Composers › Jules Massenet › Programme note
from Poème d’amour (1879)
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
Ouvre tes yeux bleus
Oh, ne finis jamais
But for Massenet’s setting of his verse in Poème d’amour, a collection of four solo songs and two duets, Paul Robiquet would be quite unknown as a poet. A younger contemporary of the composer - he died in 1928 - he was a historian by profession
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Ouvre tes yeux bleus”
Ouvre tes yeux bleus
Oh, ne finis jamais
But for Massenet’s setting of his verse in Poème d’amour, a collection of four solo songs and two duets, Paul Robiquet would be quite unknown as a poet. A younger contemporary of the composer, he was a historian by profession but, to judge by Poème d’amour, a romantic at heart. Massenet seems to have been particularly impressed by the distinction in character between the male and female protagonists of Ouvre tes yeux bleus, his setting of which is divided neatly down the middle - the tenor accompanied by flowing arpeggios, the soprano by repeated chords in an even quaver rhythm - and does nothing to reconcile the two, either by recalling the opening or by bringing the voices together at the end. The composer was no doubt holding the union of the voices in reserve for the last song in the set Oh, ne finis jamais which, over a consistently syncopated accompaniment, joins them for the most part in intimate thirds before bringing them into a symbolic unison in the closing bars.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Oh, ne finis jamais”