Shéhérazade

Asie

La Flûte enchantée

L’Indifférent

If we knew exactly why Ravel chose to compose a song cycle on precisely these three poems from Tristan Klingsor’s Shéhérazade we would know very much more about him. We know that he was always attracted by exotic subjects: his first orchestral work, the “fairy-tale overture” Shéhérazade written in 1898, is all that is left of an unfinished opera on a subject from The Thousand and One Nights; his last creative project, also unrealised, was a ballet, Morgiane, to be based on a story from the same source. We knew too that he had a long-term admiration for the work of Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he had heard conduct his own music at the Exposition Universelle in 1889, and that he was particularly enthusiastic about his symphonic poem Scheherazade.

As for Tristan Klingsor, we know that Léon Leclère, who wrote under that extravagantly Wagnerian pseudonym, was on friendly terms with Ravel when he wrote the Shéhérazade songs in 1903: they were both members of the all-male group of musicians, writers and artists known between themselves as the “Apaches.” As another admirer of Rimsky-Korsakov - he chose the Shéhérazade title for his collection as a tribute to the Russian composer - and as an exponent of free verse, which he thought “particularly suitable for music,” he was a natural poetic ally for a Ravel at that time under the spell of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, his word-setting and his sensual impressionism.

What we do not know is why, out of the hundred Klingsor poems he had to choose from in Shéhérazade, Ravel included L’Indifférent in his economical selection of three. The appeal of Asie (the first song in the cycle when the three items are performed in the published order) must have been its far-and-wide invocation of an abundance of oriental images. Indeed, in spite of its occasional banalities, Klingsor’s poem inspired a panorama of a breadth and expressive variety unparalleled in any of Ravel’s other vocal works. Its evocative qualities are more evident in the orchestral version, obviously, but Ravel had no objection to the cycle being sung with piano accompaniment and where his setting is most inspired, above all in his simulation of the “bewitching rhythm” of the sea, it is no less effective in that version.

La Flûte enchantée, where the sound of the flute is felt as a lover’s kiss, is a fascinating metaphor of music as an erotic experience and it inspired a song of correspondingly melodious sensuality (the composer authorised an alternative version with flute and piano accompaniment, incidentally).

The primary attraction of L’Indifférent, on the other hand, is neither oriental nor musical: it is the sexual ambiguity of the boy stranger with eyes “soft like a girl’s” and hips swaying in “a languid and feminine way.” Ravel must have been well aware of the interpretation that would be put on this song and if he were not the conductor Camille Chevillard soon put him right when he told him, “I sincerely hope you’ll have it sung by a girl.” But are the gently swaying rhythms and the voluptuos longing in the vocal line of this setting a rare confession from a notoriously private and ostensibly a-sexual composer or a sensitive gesture towards a poet who made little secret of his homosexual inclinations?

three poems by Tristan Klingsor

Asie

La Flûte enchantée

L’Indifférent

While Ravel did not share Léon Leclère’s enthusiasm for Wagner - which led the poet to adopt the extravagantly Wagnerian pseudonym of Tristan Klingsor - the two friends were not without musical and literary tastes in common. They were both interested in exotic subjects, not least The Thousand and One Nights, and they were such fervent admirers of Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic poem Scheherazade that, in tribute to the Russian composer, they both produced works under the French equivalent of that title. Ravel had already written a Shéhérazade Overture in 1898 and, not intending to publish that score, used the title again in 1903 for his three songs to texts from Klingsor’s Shéhérazade, a recently completed collection of poetry inspired by the alien and yet irresistible attractions of the East.

As an exponent of unrhymed but rhythmical free verse, which he thought “particularly suitable for music,” Klingsor was a natural poetic ally for a Ravel at that time under the spell of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy’s way of word-setting and his sensual impressionism. Ravel’s approach here, according to the poet, was to “transform the text into an expressive recitative, intensifying the inflections of the words into song, heightening all their possibilities without subordinating them to the music.” But why, out of the hundred poems he had to choose from in Klingsor’s Shéhérazade, Ravel selected Asie, La Flûte enchantée and, in particular, the problematic L’Indifférent can only be a matter for conjecture.

The appeal of Asie (the first song in the cycle when the three items are performed in the published order) must have been its far-and-wide dispersal of an abundance of oriental images. Indeed, in spite of its occasional banalities, Klingsor’s poem inspired a panorama of a breadth and expressive variety unparalleled in any of Ravel’s other vocal works. Beginning with a languorous oboe solo, three invocations of “Asie” in the vocal part and a little triplet figure on oboe and flute, it presents its basic material in no more than half a dozen bars. The several, apparently disparate episodes of Asie are variations on those motifs - the simulation on syncopated strings of the “bewitching rhythm” of the sea accompanying Klingsor’s schooner rocking in the harbour, the three particularly magical passages devoted to the Persia of King Shahriyar and Scheherazade, the pentatonic evocations of China and, towards the end, the climactic recall of the rhythms and harmonies of the swelling sea.

