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Le Pot de fleurs - (2013)
Pierre-Jules-Théophile Gautier
for medium voice and piano
Parfois un enfant trouve une petite graine,
Et tout d'abord, charmé de ses vives couleurs,
Pour la planter, il prend un pot de porcelaine
Orné de dragons bleus et de bizarres fleurs.
Il s'en va. La racine en couleuvres s'allonge,
Sort de terre, fleurit et devient arbrisseau ;
Chaque jour, plus avant, son pied chevelu plonge
Tant qu'il fasse éclater le ventre du vaisseau.
L'enfant revient ; surpris, il voit la plante grasse
Sur les débris du pot brandir ses verts poignards ;
II la veut arracher, mais la tige est tenace ;
II s'obstine, et ses doigts s'ensanglantent aux dards.
Ainsi germa l'amour dans mon âme surprise ;
Je croyais ne semer qu'une fleur de printemps :
C'est un grand aloès dont la racine brise
Le pot de porcelaine aux dessins éclatants.4 pages, circa 4' 15"
Pierre-Jules-Théophile Gautier
Flower Pot
A child finds a seed time had not forgot;
For being delighted with its bright designs
As for its soil, he seeds the porcelain pot,
Ornate with blue dragons and fine florid lines.
He leaves; a furred root snakes silent its reach,
Out from earth its forceful flowerings start;
A little each day, its foot presses the breech
Until the bellied pot creaking cracks apart.
The child returns; growth greets him as surprise
For among the shards a spiked plant springs;
Though its tenacious fronds he would brutalize,
He is but bloodied by its green-sharp stings.
Surprise begat love within my soul;
I expected it to grow as a flowering spring.
Life's spike-great aloe roots broke the whole,
And my heart's designs became a broken thing.
Rhymed paraphrase by the composer
Copyright © 2013 Gary Bachlund
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art, theater, dance and literary critic. A defender of Romanticism as an aesthetic stance, his work was admired by contemporaries like Balzac, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Proust and Oscar Wilde. The text is found in his collection, La Comédie de la Mort, published 1838.
The score for Le Pot de fleurs 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.
A4 format
