
(Arnoux)
Song of Don Quixote’s Death
Do not weep Sancho, do not weep my good friend
You master is not dead, he is not far from you
He lives on a happy isle
Where everything is pure and truthful
On the isle at last discovered where you will be one day.
On the longed-for isle, O Sancho my friend!
The books are burned to a heap of ashes
If all those books have killed me one is enough
One is enough for me to live
A phantom in life and real in death
Such is the strange fate of poor Don Quixote.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Don Quichotte”
Ibert, Ravel and Don Quixote
No one really knows why it is that Ibert and Ravel came to write songs for the same film - G.W. Pabst’s Don Quichotte - at the same time. There are all kinds of theories, many of them presented as fact, but since even those which could be true are mutually contradictory there is no point in reviewing them here. Not one of the many commentators on the situation has taken into account, however, that Ravel’s Don Quichotte songs are set to words by Paul Morand and Ibert’s to words mainly by Alexandre Arnoux. This might well be a clue to the solution of the mystery. Morand and Arnoux were both employed as writers on the film, the former being entrusted with the scenario and the latter with the dialogue. But since Quixote himself was to be performed by no other than the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin, who would naturally be required to sing at least three or four songs, which one of them would provide the words for the songs, Morand or Arnoux? It is not unlikely that the two writers independently got to work on the song texts and then turned to the composers they favoured - Morand to his old friend Ravel and Arnoux to Ibert, who was writing the rest of the film score anyway. For whatever reason, but probably the ailing Ravel’s slow progress in delivering the work, Arnoux and Ibert won the day.
Jacques Ibert (1890-1962)
Quatre Chansons de Don Quichotte
Chanson du départ de Don Quichotte
Chanson à Dulcinée
Chanson du Duc
Chanson de la mort de Don Quichotte
When Ravel and Ibert were working on their songs for Pabst’s Don Quichotte (Don Quixote in the English version) in the summer of 1932 they were in very different personal situations. Ravel, who had never written film music before, was so far gone in the illness that would lead to his death five years later that he could scarcely put the notes down on the paper. Ibert, who was fifteen years younger and in good health, was experienced in working for the cinema industry and, crucially, he was on the set near Nice when the filming was going on. So he was always on hand. When it emerged that a fourth song would be needed for Chaliapin in the title role and a Ronsard text was added to supplement the three by Arnoux he could get on with it straight away. He was in a position also to coach the singer and conduct the orchestra when the recording was made on the set. “We were all shivering,” recalled Ibert’s wife, “not so much with the cold as with admiration: a magnificent voice, so pure in the starry night, such great emotion, such noble gestures. Perfection was achieved.”
Anyone who has heard Chaliapin’s recording of the Don Quichotte songs might question Rosette Ibert’s use of the word “perfection.” Apart from his tendency to distort words and line, his understanding of the Spanish idiom, which is a prominent feature of the score, is far from complete. On the other hand, Chaliapin does seem to have been an inspiration to Ibert in his compassionate characterization of Cervantes’s hero.
The Chanson du départ de Don Quichotte represents the deluded knight errant in his doleful dignity. Introduced by plaintive oboes and an idiomatically strummed guitar, it features a largely declamatory vocal line accompanied only by the occasional harp chord and discreetly coloured by decorative flamenco cadences. The Chanson à Dulcinée is based on a lively Spanish dance which, however, tends to get lost in romantic reverie as, encouraged by sentimental strings or saxophone, Quixote dreams of the imaginary virtues of his beloved Dulcinée. Chanson du Duc is, as its title suggests, a more aristocratic invention, a chivalrous pastiche with a vocal line that avoids the popular Spanish idiom. Chanson de la mort de Don Quichotte, on the other hand, cleverly allies its pathetic sentiment to the rhythm of a slow habanera as the dying Quixote takes leave of his faithful servant Sancho Panza. At the beginning of the film Cervantes’s masterpiece had been thrown into a fire. Now, as Quixote breathes his last on a long-sustained sigh, by reversing the opening sequence the book is restored from the flames.
