Cinq Poèmes de Ronsard

Although, during his lifetime, Pierre de Ronsard was very popular with musicians, afterwards he sank into oblivion for over two centuries. Rediscovered during the French Restoration, he inspired Gounod, Bizet, Massenet and even Gouvy. This success continued into the early decades of the 20th century, as can be seen by the Cinq Poèmes de Ronsard begun by Saint-Saëns in 1907 (L’amour oyseau) and finished in 1920 (the four other songs). There are occasional allusions to an ancient style (that of the Baroque, not the Renaissance), particularly in the first two pieces and in the last (L’amant malheureux dances a minuet). The cycle is given unity by the limpid, pared-down writing, and its freshness of tone. However, À saint Blaise, in the middle of the set, stands out from the other songs: the prayer of the peasant (an ordinary man who occasions a drone and an ostinato figure in the piano) is more coherent in its discourse than the other poems, in which the music transposes the different stages of the narrative and the sequence of emotions. The cycle begins with feigned innocence. One can imagine Saint-Saëns half-smiling as he sets to music the discovery of love (L’amour oyseau) and its power (L’amour blessé). After the interlude of the prayer, Cupid fires his arrows: in a quicksilver vignette (Grasselette et Maigrelette), the man is filled with passion both for one fair maid’s “grasset embonpoint” (fleshy plumpness) and for another’s “maigreur” (slenderness). L’amant malheureux yearns for death, which the listener does not believe for a second: “Avec une douleur comique” (“with comic sorrow”), was actually the composer’s note at the start of this lament.