Overture Magazine: 2016-2017 Season September - October 2016 | Page 45

program notes {
Text and Translation (cont.)
La flûte enchantée
L'ombre est douce et mon maître dort
Coiffé d'un bonnet conique de soie
Et son long nez jaune en sa barbe blanche.
Mais moi, je suis éveillée encor
Et j'écoute au dehors
Une chanson de flûte où s'épanche
Tour à tour la tristesse ou la joie.
Un air tour à tour langoureux ou frivole
Que mon amoureux chéri joue,
Et quand je m'approche de la croisée
Il me semble que chaque note s'envole
De la flûte vers ma joue
Comme un mystérieux baiser.

The shade is pleasant and my master sleeps
In his conical silk hat
With his long, yellow nose in his white beard.
But I am still awake
And from outside I listen to
A flute song, pouring out
By turns, sadness and joy.
A tune by turns langorous and carefree
Which my dear lover is playing,
And when I approach the lattice window
It seems to me that each note flies
From the flute to my cheek
Like a mysterious kiss.

L'indifférent
Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d’une fille,
Jeune étranger,
Et la courbe fine
De ton beau visage de duvet ombragé
Est plus séduisante encor de ligne.
Ta lèvre chante sur le pas de ma porte
Une langue inconnue et charmante
Comme une musique fausse. . .
Entre!
Et que mon vin te réconforte . . .
Mais non, tu passes
Et de mon seuil je te vois t’éloigner
Me faisant un dernier geste avec grâce,
Et la hanche légèrement ployée
Par ta démarche féminine et lasse. . . .

could capture the rhythms and stresses
of his readings accurately in his music.
Originally, the song triptych opened
with “La Flûte enchantée” and closed
with “Asie,” but Ravel later altered this
to make “Asie” the first number. This
change makes for an unusual musical
and expressive trajectory because “Asie”
is more than twice as long as the other
songs and uses by far the largest, lushest
orchestra. In this order, the songs move
from the epic and grand to the intimate
and personal.
Set in the haunting and rarely used key
of E-flat minor, “Asie” evokes the exotic
attractions of the various lands of Asia
from the Middle East to China. Klingsor
had structured his poem with repetitions

Your eyes are soft as those of any girl,
Young stranger,
And the delicate curve
Of your fine features, shadowed with down
Is still more seductive in profile.
On my doorstep your lips sing
A language unknown and charming
Like music out of tune…
Enter!
And let my wine comfort you …
But no, you pass by
And from my doorway I watch you go on your way
Giving me a graceful farewell wave,
And your hips gently sway
In your feminine and languid gait…

of the words “Je voudrais voir” (“I would
like to see”). In Michael Steinberg’s words,
“Each ‘ je voudrais’ is a springboard from
which to plunge into new realms of harmonies and sounds,” as Ravel paints vivid
pictures of the beauties — and cruelties
— of the places to which our magic ship
of the imagination, “spreading its purple
sails,” carries us. The singer’s lines are
molded closely to the words like recitative
over the large, subtly colored orchestra.
Steinberg calls “La Flûte enchantée”:
“a masterpiece made with few notes.”
The orchestra is reduced so that it is
essentially a