La Flûte enchantée, where the sound of the flute is felt as a lover’s kiss, is a fascinating metaphor of music as an erotic experience. Ravel’s response to it is a song of correspondingly melodious sensuality, featuring a seductive solo flute and strings that scarcely dare breath except in a short but achingly passionate abandonment of caution in the middle section.

The primary attraction of L’Indifférent, on the other hand, seems to be neither oriental nor musical: it is surely the sexual ambiguity of the boy stranger with eyes “soft like a girl’s” and hips swaying in a “languid feminine way.” Ravel must have been well aware of the interpretation that would be put on this song and, if he were not, the conductor Camille Chevillard soon put him right when he told him, “I sincerely hope you’ll have it sung by a girl!” But does this setting amount to a rare confession from a notoriously secretive composer or is it no more than a sensitive gesture towards a poet who made little secret of his homosexual inclinations? Whatever the answer, the voluptuous longing in the vocal line and the contrastingly pure harmonies and gently swaying rhythms of the orchestral accompaniment present an intriguing musical paradox in themselves.

Gerald Larner©2003

three poems by Tristan Klingsor for voice and orchestra

Asie

La Flûte enchantée

L’Indifférent

A formative experience in Ravel’s youth - he was fourteen at the time - was a concert of Russian music conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. Fascinated by its exotic colouring and its evocation of the atmosphere of the stories narrated by Sheherazade in The Thousand and One Nights, he was particularly impressed by Rimsky’s symphonic suite Scheherazade. It awakened in Ravel what was to be a life-long interest not only in exotic music but in orientalism in general. His first orchestral work was a Shéhérazade Overture and five years later, in 1903, he wrote three songs for voice and orchestra under the same title. The words were taken from a recently completed collection of poems also called Shéhérazade by the composer’s friend Léon Leclère. Although he was such an ardent admirer of Wagner that he awarded himself the literary pseudonym of Tristan Klingsor, Leclère shared Ravel’s passion for Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite and the alien and yet irresistible attractions of the East.

As an exponent of unrhymed but rhythmical free verse, which he thought “particularly suitable for music,” Klingsor was a natural poetic ally for a young composer at that time under the spell of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and his technique of word-setting. Ravel’s approach here, according to the poet, was to “transform the text into an expressive recitative, intensifying the inflections of the words into song, heightening all their possibilities without subordinating them to the music.” But why, out of the hundred poems he had to choose from in Klingsor’s Shéhérazade, Ravel selected Asie, La Flûte enchantée and, in particular, the problematic L’Indifférent can only be a matter for conjecture.

The appeal of Asie must have been its far-and-wide dispersal of an abundance of oriental images. Certainly, Klingsor’s poem inspired a panorama of a breadth and expressive variety unparalleled in any of Ravel’s other vocal works. Beginning with a languorous oboe solo, three invocations of “Asie” in the vocal part and a little triplet figure on oboe and flute, it presents its basic material in no more than half a dozen bars. The several, apparently disparate episodes of Asie are variations on those motifs - the simulation on syncopated strings of the “bewitching rhythm” of the sea accompanying Klingsor’s schooner rocking in the harbour, the three particularly magical passages devoted to the Persia of Sheherazade and King Shahriyar, the pentatonic evocations of China and, towards the end, the climactic recall of the rhythms and harmonies of the swelling sea.

La Flûte enchantée, where the sound of the flute is felt as a lover’s kiss, is a fascinating metaphor of music as an erotic experience. Ravel’s response to it is a song of correspondingly melodious sensuality, featuring a seductive solo flute and strings that scarcely dare breath except in a short but achingly passionate abandonment of caution in the middle section.

The primary attraction of L’Indifférent, on the other hand, seems to be neither oriental nor musical: it is surely the sexual ambiguity of the boy stranger with eyes “as soft as a girl’s” and hips swaying in his “languid feminine gait.” Does this setting amount to a rare personal confession from a notoriously secretive composer or is it no more than a sensitive gesture towards a poet who made little secret of his homosexual inclinations? Whatever the answer, the voluptuous longing in the vocal line and the contrastingly pure harmonies and gently swaying rhythms of the orchestral accompaniment present an intriguing musical paradox in themselves.

Gerald Larner©2004

Asie

Asie, Asie, Asie.

Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice

Où dort la fantaisie comme une impératrice

En sa forêt tout emplie de mystère.

Asie,

Je voudrais m'en aller avec la goëlette

Qui se berce ce soir dans le port

Mystérieuse et solitaire

Et qui déploie enfin ses voiles violettes

Comme un immense oiseau de nuit dans le ciel d'or.

Je voudrais m'en aller vers des îles de fleurs

En écoutant chanter la mer perverse

Sur un vieux rythme ensorceleur.

Je voudrais voir Damas et les villes de Perse

Avec les minarets légers dans l'air.

