The Faure Song Cycles. Stephen Rumph
Hugo’s verses, at the end of each line and at the caesura of each twelve-syllable alexandrine. In the first two phrases of each strophe, Fauré marked the caesura with an upward leap on the sixth syllable, while in the third and fourth phrases he subdivided the line with a descending sequence. His opening phrase is perfectly tailored to Hugo’s prosody: the monotone melody leaps a minor third on the sixth syllable, “di-sait,” then descends to linger over an accented passing tone on the twelfth syllable, “cé-leste.” The musical phrase hugs the arching contour of Hugo’s alexandrine as it rises to the caesura and falls to the final syllable.19
Moreover, Fauré respected the subdivisions within each hemistich. The alexandrine offers a rich variety of internal divisions.20 In Hugo’s first line, for example, both hemistichs subdivide into 4 + 2 syllables:
Fauré’s melody fastidiously marks these subdivisions by dipping a half step on “fleur” and elongating the third syllable of “pap-i-llon.” If we disregard the metrical accents and attend only to the rhythm and contour of Fauré’s melody, we find that he has indeed set the word “papillon” in perfect accordance with the prosody. Howat and Kilpatrick have noted that the vocal line of “Le papillon et la fleur” falls into an implicit 3/4 meter (on the alexandrines), and the reason for the hemiola lies in Hugo’s first line.21 Unfortunately, the shortcomings of Fauré text-setting emerge during the succeeding strophes where he automatically repeated the rhythm of the first line even where it conflicts with the prosody. (Following the conventions of the romance, Fauré’s autograph provides only the vocal line of the second and third stanzas, duplicating the rhythm of the first stanza.) The second strophe, for example, begins with a 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 line better suited to 6/8 meter:
The third strophe, on the other hand, scans as 2 + 4 + 4 + 2:
In his early songs, alas, Fauré’s attention to prosody often ends with the first line.22
Did Fauré really attend so closely to Hugo’s verse structure? Are we perhaps imputing too much to the adolescent composer? The piano ritornello provides the answer. The first four bars consist of a little dialogue in the right hand, with soaring scales for the flighty butterfly and short chromatic responses for the dejected flower. The sequential melody that follows in mm. 5–8 is an ornamented version of the singer’s third phrase; given the primacy of the vocal line in the romance, we may assume that Fauré composed the strophes first and then derived the ritornello from the third phrase. The “butterfly” scales in mm. 1–4 derive in turn from the sequence in mm. 5–8, beginning on the second beat and inverting exactly the first four notes of the descending scale. We may conclude, then, that Fauré composed the opening dialogue last of all, as an afterthought. Now there are twelve notes in the “butterfly” scale and three notes in the chromatic “flower” response in mm. 1–2. The same pair of twelve- and three-note motives repeats up an octave in mm. 3–4. Taken together, the note count of the piano melody in mm. 1–4 comes to 12 + 3 + 12 + 3—the precise syllable count of Hugo’s stanzas! With this erudite wink, the novice composer reveals that he is already an astute reader of French prosody.
SYNTAX AND HARMONY
Fauré confronted a different poetic technique in “Puisque j’ai mis ma lèvre.” The most noticeable feature of Hugo’s poem is the insistent repetition of “puisque” (since) in the first twelve lines. This litany results in a striking instance of hypotaxis, or nesting of subordinate clauses within a sentence. In parataxis, the opposite syntactic principle, clauses are strung together additively as in “I came, I saw, I conquered.” A hypotactic version of Caesar’s sentence might read, “After I came, because I saw, I conquered.” The first two clauses no longer stand alone but must await completion by the main clause. Hugo exploited hypotaxis artfully in “Puisque j’ai mis ma lèvre” to project the poem’s meaning. While Fauré’s setting does not fully align with Hugo’s rhetorical design, it shows a keen awareness of his syntactic structure.
The five stanzas of “Puisque j’ai mis ma lèvre” divide into two groups based on syntax. The first three stanzas belong to a single complex sentence and consist of nine subordinate clauses:
Puisque j’ai mis ma lèvre à ta coupe encor pleine;
Puisque j’ai dans tes mains posé mon front pâli;
Puisque j’ai respiré parfois la douce haleine
De ton âme, parfum dans l’ombre enseveli;
Puisqu’il me fut donné de t’entendre me dire
Les mots où se répand le cœur mystérieux;
Puisque j’ai vu pleurer, puisque j’ai vu sourire
Ta bouche sur ma bouche et tes yeux sur mes yeux;
Puisque j’ai vu briller sur ma tête ravie
Un rayon de ton astre, hélas! voilé toujours;
Puisque j’ai vu tomber dans l’onde de ma vie
Une feuille de rose arrachée à tes jours;
Since I placed my lips to your still brimming cup;
Since I rested my pale brow on your hands;
Since at times I breathed the sweet breath
Of your soul, perfume hidden in the shade;
Since I was blessed to hear you speak
Words that spill over from a mysterious heart;
Since I beheld tears, since I beheld smiles,
Your mouth on my mouth, and your eyes on my eyes;
Since I beheld, shining on my joyful head,
A ray of your star, alas! always veiled;
Since I beheld falling into the stream of my life
A rose leaf torn from your days;
The accumulation of dependent clauses strains the limits of the sentence, whetting the desire for closure.
The fourth stanza discharges this pent-up energy in a flurry of exclamatory sentences:
Je puis maintenant dire aux rapides années:
—Passez! passez toujours! je n’ai plus à vieillir!
Allez-vous en avec vos fleurs toutes fanées;
J’ai dans l’âme une fleur que nul ne peut cueillir!
I can now say to the rushing years:
—Pass on! pass on forever! I shall age no longer!
Go forth with your withered flowers;
I have a flower in my soul that none may pluck!
The long-awaited main clause introduces two imperatives—“Passez!” and “Allez-vous en!”—that call the syntax to order like twin trumpet blasts. (Note how Hugo has marked the turn by inverting “Puis-que” to “Je puis.”) The fourth stanza consists almost entirely of simple sentences, with only one subordinate clause. The fifth stanza, finally, concludes with a pair of sentences in which the subordinate clause follows the main clause. The poem thus ends by reversing the syntactic order of the sprawling opening sentence:
Votre aile en le heurtant ne fera rien répandre
Du vase où je m’abreuve et que j’ai bien rempli.
Mon âme a plus de feu que vous n’avez de cendre!
Mon cœur a plus d’amour que vous n’avez d’oubli!
The