Description

The poetry collection Chansons de Bilitis is one of the better
literary hoaxes of the nineteenth century. Published as translations of
ancient Greek verses by a courtesan and onetime lover of Sappho, they
were in fact wholly fabricated by the poet Pierre Louÿs, though his
depth of knowledge of the period and style in question, and the richness
and daring of his imagery, deceived readers and scholars for quite some
time (an accomplishment in itself). When Debi Wong approached me about
setting a cycle of these poems for her, she expressed interest in
evoking the pseudo-antiquity of the words through the instrumentation.
My wife’s instrument, the zither-like kantele, resembling the bardic
lyre, seemed perfect for the task, as well as for the overtly Sapphic
eros of Louÿs’s words.

The collection itself consists of several dozen poems tracing the
entire life of the fictitious Bilitis, in addition to three epitaphs on
her death. In collating the texts for the songs, I did take some
editorial liberties, cutting names of people and appeals to various
deities to keep the focus on Bilitis and her private world, in one case
conflating two different poems with similar themes. I chose to focus
throughout on a small set of recurring images: trees and leaves, night,
darkness and stars, rain, innocence, and an abiding sense of loss. The
piece begins with the final epitaph of the collection, the poet herself
standing over her grave and lamenting her passing from the world. From
there, the music returns to her earliest memories of sexual awakening
and youthful delight in nature, touching on her midlife passions, and
ending with her last, lonely thoughts. The music itself is a kind of
hoax, a simultaneous homage to, and parody of the fin-de-siècle French
style of song setting, beginning in a nostalgic, Impressionist dream
world of recollection, and gradually taking on more contemporary ideas
as it moves into the poetic here-and-now, to bear witness to Bilitis’s
final moments.

Instrumentation

mezzo, kantele

Category

Vocal and Choral Works

Language

Fr

Lyricist

Pierre Louÿs

Commisioned by / dedications

Dedicated to Debi Wong and Hedi Viisma.

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