Si mes vers avaient des ailes
Transcription
Si mes vers avaient des ailes
Free download from www.melodietreasury.com Si mes vers avaient des ailes If my verses had wings Mes vers fuiraient, doux et frêles, My verses would flee sweet and fragile My verses would rush, soft and delicate, towards your lovely garden, if only my verses had wings, wings like the bird. Vers votre jardin si beau, towards your garden so beautiful Si mes vers avaient des ailes, If my verses had wings Des ailes comme l'oiseau. wings like the bird Ils voleraient, étincelles, They would fly sparks Vers votre foyer qui rit, towards your hearth which laughs Si mes vers avaient des ailes, if my verses had wings Des ailes comme l'esprit. wings like the spirit Près de vous, purs et fidèles, Close of you pure and faithful Ils accourraient, nuit et jour, they would hasten night and day Si mes vers avaient des ailes, if my verses had wings Des ailes comme l'amour. wings like the love This is one of the best known mélodies by Hahn. Like Guitar by Lalo, earlier in this collection, this is another song to a text by the great French writer and poet Victor Hugo. There have been many poems evoking images of messages of love carried on wings – perhaps the most famous being Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (On wings of song) by Mendelssohn with which it shares a flowing semiquaver accompaniment and an appropriately beautiful melody. The song’s three verses share much the same emotion and it is difficult to colour them differently, so it is most important to sing this song with a beautiful quietly lyrical tone. Hahn’s dynamics are helpful. The opening speed is about q=64 but there is plenty of opportunity to enjoy using a fluid rubato. Exploit the alliteration on “f”s and the related “v”s in the first two lines of text. The lovely rising phrase in bar 4 can broaden to the words si beau, leaning and lengthening a little on the word si to stress just how beautiful the garden is. The pp on bar 6 is sudden and very delicate, and the final bars of the verse can be a little warmer with no rit. The shaping of the second verse is much the same, but it needs a little more flow in tempo, as indicated in bar 10. The verse opens with a triplet which is effective only if it is very even. The word étincelles is set to a dotted rhythm which should be crisp to colour the sparking. Whereas in much of the song one is trying to use long breaths, the suggested extra breath just before is good as it adds further glitter. Enjoy the alliteration on the v’s through the verse, whilst playing with other related They would fly, like sparks, towards your cheerful hearth, if only my verses had wings, wings like the spirit. Pure and faithful, by night and by day, they would hasten to be close to you, if only my verses had wings, wings like love. Explanation of French musical terms: Très doux et expressif – very gently and with expression Un peu moin lent – a little less slow un peu retenu – a little held back, slower plus lent, et en ralentissant jusqu’à la fin – slower and slowing down progressively to the end Très retenu – very held back, much slower encore plus lent – even slower long – hold the pause for a long time consonants too. Again the rising phrase in bar 12 can broaden and the top note can ring like the laughing hearth it describes. The semiquavers stop for final bars of this verse which are pp and allow the singer a little extra time to use the “s” of l’esprit as a smile. The last verse is marked slower again and should continue to slow progressively to the end of the song. There is a little rhythmic twist in the rising phrase this time, which is broken by a quaver rest. Managed well this creates a momentary suspension. This time there is a diminuendo as the phrase rises and the climax calls for a beautifully floated p. In French, liaisons can not usually be made after a noun, but nuit_et jour is a popular phrase which does habitually carry a liaison. Rather uncharacteristically Hahn repeats the penultimate line of the text, as though teasing us to think of what might be carried on wings; with little surprise the answer is of course love. The concluding two bars are as quiet as possible, and if there is any surprise it is in the almost baroque chromaticism of the resolution from below to the final note. Use this to add a note of sensuality to the word amour. The song is composed in two bar phrases. Hahn’s phrase markings in the singer’s part are very strange. He omits a slur completely from the first phrase. Thereafter slurs only cover single bars. Read the slur in bar 4 as crossing into bar 5. At the end of bar 6 he even ends the slur in the middle of a word – the phrase must surely cover the two bars. The same principle applies throughout the song. In bar 21 the rest creates a moment of suspension within the phrase, but preferably without taking a breath. The eternal trap for English speakers on the vowel combination [ɥi] comes right at the start with the word fuiraient and then again on nuit in bar 21.