Official site of composer Andrea Clearfield. Biography, list of works with audio, score samples, reviews and program notes, photographs, upcoming performances.
Scored for: soprano and mezzo soprano soloists, SATB chorus and chamber orchestra Text: Rainer Maria Rilke Language: French Duration: 15:00 Premiere: 5/30/11 Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Commissioned by: Singing City with support by John and Sandra Stouffer Published by: Angelfire Press, distributed by Black Tea Music. Contact Trudy Chan for score and parts.
Contact Andrea:
Les Fenêtres is set to four poems on the theme of “windows” by Rainer Maria Rilke in the original French. In the first poem, we observe a woman in a window as she raises her arms like a tender vase; in that instant as we both gain and lose the moment, we feel a sudden éclat – a gesture of brilliant light. The other 3 poems view the world through different frames; the ecstasy of a young lover, who having gone through the window, discovers gentle doves on the other side; the strange window cautioning the impulsive one to wait; a window that transforms into a lyre made of stars that we play with our eyes. As Rilke uses the metaphor of the window to explore other ways of seeing; framing life with possibility, mystery, beauty, vastness, joy and longing, Les Fenêtres is a window into a musical world of multi colored sound and song inspired by these evocative poems. The work was commissioned by Singing City to be paired with Arthur Honneger’s King David Oratorio and employs the same instrumentation.
LISTEN to excerpts from II. LA TENDRE AMANTE
TEXT
LES FENÊTRES
Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
I IL SUFFIT
Il suffit que, sur un balcon
ou dans l’encadrement d’une fenêtre,
une femme hésite…pour être
celle que nous perdons
en l’ayant vue apparaître.
Et si elle lève les bras
pour nouer ses cheveux, tendre vase:
combien notre perte par là
gagne soudain d’emphase
et notre malheur d’éclat!
II LA TENDRE AMANTE
Du fond de la chambre, du lit, ce n’était que pâleur qui sépare
la fenêtre stellaire cédant à la fenêtre avare
qui proclame le jour.
Mais la voici qui accourt, qui se penche, qui reste:
après l’abandon de la nuit, cette neuve jeunesse céleste
consent à son tour!
Rien dans le ciel matinal que la tendre amante contemple,
rien que lui-même, ce ciel, immense exemple:
profoundeur et hauteur!
Sauf les colombes qui font dans l’air de rondes arènes,
où leur vol allumé en douces courbes promène
un retour de douceur.
III FENÊTRE ÉTRANGE
Tu me proposes, fenêtre étrange, d’attendre;
déjà presque bouge ton rideau beige.
Devrais-je, ô fenêtre, à ton invite me rendre?
Ou me défendre, fenêtre? Qui attendrais – je?
Ne suis-je intatct, avec cette vie qui êcoute,
avec ce coeur tout plein que la perte complète?
Avec cette route qui passe devant, et le doute
que tu puisses donner ce trop don’t le rêve m’arrête?
IV COMME LA LYRE
Depuis quand nous te jouons
avec nos jeux, fenêtre!
Comme la lyre, tu devais être
rendue aux constellations!
Instrument tendre et fort
de nos âmes successives,
arrache enfin de nos sorts
ta forme définitive!
Monte! Tourne de loin
autour de nous qui te fîmes.
Soyex, astres, les rimes
trouvées a nos bouts de destin!
THE WINDOWS
Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. Translation by A. Poulin, Jr.
I IT WOULD SUFFICE
It’s enough that on a balcony
or in a window frame
a woman pauses…to be
the one we lose
just by seeing her appear.
And if she lifts her arms
to tie her hair, tender vase:
how much our loss gains
a sudden emphasis,
our sadness brilliance!
II THE TENDER LOVER
From the back of the room, the bed, only a pallor spread,
the starry window surrendering to the greedy window
announcing the day.
But here comes the one who hurries, who leans, and stays:
after night’s abandonment, it’s this new and heavenly
girl’s turn to say yes!
At nothing else in the morning sky, the tender lover stares
at nothing but the enormous example of the sky himself:
the heights and depths!
Only doves making round arenas in the air,
where their flight flashing in soft arcs parades
a return of gentleness.
III STRANGE WINDOW
You propose I wait, strange window;
Your beige curtain nearly billows,
O window, should I accept yor offer or,
Window, defend myself? Who would I wait for?
Aren’t I intact, with this life that’s listening,
With this full heart that loss is completing?
With this road running in front, and the qualm
You give this excess that stops me with its dream?
IV LIKE THE LYRE
Window, just how long have we
played you with our eyes!
Like the lyre, you should be
one of the constellations!
Tender and strong instrument
of our successive souls,
tear out your permanent
form at last from our fates!
Climb! And from afar
spin around us who created you.
Be the rhyme, O star,
found at the end of our end!
