Chansons madécasses

Chansons madécasses (Madagascan Songs) is a set of three exotic works by Maurice Ravel written in 1925 and 1926 to words from the poetry collection of the same name by Évariste de Parny.[1] Scored for mezzo-soprano or baritone, flute, cello and piano, and dedicated to the American musician and philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge,[2] the set is usually performed complete as a true song cycle although this was not the composer's designation. The songs are:

  • Nahandove (incipit: Nahandove, ô belle Nahandove)
  • Aoua! (incipit: Aoua! méfiez-vous des blancs, or Ow! Beware of White People)
  • Il est doux (incipit: Il est doux de se coucher durant la chaleur, or It Is Sweet to Lie Down During the Heat)
Chansons madécasses
Song cycle by Maurice Ravel
The composer, c. 1925
EnglishMadagascan Songs
Textpoems Chansons madécasses by Évariste de Parny
LanguageFrench
DedicationElizabeth Sprague Coolidge
Performed8 May 1926 (1926-05-08)
Movementsthree
Scoring
  • voice (mezzo-soprano or baritone)
  • flute
  • cello
  • piano

Premiere and recordings

Jane Bathori sang the premiere on 8 May 1926, in Rome, accompanied by flutist Louis Fleury, cellist Hans Kindler, and pianist Alfredo Casella.[3] The first edition print was made by Luc-Albert Moreau. The first known record was that by Madeleine Grey, a highly regarded singer, in 1932. More recent recordings include:

gollark: This is, I must note, utterly doomed to failure.
gollark: "whosoever lieth with apioforms shall surely be put to death" - [REDACTED], a few minutes ago.
gollark: What if we make the server rules part of the rules?
gollark: It says you need to be a participant.
gollark: They aren't really.

See also

In 2011, the British composer James Francis Brown wrote a work in three movements for the same instrumentation called Songs of Nature and Farewell, which is a setting of three little-known poems by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The work is intended as a companion to Ravel's Chansons madécasses.[4]

References
  1. Arbie Orenstein (1975). "Ravel's Musical Language". Ravel: Man and Musician. Courier Corporation. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-486-26633-6.
  2. Maurice Ravel; Arbie Orenstein (1 August 2003). "Correspondence". A Ravel Reader: Correspondence, Articles, Interviews. Courier Corporation. p. 267. ISBN 978-0-486-43078-2.
  3. Deborah Mawer (24 August 2000). The Cambridge Companion to Ravel. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press. pp. 264–. ISBN 978-0-521-64856-1.
  4. Songs of Nature and Farewell (no date) Available at: http://www.musichaven.co.uk/Songs-of-Nature-and-Farewell.html (Accessed: 13 October 2015)
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