DEUX POÈMES DE BAUDELAIRE (2001)
SSAATTBB ± 16 MIN.
Performed by the Flemish Radio Choir and Vocal Ensemble TiRaMiSu
“Deux poèmes de Baudelaire” won the ‘second international competition for choir music in Belgium’ and was premiered by the Flemish Radio Choir on September 17th 2002 in Hasselt, Belgium. The first movement was premiered by Vocal Ensemble TiRaMiSu, conductor Niels Kuijers, in 2001. In December 2004 I finished the revision of both movements.
“Deux poèmes de Baudelaire” consists of two movements which share the same thematic background -love and dead- but are each others counterpart in expression: an mysterious scene full of fiery lust verses a violent and disturbing scenery.
The exterior parts of the first movement ‘La mort des amants’ is about fragmentation: it seems as if you only hear parts of the music, but enough to imagine what the whole picture could be like. Like old Italian frescos, which only partly survived history. It is the missing parts, that what you don’t see/hear what makes it intriguing, mystical. The middle part is a vigourous 4-part contrapuntal setting in which the alto’s have a kind of ‘unendliche melodie’ around which the other parts passionately hunt each other.
The second movement ‘À celle qui est trop gaie’ central section is also an ‘unendliche melodie’ which is sang now with the whole choir in turns. The ambitus and the jumps of the melody gets larger and larger until it completely fragmentises just before the key-sentence of the poem: ‘Je te hais autant que je t’aime!’.
The rather introvert character of the first movement is opposed in the second movement by an extrovert and hallucinating music.