Reflets

Composed by Marie-Juliette Olga Boulanger (Lili Boulanger) for voice and piano.

Maurice Maeterlink's haunting text is beautifully elaborated by the liquid ascending eighth patterns in the piano, rising as if from "beneath the water of the dream" while the voice glides over the surface. As the "lilies, palms and roses/still weep on the water's bed' the piano stills, taking on a new colour as we "descend, eternally beneath the dream’s water and into the moon." 

Reflets


Maurice Maeterlinck

Sous l'eau du songe qui s'élève
Mon âme a peur, mon âme a peur.
Et la lune luit dans mon coeur
Plongé dans les sources du rêve!
Sous l'ennui morne des roseaux.
Seul le reflets profonds des choses,
Des lys, des palmes et des roses
Pleurent encore au fond des eaux.
Les fleurs s'effeuillent une à une
Sur le reflet du firmament.
Pour descendre, éternellement
Sous l'eau du songe et dans la lune.

Reflections


English Translation © Richard Stokes

Beneath the water of the dream that rises,
My soul is afraid, my soul is afraid.
And the moon shines into my heart
That is bathed in the dream’s source!
Beneath the sad tedium of the reeds,
Only the deep reflection of things,
Of lilies, palms and roses,
Still weep on the water’s bed.
One by one the flowers shed their leaves
Upon the firmament’s reflection
To descend, eternally,
Beneath the dream’s water and into the moon.

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder (www.oxfordlieder.co.uk)

© Copyright Untitled Ensemble