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ALBUM: Clair de Lune Sur Les Eaux Du Rêve
ARTIST: The music of Jean Chatillon: Performed by Michel Dussault, Marie Daveluy & Diane Mauger

Sleeve Notes

LA FÊTE was composed during the Spring and Summer of 1957. The action takes place in a country setting during a garden party like those which were given at the time on the terraces running along the Nicolet river.

With all the innocence in the world, a young man experiences his first feelings of love, made up as much of dreams as of reality.

The VALSES POUR MARIE VETSERA, however, written during Autumn 1957 and Winter 1958, are based on an authentic incident: the ill-fated affaire between the Archduke Rudolf and Maria Vetsera in that all-too gay Vienna of the Strauss family.

This time we meet two real lovers, beset by insurmountable difficulties, and to whom death offered the only solution in the hunting lodge at Mayerling on the 30th January, 1889.

The story is seen through the eyes of the young girl who has no hesitation in naming the cause of the tragedy that befalls her: the Hofburg, the imperial palace and symbol of oppression.

One would not be far wrong in seeing in these «engagé» works the representation of the crisis experienced by every sensitive young man the first time he faces up to a society which is grossly materialistic, hypocritical and deaf to all suggestions of change. These compositions are a plea for a freer and consequently happier life.

The MÉLODIES, written at various stages in my evolution, draw their inspiration from a variety of experiences and authors.

What esthetic elements have I brought to these works? After careful consideration, I decided to opt for a different path than that followed by the majority of my fellow composers.

Instead of choosing some instrument and torturing it to extract ususual sounds. I preferred to listen for and express the song which flows from that one incomparable instrument, human nature itself...

JEAN CHATILLON, Summer 1974, rang de la Grande Rivière

Programme Notes & Lyrics

TWO SUITES FOR PIANO
LA FÊTE (1957)
       
I) Introduction II) Festivites
1
Arrival at the garden party
5
Play of moods
2
Conversation
6
Tenderness
3
Light-hearted rondo
7
I danced on and on!
4
Encounters
8
Only she ........ 
       
III) Ending
9

Solitude Waltz

10

The soft mirror of your eyes

11

Moonlit dreams on the water

12

Life fades from the party

VALSES POUR MARIE VETSERA (1958)

1) The child's face frozen in despair at this window is mine
2) Hope and suffering dance together
3) The soldiers strut like great puppets
4) How I loathe the Hofburg, forbidding pile of stone
5) What a waltz I could dance with him!
6) The night trembles with the light of the little drawing-room lamp
7) Court waltzes fade away like grey smoke
8) A touch of something gay invades my senses
9) The bloody snow at Mayerling.

ELEVEN SONGS FROM QUEBEC POETS
 
THE LOVER (1958)
Words by Jean Chatillon
One heady night, he spoke
of the childish madness of his love:
« I have written a hundred poems or more
and when the moment comes to praise you.
I no longer know what to say
and I am shy
and I can only gaze at you ... »
He wanted so much for my love
to equal the love he felt for me:
« Your beauty shone above all others.
do not deny it, for I can judge!
You were a marvel without peer
and you reminded me
of a lovely moth fluttering in the night... »
 
THE KING'S DAUGHTER (1971)
Words by Louis Caron (from I'LLUSIONNISTE, 1973, Écrits des Forges)
The king's daughter
had three gowns, three sets of Finery.
And the people said :
« The king's daughter has three gowns. »
There came a knight, who said to her :
« You have a lovely gown. »
And the king's daughter fell in love.
The marriage day dawned.
The women had dressed up in their finest gowns,
but not the king's daughter.
She said:
« I do not want to be loved just for my gown. »
An old monk came and spoke :
« Oh daughter of the king, it is God's will
that young girls put on their gowns. »
She replied:
« But this evening I must take it off. »
And the monk nodded his head.
So the king's daughter said :
« I shall adorn myself in the gown of the sea. »
and the king's daughter was no more.
 