Je voudrais voir de beaux turbans de soie

Sur des visages noirs aux dents claires;

Je voudrais voir des yeux sombres d'amour

Et des prunelles brillantes de joie

En des peaux jaunes comme des oranges;

Je voudrais voir des vêtements de velours

Et des habits à longues franges.

Je voudrais voir des calumets entre des bouches

Tout entourées de barbe blanche;

Je voudrais voir d'âpres marchands aux regards louches,

Et des cadis, et des vizirs

Qui du seul mouvement de leur doigt qui se penche

Accordent vie ou mort au gré de leur désir.

Je voudrais voir la Perse, et l'Inde, et puis la Chine,

Les mandarins ventrus sous les ombrelles,

Et les princesses aux mains fines,

Et les lettrés qui se querellent

Sur la poésie et sur la beauté;

Je voudrais m'attarder au palais enchanté

Et comme un voyageur étranger

Contempler à loisir des paysages peints

Sur des étoffes en des cadres de sapin

Avec un personnage au milieu d'un verger;

Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant

Du bourreau qui coupe un cou d'innocent

Avec son grand sabre courbé d'Orient.

Je voudrais voir des pauvres et des reines;

Je voudrais voir des roses et du sang;

Je voudrais voir mourir d'amour ou bien de haine.

Et puis m'en revenir plus tard

Narrer mon aventure aux curieux de rêves

En élevant comme Sindbad

ma vieille tasse arabe

De temps en temps jusqu'à mes lèvres

Pour interrompre le conte avec art...

Asia

Asia, Asia, Asia.

Marvellous old land of nursery stories

Where fantasy sleeps like an empress

In her forest full of mysteries.

Asia,

I would like to go with the schooner

That rocks this evening in the port

Mysterious and solitary

And which finally unfolds its violet sails

Like an immense bird of the night in the golden sky.

I would like to go to the isles of flowers

While listening to the song of the perverse sea

On an old enchanting rhythm.

I would like to see Damascus and the towns of Persia

With their minarets floating in the air.

I would like to see beautiful silken turbans

On black faces with white teeth;

I would like to see the dark eyes of love

With pupils shining with joy

And their yellow skins like oranges;

I would like to see velvet clothes

And the robes with long fringes.

I would like to see pipes in mouths

Completely surrounded by white beards;

I would like to see greedy merchants with shifty looks;

And cadis and viziers

Who with nothing more than a flick of the finger

Grant life or death just as they like.

I would like to see Persia, and India, and then China,

Corpulent mandarins under their sunshades,

And princesses with delicate hands,

And scholars disputing

About poetry and on beauty;

I would like to linger in the enchanted palace

And like a foreign traveller

Contemplate at leisure landscapes painted

On fabrics in pine frames

With a figure in the middle of an orchard;

I would like to see the assasins smiling

As the executioner who cuts the neck of an innocent

With his great curved Oriental sabre.

I would like to see poor people and queens;

I would like to see roses and blood;

I would like to see death from love or hatred.

And then to return later

To tell my story to those curious about dreams

And raise like Sindbad

My old Arabian teacup

From time to time to my lips

To hold the story in artful suspense…

La Flûte enchantée

L'ombre est douce et mon maître dort

Coiffé d'un bonnet conique de soie

Et son long nez jaune en sa barbe blanche.

Mais moi, je suis éveillée encore

Et j'écoute au dehors

Une chanson de flûte où s'épanche

Tour à tour la tristesse ou la joie.

Un air tour à tour langoureux ou frivole

Que mon amoureux chéri joue,

Et quand je m'approche de la croisée

Il me semble que chaque note s'envole

De la flûte vers ma joue

Comme un mystérieux baiser.

The magic flute

It is mild in the shade and my master sleeps

Wearing a pointed silk cap

His long yellow nose in his white beard.

But I am still awake

And I am listening to the song

Of the flute outside pouring out

Sadness and joy in turns,

A melody in turns languorous and frivolous,

Played by my dear lover,

And when I am near the window

It seems to me that every note flies

From the flute to my cheek

Like a mysterious kiss.

L'Indifférent

Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d'une fille,

Jeune étranger,

Et la courbe fine

De ton beau visage de duvet ombragé

Est plus séduisante encore de ligne.

Ta lèvre chante

Sur le pas de ma porte

Une langue inconnue et charmante

Comme une musique fausse.

Entre! Et que mon vin te réconforte...

Mais non, tu passes

Et de mon seuil je te vois t'éloigner

Me faisant un dernier geste avec grâce

Et la hanche légèrement ployée

Par ta démarche féminine et lasse...

Indifference

Your eyes are as soft as a girl’s,

Young stranger,

And the fine curve

Of your handsome face shadowed by down

Is even more seductively shaped.

Your lips sing

At my doorstep

An unknown and charming language

Like music out of tune;

Come in! and let my wine refresh you…

But no, you pass by

And I see you leaving my threshold

Making a graceful last gesture to me,

Your hips gently swaying

In your languid and feminine gait.

(French texts by Tristan Klingsor translated by Gerald Larner©)