Fleurs des landes op. 13

In 1849-50 Berlioz published several song cycles put together from independent pieces written for different vocal forces. Published by Richault in 1850, Fleurs des landes opens with two settings of exactly the same text by Adolphe de Bouclon. These are followed by Le trébuchet, a “scherzo for two voices” (male or female) composed in the early 1840s to words by Antoine de Bertin (first verse) and Émile Deschamps (verses 2 and 3). It closes with two songs to lines by Auguste Brizeux: Le jeune pâtre breton, a romance for voice, horn ad libitum and piano, which also exists in a version with orchestral accompaniment, and Le chant des Bretons, composed in 1835 for four male voices. These five pieces were probably published together because of their traditional tone and the natural subject of their texts. Their music nevertheless covers a fairly broad spectrum, as may be seen from the two settings of Bouclon’s poem, which explore two contrasting styles: despite the subtitle “romance”, Le matin, the evocation of a rustic dawn, takes a strikingly developed form, not strictly strophic, and with many different support formulas; in Petit oiseau (“peasant song”), on the other hand, Berlioz stylises the regularity and simplicity of a folk song. In the two Breton pieces, Berlioz does not seem to be bothered about local colour. The shepherd dreaming of his sweetheart converses with the horn, which, in keeping with French tradition, represents the voice of his absent beloved. The Bretons in the last piece, with its constantly varied verses, sing in a rustic manner but without asserting their regional identity.