Songs Without Singers #8 (and #7)

There were some sixteen years between 1983's Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi and 1999's Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Much as many people assumed that George Lucas was done with those movies in 1983 (of course, he should have stopped there), my six-part series of "Songs Without Singers" from 2008 surely seemed to have reached its conclusion sixteen years ago, after excursions with Chausson, Strauss, Poulenc, Schubert, Hoiby, and Stanford. I've since repurposed the Chausson, Poulenc, Hoiby, and Stanford with updated scrolling scores, all as part of 2021's Introspective Retrospective Recital project, and I'd like to re-record the Chausson, Schubert, and Strauss on better pianos, but otherwise I hadn't thought a lot about it.

However, in my most recent post, I mentioned (via hyperlink) Gabriel Fauré's early song Lydia. Considering its place in my own pantheon of perfect, self-contained and somewhat restrained miniatures, I wrote: "Fauré perhaps come closest with this song, which loses points for being a bit too emotional but gains points for the refined counterpoint in the piano part. Turn it into a piano solo (why haven't I done this?) and it would be a model example."

So...it just so happened I had a chance after a Friday night recital to sit and record on a very nice piano for a bit. First of all, I made a new recording of last post's obsession (also originally for voices): Messiaen's O sacrum convivium! Although I have some lingering affection for the "Lo-fi" version I'd made on a practice room piano, I wanted a richer sound, less noisy pedal, and a chance to be at least a little more accurate with some of Messiaen's additive rhythms. I also decided I preferred playing all four parts throughout rather than sustaining repeated notes in lower voices. Here you go:

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[and if you missed my spaced-out, sitting-at-the-synth version, it's over here.]

But I also took up my own suggestion to record Fauré's Lydia as a piano solo, and I've made my own bespoke score so it can scroll continuously along. Fauré is right up there with Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Strauss, Debussy, and Poulenc as a composer of art songs, and there is no song of his I love more than this simple two-verse wonder. It is a natural for the "Songs without Singers" treatment since most of the melody is doubled in the piano part anyway. (Most important was leaving out some repeated pitches in the piano which would interfere with sustained melody notes.) And though it can be sung beautifully, there's something gratifying about reducing it to just the keys. 

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Leconte de Lisle's text is very romantic and "suggestive," but sometimes the best things go unsaid (or unsung). In the previous post, I pondered the concept of "Music which sounds right on a sub-aural level" - this is more a case of "vocal music which sounds right on a sub-vocal level." 

Fauré's piano part is quite unusual. His songs much more often feature harmonic support via chords or arpeggiated patterns. This semi-Lydian (get it?) tribute to the beautiful Lydia looks almost like a Bach chorale beneath those lyrics - perhaps an extension of using the "old-fashioned" Lydian mode. The poem/song is about a moment of surpassing tenderness and intimacy; although four-part counterpoint may seem intellectual and complex on the surface, the mostly narrow range and lightness of this accompaniment work well to create a sense of stillness suitable to the mood. Maybe the gently intertwining parts can even be considered suggestive as well. It's all a beautiful example of writing against type in a way which yields surprisingly satisfying results. 

Reflecting more broadly on this whole "songs without singers" concept, way back when I was "not a doctor because of myself" in search of a research topic, I used to think I wanted to do some kind of work with the kind of translation which happens when we perform colorful orchestral or vocal music on the black-and-white piano. What I realized is that I was and am less interested in doing historical studies of viewpoints on this and more interested in simply exploring the possibilities by playing. And recording. And then writing about it. The proof of concept for me is that I love the way this music feels and sounds this way. 

Of course, my Messiaen recording could also be considered a "song without singers," so I suppose this series now extends to 8. That's just one less than the number of Skywalker Saga movies!

1. Chausson: Le colibri (updated video)
2. Strauss: Morgen
3. Poulenc: Fleurs (updated video)
4. Schubert: Nacht und Träume
5. Hoiby: The Lamb (updated video - additional post)
6. Stanford: The Blue Bird (updated video - additional post)
7. Messiaen: O sacrum convivium!
8. Fauré: Lydia

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P.S. If you don't know the original song, here's a lovely recording. Strangely, although the original F Major seems like the "right" choice for the Lydian Mode connection, it's not easy to find recordings in this key. Tenors like it up a step and many baritones go down. I also like the King's Singers a cappella rendition - definitely brings out the counterpoint. I much prefer this live (?) recording as the studio version is too precious and slickly recorded.

P.P.S. The song's structure is really simple. Tiny intro, 16-bar verse, tiny interlude, 16-bar verse, piano outro. That outro is a little strange (and not easy to play), though it's actually just a descending F Major scale (not Lydian!), with octave displacements, over ascending thirds. What's unusual is that it has a different feeling than the rest of the song - after the death ("mourir toujours"), as it were. Although it has the contrary motion we expect with counterpoint, it is not particularly melodic. It also reaches almost a full octave higher than anything which precedes. Here's the right hand part, with a reduction below that shows the linear structure of the seemingly disjunct writing, made even more so by the persistent dotted rhythms. I always find this postlude a little mystery.