Les Fenêtres
Les Fenêtres painting by Louise Clearfield
Scored for: soprano and mezzo soprano soloists, SATB chorus and chamber orchestra
Text: Rainer Maria Rilke
Language: French
Duration: 15:00
Premiere: 5/30/11 Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Commissioned by: Singing City with support by John and Sandra Stouffer
Published by: Angelfire Press, distributed by Black Tea Music. Contact Trudy Chan for score and parts.
Contact Andrea:
See preview score pages: LES FENÊTRES Choral excerpt (PDF)
PROGRAM NOTE
Les Fenêtres is set to four poems on the theme of “windows” by Rainer Maria Rilke in the original French. In the first poem, we observe a woman in a window as she raises her arms like a tender vase; in that instant as we both gain and lose the moment, we feel a sudden éclat – a gesture of brilliant light. The other 3 poems view the world through different frames; the ecstasy of a young lover, who having gone through the window, discovers gentle doves on the other side; the strange window cautioning the impulsive one to wait; a window that transforms into a lyre made of stars that we play with our eyes. As Rilke uses the metaphor of the window to explore other ways of seeing; framing life with possibility, mystery, beauty, vastness, joy and longing, Les Fenêtres is a window into a musical world of multi colored sound and song inspired by these evocative poems. The work was commissioned by Singing City to be paired with Arthur Honneger’s King David Oratorio and employs the same instrumentation.
LISTEN to excerpts from II. LA TENDRE AMANTE
TEXT
LES FENÊTRES
Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
I IL SUFFIT
Il suffit que, sur un balcon
ou dans l’encadrement d’une fenêtre,
une femme hésite…pour être
celle que nous perdons
en l’ayant vue apparaître.
Et si elle lève les bras
pour nouer ses cheveux, tendre vase:
combien notre perte par là
gagne soudain d’emphase
et notre malheur d’éclat!
II LA TENDRE AMANTE
Du fond de la chambre, du lit, ce n’était que pâleur qui sépare
la fenêtre stellaire cédant à la fenêtre avare
qui proclame le jour.
Mais la voici qui accourt, qui se penche, qui reste:
après l’abandon de la nuit, cette neuve jeunesse céleste
consent à son tour!
Rien dans le ciel matinal que la tendre amante contemple,
rien que lui-même, ce ciel, immense exemple:
profoundeur et hauteur!
Sauf les colombes qui font dans l’air de rondes arènes,
où leur vol allumé en douces courbes promène
un retour de douceur.
III FENÊTRE ÉTRANGE
Tu me proposes, fenêtre étrange, d’attendre;
déjà presque bouge ton rideau beige.
Devrais-je, ô fenêtre, à ton invite me rendre?
Ou me défendre, fenêtre? Qui attendrais – je?
Ne suis-je intatct, avec cette vie qui êcoute,
avec ce coeur tout plein que la perte complète?
Avec cette route qui passe devant, et le doute
que tu puisses donner ce trop don’t le rêve m’arrête?
IV COMME LA LYRE
Depuis quand nous te jouons
avec nos jeux, fenêtre!
Comme la lyre, tu devais être
rendue aux constellations!
Instrument tendre et fort
de nos âmes successives,
arrache enfin de nos sorts
ta forme définitive!
Monte! Tourne de loin
autour de nous qui te fîmes.
Soyex, astres, les rimes
trouvées a nos bouts de destin!
THE WINDOWS
Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. Translation by A. Poulin, Jr.
I IT WOULD SUFFICE
It’s enough that on a balcony
or in a window frame
a woman pauses…to be
the one we lose
just by seeing her appear.
And if she lifts her arms
to tie her hair, tender vase:
how much our loss gains
a sudden emphasis,
our sadness brilliance!
II THE TENDER LOVER
From the back of the room, the bed, only a pallor spread,
the starry window surrendering to the greedy window
announcing the day.
But here comes the one who hurries, who leans, and stays:
after night’s abandonment, it’s this new and heavenly
girl’s turn to say yes!
At nothing else in the morning sky, the tender lover stares
at nothing but the enormous example of the sky himself:
the heights and depths!
Only doves making round arenas in the air,
where their flight flashing in soft arcs parades
a return of gentleness.
III STRANGE WINDOW
You propose I wait, strange window;
Your beige curtain nearly billows,
O window, should I accept yor offer or,
Window, defend myself? Who would I wait for?
Aren’t I intact, with this life that’s listening,
With this full heart that loss is completing?
With this road running in front, and the qualm
You give this excess that stops me with its dream?
IV LIKE THE LYRE
Window, just how long have we
played you with our eyes!
Like the lyre, you should be
one of the constellations!
Tender and strong instrument
of our successive souls,
tear out your permanent
form at last from our fates!
Climb! And from afar
spin around us who created you.
Be the rhyme, O star,
found at the end of our end!
Texts from “Rainer Maria Rilke, The Complete French Poems”
Translated by A. Poulin Jr.
Translation copyright © 2002 by the Estate of A. Poulin Jr.
Permission to use the translations has been granted by the publisher,
Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org