Chanson du départ de Don Quichotte
Ce château neuf, ce nouvel édifice
Tout enrichi de marbre et de porphyre
Qu’amour bâtie château de son empire
Où tout le ciel a mis son artifice,
Est un rempart, un fort contre le vice,
Où la vertueuse maîtresse se retire,
Que l’oeil regarde et que l’esprit admire
Forçant les coeurs à lui faire service.
C’est un château, fait de telle sorte
Que nul ne peut approcher de la porte
Si des grands rois il n’a sauvé sa race
Victorieux, vaillant et amoureux
Nul chevalier tant soit aventureux
Sans étre tel ne peut gagner la place.
(Pierre de Ronsard)
The Song of Don Quixote’s Departure
This new castle, this new edifice
All enriched with marble and porphyry
Built by love as a castle of its empire
Where all heaven has applied its skill,
Is a fortress, a stronghold against vice,
A haven for the virtuous lady
Whom the eye and the spirit both admire
Who compels hearts into her service.
It is a castle made in such a way
That no one can approach the gate
If he is not descended from great kings
Victorious, brave and amorous.
No knight however adventurous
Without such merit can gain entry here.
Chanson à Dulcinée
Un an, me dure la journée
Si je ne vois ma Dulcinée.
Mais, amour a peint son visage,
Afin d’adoucir ma langueur,
Dans la fontaine et le nuage,
Dans chaque aurore et chaque fleur.
Un an, me dure la journée
Si je ne vois ma Dulcinée.
Toujours proche et toujours lointaine,
Etoile de mes longs chemins.
Le vent m’apporte son haleine
Quand il passe sur les jasmins.
Un an, me dure la journée
Si je ne vois ma Dulcinée.
(Alexandre Arnoux)
Song to Dulcinea
A day seems like a year
When I do not see my Dulcinea.
But love has painted her face,
So as to sweeten my longing,
In the fountain and the clouds,
In every dawn and every flower.
A day seems like a year
When I do not see my Dulcinea.
Always close and always far,
Star of my long journeys.
The wind brings me her breath
When it passes over jasmine.
A day seems like a year
When I do not see my Dulcinea.
Chanson du Duc
Je veux chanter ici la dame de mes songes
Qui m’exalte au-dessus de ce siècle de boue.
Son coeur de diamant est vierge de mensonges
La rose s’obscurcit au regard de sa joue.
Pour elle j’ai tenté les hautes aventures:
Mon bras a délivré la princesse en servage,
J’ai vaincu l’enchanteur, confundu les parjures
Et ployé l’univers à lui rendre l’hommage.
Dame par qui je vais, seul dessus cette terre,
Qui ne soit prisonnier de la fausse apparence,
Je soutiens contre tout chevalier téméraire
Votre éclat non pareil et votre précellence.
(Arnoux)
The Duke’s Song
I will now sing of the lady of my dreams
Who exalts me above this muddy age.
Her diamond heart is innocent of untruth
Roses pale besides her cheek.
For her I have undertaken high adventure:
My arm has delivered the captive princess,
I have defeated the wizard, confounded liars
And compelled the universe to do her homage.
Lady for whom I live, the one on this earth,
Who is not taken in by false appearances,
I champion against every rash knight
Your beauty without equal and your perfection.
Chanson de la mort de Don Quichotte
Ne pleure pas Sancho, ne pleure pas mon bon
Ton maître n’est pas mort, il n’est pas loin de toi
Il vit dans une île heureuse
Où tout est pur et sans mensonges
Dans l’île enfin trouvée où tu viendras un jour.
Dans l’île désirée, O mon ami Sancho!
Les livres sont brûlés et font un tas de cendres
Si tous les livres m’ont tué
Il suffit d’un pour que je vive
Fantôme dans la vie, et réel dans la mort
Tel est l’étrange sort du pauvre Don Quichotte.
(Arnoux)
Song of Don Quixote’s Death
Do not weep Sancho, do not weep my good friend
You master is not dead, he is not far from you
He lives on a happy isle
Where everything is pure and truthful
On the isle at last discovered where you will be one day.
On the longed-for isle, O Sancho my friend!
The books are burned to a heap of ashes
If all those books have killed me one is enough
One is enough for me to live
A phantom in life and real in death
Such is the strange fate of poor Don Quixote.
(English translations by Gerald Larner)
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Don Quichotte revised”