Quatre Chansons de Don Quichotte

UH/5 ibert: don quichotte

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

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.