Grovesvignoles - DUPARC: Songs [CD]

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Henri DUPARC (1848-1933) SongsA piano pupil of Cesar Franck as a schoolboy, HenriDuparc studied law, while continuing his musicalinterests with composition lessons from the sameteacher. Much of the music he wrote at this time, hediscarded, but in 1868 he published a set of pianopieces, Feuilles volantes, and wrote five songs, ofwhich he kept only two, Soupir and Chanson triste,although the other three were not destroyed and wererediscovered some years after his death. Duparc'scareer as a composer was a short one. In Paris he wasassociated with the foundation of the Societe Nationalede Musique, which gave its first concert in 1871 andinvolved, on its committee, Saint-Sa?\xbdns, Alexis deCastillon, Romaine Bussine, the violinist and composerJules Auguste Garcin and the composer and teacherCharles Lenepveu. As secretary of the organization,Duparc had a reputation for administrative efficiency,reflected in his subsequent career in local provincialgovernment but sorting ill with the hyperaesthesia thatended his creative career as a composer at the age of 36.Duparc, in common with other contemporaries inFrance, was greatly influenced by Wagner. In Munichhe had heard Das Rheingold and Tristan und Isolde,during a visit there with Vincent d'Indy in 1869, and thefollowing years brought further visits, including, in1879, an expedition to Bayreuth with EmmanuelChabrier. At the same time he was at the forefront ofcultural fashions of the time, an enthusiast for theliterature, drama and painting of the day.In the years that followed the end of his career as acomposer, Duparc continued to interest himself in allthe arts, occupying himself with painting and drawing,until the onset of blindness and in his final yearscomplete paralysis. He died in 1933 at the age of 85.The creative career of Duparc lasted sixteen yearsand his most significant contribution to music lies in hissixteen solo songs. After the last of these, written in1884, he wrote nothing, but was able to work onorchestrations of some of the song accompaniments andon editing earlier compositions, while he was still ableto see. His choice of texts for his songs suggests a moodof melancholy that ultimately seems to have triumphedin final silence.The 1868 songs begin with Chanson triste (SadSong) 2, revised in 1902 with an orchestral version tenyears later. The text is by Henri Cazalis, who used thepen-name Lahor. It was Cazalis, one of the Parnassianpoets of the period, who wrote the Danse macabre setby Saint-Sa?\xbdns and later the basis of the orchestral workof that title. The range of the vocal part is relativelywide, the accompaniment in broken chords, withadventurous use of harmony. This is followed inapparent order of composition by Soupir (Sigh) 8, alsorevised in 1902. The verse set is by Sully-Prudhomme,one of the leading French Parnassian poets of the time,and the setting is dedicated to Duparc's mother. Theearly group of songs also includes a setting of VictorWilder's version of Goethe's Kennst du d

Serenade

Chanson Triste

Le Manoir De Rosemonde

L'Invitation Au Voyage

Phidyle

Testament

Serenade Florentine

Soupir

La Vague Et La Cloche

Extase

La Vie Anterieure

Le Galop

Lamento

Elegie

La Fuite