Symétrie

The 37 spiritual canticles constituting the collection by Charles de Courbes were published in 1622 by the music printer of Louis XIII, Pierre Ballard. They are varied polyphonies, covering all the as...

The 37 spiritual canticles constituting the collection by Charles de Courbes were published in 1622 by the music printer of Louis XIII, Pierre Ballard. They are varied polyphonies, covering all the as...

The 37 spiritual canticles constituting the collection by Charles de Courbes were published in 1622 by the music printer of Louis XIII, Pierre Ballard. They are varied polyphonies, covering all the as...

Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man) is an opera in two acts and one intermezzo on a libretto by the three Alagna brothers, adapted from the eponymous novel Victor Hugo. Pub...

Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man) is an opera in two acts and one intermezzo on a libretto by the three Alagna brothers, adapted from the eponymous novel Victor Hugo. Pub...

These poems by Heather Dohollau, taken from Point de rosée, take us to this "other country" where frontiers are burning, this "unbelievable place" where there is no limit between here and elsewhere, t...

These Trois Psaumes are meant for the liturgy as well as for the concert. They were written at rather distant times: in 1996 for the first two (equal-voice choir), and much later in 2011 for the last...

Known above all for his operas, such as Manon (1884), Werther (1892) and Thaïs (1894), Jules Massenet (1842-1912) also left nearly 300 art songs for voice and piano or orchestral accompaniment. Most o...

Refus (1901) It was not until its publication on the 12th of January 1901 in Le Figaro that Refus was acknowledged to be one of Massenet's works. However, it marked the beginning of an interesting but...

Massenet composed Amoureux d'une étoile in August 1911, just one year before his death on the 13th of August 1912. The poem comes from a collection by Vice Admiral Eugène de Jonquières (1850-1919),...

The composer, known for his power of seduction, thus put his work at the service of his public image. He needed the press which, in turn, wished to benefit from his assistance, so much so that his pop...

Already practised in the salons of the second half of the 18th century, the genre of the romance experienced an unprecedented vogue under the Empire and then the Restoration. Defined in Jean-Jacques R...

These poetic 'collages' were born from a freedom left to words to arrange themselves in images, almost without the assent of thought. I say 'almost'. In this field, regardless of what one might allege...

Contrary to my custom, I decided to bring together in this cahier songs set to poems by three different writers. Their date of composition, which provides this (false) semblance of title, would certai...

I came to Reverdy late - I was already in my twenties - through two verses from Les Ardoises du toit, that I happened to be leafing through by chance at a friend's home: 'The last belltower still stan...

In the preface to my Trois Poèmes de Supervielle, recently published by Symétrie, I describe his poetry as 'familiar, peaceful and reassuring', deeming it 'faithful to all stages of our life'. But I d...

I can never repeat too often how much my taste in poetry - a certain kind of poetry - is indebted to Georges Schehadé. After a childhood carpeted with Victor Hugo's alexandrines, and an adolescence in...

Only seven secular compositions of his larger musical output have survived. Despite the small sample size, Pierre Fontaine's songs exhibit an originality and beauty that foreshadowed those of his famo...