SOLEILS COUCHANTS

Home 9 Composers 9 Robert Ingari 9 SOLEILS COUCHANTS

featuring Gaïa Ensemble directed by Roseline Blain

Soleils couchants is an a cappella setting of one of Paul Verlaine’s most famous poems from the collection Poèmes saturiens published in 1866. In his setting of this poem, Robert Ingari uses a simple form where the alto melody accompanied by a vocal ostinato in the soprano, tenor and bass alternates with a four-part section where the melody is taken by the sopranos. The rhythmic repetition of the ostinato creates a background for the melancholic melody of the altos.

Une aube affaiblie
Verse par les champs
La mélancolie
Des soleils couchants.
La mélancolie
Berce de doux chants
Mon coeur qui s’oublie
Aux soleils couchants.
Et d’étranges rêves
Comme des soleils
Couchants sur les grèves,
Fantômes vermeils,
Défilent sans trêves,
Défilent, pareils
À des grands soleils
Couchants sur les grèves.
Paul Verlaine (Poèmes saturniens)

translation

Sunsets
A weakened dawn
Pours over the fields
The melancholy
Of sunsets .
The melancholy
Rocks with sweet songs
My heart that leaves itself out
To sunsets.
& Strange dreams
As suns
Set on shores
Ruddy ghosts
Incessantly parade,
Parade, such
As great suns
Set on shores.