La Mort

Music and Texts of GARY BACHLUND

Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs légères,
Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,
Et d'étranges fleurs sur des étagères,
Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux.

Usant à l'envi leurs chaleurs dernières,
Nos deux cœurs seront deux vastes flambeaux,
Qui réfléchiront leurs doubles lumières
Dans nos deux esprits, ces miroirs jumeaux.

Un soir fait de rose et de bleu mystique,
Nous échangerons un éclair unique,
Comme un long sanglot, tout chargé d'adieux;

Et plus tard un Ange, entr'ouvrant les portes,
Viendra ranimer, fidèle et joyeux,
Les miroirs ternis et les flammes mortes.

C'est la Mort qui console, hélas! et qui fait vivre;
C'est le but de la vie, et c'est le seul espoir
Qui, comme un élixir, nous monte et nous enivre,
Et nous donne le cœur de marcher jusqu'au soir;

À travers la tempête, et la neige, et le givre,
C'est la clarté vibrante à notre horizon noir
C'est l'auberge fameuse inscrite sur le livre,
Où l'on pourra manger, et dormir, et s'asseoir;

C'est un Ange qui tient dans ses doigts magnétiques
Le sommeil et le don des rêves extatiques,
Et qui refait le lit des gens pauvres et nus;

C'est la gloire des Dieux, c'est le grenier mystique,
C'est la bourse du pauvre et sa patrie antique,
C'est le portique ouvert sur les Cieux inconnus!

Combien faut-il de fois secouer mes grelots
Et baiser ton front bas, morne caricature?
Pour piquer dans le but, de mystique nature,
Combien, ô mon carquois, perdre de javelots?

Nous userons notre âme en de subtils complots,
Et nous démolirons mainte lourde armature,
Avant de contempler la grande Créature
Dont l'infernal désir nous remplit de sanglots!

Il en est qui jamais n'ont connu leur Idole,
Et ces sculpteurs damnés et marqués d'un affront,
Qui vont se martelant la poitrine et le front,

N'ont qu'un espoir, étrange et sombre Capitole!
C'est que la Mort, planant comme un soleil nouveau,
Fera s'épanouir les fleurs de leur cerveau!

Sous une lumière blafarde
Court, danse et se tord sans raison
La Vie, impudente et criarde.
Aussi, sitôt qu'à l'horizon

La nuit voluptueuse monte,
Apaisant tout, même la faim,
Effaçant tout, même la honte,
Le Poète se dit: «Enfin!

Mon esprit, comme mes vertèbres,
Invoque ardemment le repos;
Le cœur plein de songes funèbres,

Je vais me coucher sur le dos
Et me rouler dans vos rideaux,
Ô rafraîchissantes ténèbres!»

Connais-tu, comme moi, la douleur savoureuse
Et de toi fais-tu dire: «Oh! l'homme singulier!»
— J'allais mourir. C'était dans mon âme amoureuse
Désir mêlé d'horreur, un mal particulier;

Angoisse et vif espoir, sans humeur factieuse.
Plus allait se vidant le fatal sablier,
Plus ma torture était âpre et délicieuse;
Tout mon cœur s'arrachait au monde familier.

J'étais comme l'enfant avide du spectacle,
Haïssant le rideau comme on hait un obstacle...
Enfin la vérité froide se révéla:

J'étais mort sans surprise, et la terrible aurore
M'enveloppait. — Eh quoi! n'est-ce donc que cela?
La toile était levée et j'attendais encore.

Pour l'enfant, amoureux de cartes et d'estampes,
L'univers est égal à son vaste appétit.
Ah! que le monde est grand à la clarté des lampes!
Aux yeux du souvenir que le monde est petit!

Un matin nous partons, le cerveau plein de flamme,
Le cœur gros de rancune et de désirs amers,
Et nous allons, suivant le rythme de la lame,
Berçant notre infini sur le fini des mers:

Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent
Pour partir; cœurs légers, semblables aux ballons,
De leur fatalité jamais ils ne s'écartent,
Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent toujours: Allons!

Nous imitons, horreur! la toupie et la boule
Dans leur valse et leurs bonds; même dans nos sommeils
La Curiosité nous tourmente et nous roule
Comme un Ange cruel qui fouette des soleils.

Singulière fortune où le but se déplace,
Et, n'étant nulle part, peut être n'importe où!
Où l'Homme, dont jamais l'espérance n'est lasse,
Pour trouver le repos court toujours comme un fou!