VIOLIN FOR A VILLANELLA (1968)
Words by Emile Nelligan
There where the moon shines in the coolness of the dell,
Fine dark-haired lads and golden-haired girls.
To the strains of the oboe or violin
             Go dance the villanella.
The heathland bathes in gentle perfume.
Let your joy burn bright in the glow of the coals:
Let your heart be gay. let your step be light.
             Go dance the villanella.
The old folk are sitting on an oaken bench
Watching your dance with tear-bright eyes,
As you brush against them lost in joy...
             Go dance the villanella.
Let our hearts be gay ! for the gleaming orb
Will silver your brows with its changing light:
Far into the night on the feast of Saint John
             Go dance the villanella.
 
LULLABY (1969)
Words by Emile Nelligan
There's someone weeping in the quiet sadness
       Of April nights:
There's someone weeping in the endless lassitude
       Of a long exile.
There's someone weeping tears of pain
       Within my heart...
 
A WINTER EVENING (1973)
Words by Emile Nelligan

Ah! how thickly the flakes have fallen!
My window is a frosted garden.
Ah! how thickly the flakes have fallen!
What is the spasm of life, compared
To the pain that I feel, that I feel!

Every pond lies frozen,
My soul is dark: Where can I be? where can I go?
Every hope lies frozen:
I am another Norway,
A land the fair skies have deserted.

Weep, birds of February,
For the evil shiver of the world,
Weep, birds of February,
Weep for my tears, weep for my roses.
On the branches of the juniper tree.

Ah! how thickly the flakes have fallen!
My window is a frosted garden.
Ah! how thickly the flakes have fallen!
What is the spasm of life. compared
To the lassitude that I feel, that I feel...

 
THE TREE (1963)
Words by Pierre Chatitlon (Unpublished early work)
In the air... the silence
of leafy clusters
embroidered on the night ...
The breath of a shooting star
filters through the dream ...
The dream of the leaves.
like a corolla heavy with drops of sleep.
opens out and slumbers.
The long purple river of the evening
flows cooly past.
bathing the sea-shaped tresses of my tree
spread out in sleep.
 
LIGHT I (1971)
Words by Pierre Chatillon (from SOLEIL DE BIVOUAC, 1969, Éditions du Jour)
My arms are full of tall flowers of light:
at dawn. let me transplant into your flesh
their soft stems, to free you from the earth.
Oh my love. be crystal clear and more beautiful
than a shining-haired sun. take wings.
and swear to forsake mortality forever.
 
LIGHT II (1971)
Words by Pierre Chatillon (idem)
She offered me her body like a lamp
with open wings
like a winged lamp.
You will be able to see death coming from a long way off, she said.
and so take flight
by my light.
 
THE SHELLS OF MY DREAMS (1971)
Words by Gatien Lapointe

Across the shells of my dreams
autumn lays snow silences.

Beneath the shadow of my eyelids
the stars go out one by one
and in the pale echo of their dance
your face draws away, far off...

Sometimes the sun flashes back from water
like flowers of fire!

If I go back to my childhood skies
in the very heart of summer
— will you still show me the way?—
I will break through this wall of dust.

For across the shells of my dreams
autumn lays snow silences.

 
SEASCAPE (1971)
Words by Gatien Lapointe

Sleep... in the hollow of the waves.
eyes full of sky, full of warmth.

Dreamlike, the sea veiled in ships
adrift, murmuring
slow melancholic refrains.

And, in the sudden mists of evening.
powerless to control its desires.
the soul of my childhood is swamped.

Suns, hazy in the water
far from the sky and far from the day.

 
FLASHES OF LIGHT (1971)
Words by Gatien Lapointe

The skies of my childhood float down with the snow:
white music dwells in the world.

Wreathed in blue smoke, the gods loiter
and the wind cherishes in its cupped hands
the smell of facile fates.
In the depths of the sky, the river has shut itself in
with its dream flakes;
the whole earth has painted itself white
to send morning back to sleep among the stars.

The skies of my childhood float down with the snow;
it is snowing flowers soaked in sunlight.

My sorrows brush gently
across my forehead, on the misty roofs,
and the roads which open in my eyes
are consumed in a fire of light.
— oh these white melodies
that the stars place upon my shoulders!—

The skies of my childhood float down through the snow.

 

Credits

This disc is a remake of a recording made in 1974, with the help of l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. For historical reasons, it is presented here about the same as it was at that time.

Traducteur: Francis White
Graphiste: Nicole Vigneault

CD Number: EN-01

This page was last updated on 18 January, 2006