De nuit: deux chants à voix seule
Item
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Score title
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De nuit: deux chants à voix seule
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Composer
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Betsy Jolas
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Program note
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In Victor Hugo's tremendous production it seems everyone can find their own path.
I was myself fascinated in the sixties by the strange beauty of poems collected by the poet André du Bouchet under the extraordinary title "L'œil égaré dans les plis de l'obéissance au vent (The eye astray in the folds of obedience to wind)" taken from Victor Hugo's "Post-Scriptum de ma vie (Post-Scriptum of my life)."
The result was first a radio cantata bearing the same title for chorus soloists and orchestra. Still fascinated by these poems in 2002 — forty years later! — I turned six of them into a song cycle for baritone and piano.
Finally in 2004 I set two of them for unaccompanied low voice (male or female) under my own title, "By Night," to honor my friend the composer and pianist Noël Lee on his 80th birthday.
-Betsy Jolas
Betsy Jolas