Notre âme est un trois-mâts cherchant son Icarie;
Une voix retentit sur le pont: "Ouvre l'œil!"
Une voix de la hune, ardente et folle, crie:
"Amour... gloire... bonheur!" Enfer! c'est un écueil!

O Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre!
Ce pays nous ennuie, ô Mort! Appareillons!
Si le ciel et la mer sont noirs comme de l'encre,
Nos cœurs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons!

Verse-nous ton poison pour qu'il nous réconforte!
Nous voulons, tant ce feu nous brûle le cerveau,
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe?
Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was one of the finest French poets of the 19th century -- 'the father of modern criticism' who shocked his contemporaries with his visions of lust and decay. Baudelaire formed with Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine the so-called Decadents. Baudelaire was the first to equate modern, artificial, and decadent. Baudelaire argued in favor of artificiality, stating that vice is natural in that it is selfish, while virtue is artificial because we must restrain our natural impulses in order to be good.

Baudelaire published his first novel, the autobiographical La Fanfario, in 1847. From 1852 to 1865 he was occupied in translating Edgar Allan Poe's writings. In Poe, Baudelaire found a kindred spirit. When his Les fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) appeared in 1857, all involved - author, publisher, and printer - were prosecuted and found guilty of obscenity and blasphemy. Yet, in continuing litigation, the French courts of that era deemed there to be literary merit in the poems, and the notoriety created only served to make the poet and his work more renown. How often has been seen the attempts at censorship, book burnings and the like, resulted in the opposite end that the censors had in mind? Yet censors persist with their foolishness, and so often provide that publicity which otherwise could never be bought for such a small price. Should one wish to censor, then censor for one's self. The wish to censor for others seems so rarely to fulfill its purpose and so often to create injustice and ultimate rejection of the censors' aims.

The first movement, «Au fond de l'inconnu,» is a short prelude for solo piano, setting the dramatic stage for this cycle. That stage is the predictable human fascination with death -- what it is or might be -- which permeates the texts and is couched in various metaphoric terms. The translations which follow are intended to assist someone less familiar with French in interpreting the individual songs, though there are available interpretations -- translations with better literary merit than I have herein intended.

ii. The Death of Lovers

We will have beds scented with subtle perfumes,
Divans deep as the grave,
And in the surrounding niches will be exotic flowers,
Nurtured for us under brilliant skies.

Using their dying warmth in ardor,
Our two hearts will be two great torches
Reflecting their double light
In our two souls, those twin mirrors.

Some evening made out of mystic rose and of blue
We will exchange a single glance
Like a long sob, heavy with goodbyes;

And later an Angel, opening the door,
Faithful and joy filled, will come to revive
The tarnished mirrors, the dead flames.

[For those who see in Baudelaire's work a simple nihilism, this image of a crypt's marble sarcophagi, decorated with flowers from those who grieve and remember, and the vision of the angel which will one day come to throw open each grave all speak of life beyond death, absent actual theological images other than the angel itself.]

iii. The Death of the Poor

It is Death which comforts, alas! and makes one live;
It is the goal of life, it is the only hope
Which, like an elixir, takes hold and intoxicates
And gives us heart to march until evening;

To cross the tempest, and the snow, and the frost,
It is the vibrant light on our black horizon;
It is the famous inn inscribed on the book,
Where one can eat, and sleep, and take his rest;

It is an Angel who holds in his magnetic fingers
Sleep and the gift of ecstatic dreams
And who remakes the beds of ordinary folk, poor and naked;

It is the glory of the gods, it is the mystic granary,
It is the poor man's purse and his ancient fatherland,
It is the portal opening on the unknown Skies!

[Again, Baudelaire suggests that death is an escape, rather than a nothingness. The image of the granary is one of a repository for life which comes again in some familiar form.]

iv. The Death of Artists

How many times must I shake my bells
And kiss your brow, sad mockery?
To strike at the heart of mystic nature,
How many darts, O my quiver, must I lose?

We will wear away our souls with subtle schemes
And we will demolish many a stricture
Before we gaze on the glorious Creature
Which makes us grieve with tormented desire!

There are some who never knew their Idol
And there are sculptors damned and branded by insult,
Who hammer their brows and their own breasts,

In only one hope, bizarre and somber Capitol!
It is that Death, rising like a new sun,
Will bring to blossom the flowers of their thoughts!

