After-Orts #125
Debussy, Beau Soir, three versions
Renée Fleming: https://youtu.be/fzNASDPXbMw?si=bDTdkxFShzfM1z5_
Jascha Heifetz: https://youtu.be/_OXGJKIeY1M
with score: https://youtu.be/wsflgRCAh1Y?si=XnSCRCPSS96nsD0p
Beau Soir
Paul Bourget
Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses,
Et qu’un tiède frisson court sur les champs de blé,
Un conseil d’être heureux semble sortir des choses
Et monter vers le cœur troublé;
Un conseil de goûter le charme d’être au monde
Cependant qu’on est jeune et que le soir est beau,
Car nous nous en allons, comme s’en va cette onde:
Elle à la mer—nous au tombeau!
Beautiful evening
English translation by Richard Stokes *
When at sunset the rivers are pink
And a warm breeze ripples the fields of wheat,
All things seem to advise content -
And rise toward the troubled heart;
Advise us to savour the gift of life,
While we are young and the evening fair,
For our life slips by, as that river does:
It to the sea - we to the tomb.
* from A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000)
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By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, "There is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
-- A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner, beginning of chapter VI