[A purpose of art if not the singular purpose of art, he suggests, is to struggle towards the one "hope" that dying brings blossoms to the "flowers of their thoughts."]

v. The End of the Day

Under a pallid light,
Cut short, turning and twisting without reason
Is life, impudent and shrill.
And so, at the far horizon

Voluptuous night begins to rise,
Taming all, even hunger,
Hiding all, even shame,
Until the Poet says to himself, «At last!

My spirit, as does my back,
Passionately invokes rest;
The heart filled with gloomy dreams,

On my back I will lie down
And wrap myself in your veils,
O refreshing shadows!»

[Like the sentiments found in the last works of Whitman as I edited them together for a libretto for the chamber work, An Echo from the Shore, death is seen as "refreshing." Certainly, there is little nihilism in this vision. Else, Baudelaire would have ceased his work here. Instead, the long text continues.]

vi. The Dream of a Curious Man

Have you known, like me, such delectable suffering?
And have they said of you: «O! the strange fellow!»
— I was soon to die. It was in my loving soul
I felt a peculiar longing; a certain evil;

Anguish and swift hope; without inner turmoil.
The more the fatal hour-glass sands streamed,
The fiercer and more delicious became my torture;
All my heart was snatched away from this familiar world.

I was like a child eager for the spectacle,
Hating the curtain as one hates an obstacle...
Finally cold truth showed itself:

I was dead without surprise; and the terrible dawn
Enveloped me. — What! is this all that there is to it?
The sail had arisen and I again waited.

[The dream of death is not death, and the secrets of death and life too, cannot be revealed in a dream, no matter how convincing. As a result, the poet teaches us, we must wait, and wait again.]

vii. For the Child

For the child, fond of maps and engravings,
The universe is equal to his immense appetite.
Ah! how the world is huge in the light of a lamp!
In the eyes of memories how small is the world!

viii. The True Voyagers

One morning we set out, the mind aflame,
The heart full of resentment and bitter desires,
And we go, following the rhythm of the edge,
Rocking to sleep our infinity on the limits of the seas:

But the true voyagers are only those who leave
Only to leave; hearts light, something like balloons,
Of their mortality never do they never turn aside,
And, without knowing why, they say always: «Let's go!»

[Again, a odd optimism for one known as part of the Decadents. His conclusion is simple: death's true voyagers are not those with "minds aflame," but those whose hearts are "light" and who are comfortably aware of their mortality.]

We imitate, horror! the spinning top and bowling ball,
In their waltz and their leaps; even in our slumber
Curiosity torments us and rolls us around
Like a cruel Angel who lashes the suns.

Singular destiny where the goal changes place,
And, being nowhere, can perhaps be anywhere!
Where Man, whose hope never tires,
Is ever chasing after a short rest like a mad man!

Our soul is a three-master seeking its Icaria;
A voice resounds on the bridge: «Keep a lookout!»
A voice aloft, heated and wild, cries:
«Love... glory... happiness!" Damnation! It's a reef»

[The horror herein is not the horror of death, but the very real horror of our living imitation of children's toys, as we whirl about, seeking to know the unknowable.]

O Death, old Captain, it is time! weigh anchor!
This land wearies us, O Death! Cast off!
Even if the sky and the sea are black as ink,
Our hearts which you know well are filled with rays of light!

Pour out your poison that it may revive us!
We want, as this fire scorches our minds so fiercely,
To plunge into oblivion, Heaven or Hell, whatever comes?
To the depths of the Unknown to find out what's next!"

[Baudelaire's final metaphor is nautical. We "cast off." The fire which "scorches out minds so fiercely" is not the seeming poison of death, an literary irony to be noted, but that which consumes us until the "depths of the unknown" quench that fire, and we learn first-hand, without horror and without resentment, the answer to this ultimate and unavoidable question. Baudelaire offers a vision which is filled with questioning, with hope and with lovely language in both verbiage and meaning.]

This cycle was composed in Paris in March and April of 1990 during a contract for Berlioz' Les Troyens at the Opera de Paris, the new Bastille, in which lovely Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett starred. The rehearsal period was long, arduous and sometimes unpleasant in terms of the musical leadership and the house's the management style. Music in the form of composition provided the antidote and diversion from those stresses, and creating this cycle was a most welcome relief.

Romina Basso mastered literature at the University of Trieste; she is a mezzo soprano gifted with both intelligence and beauty, and has a rich repertoire from early music to the 20th century.

The score is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.