Romance (L’âme évaporée et souffrante) by Claude Achille Debussy
The original song has an atmospheric vocal line that bridges late-Romantic aesthetics and Debussy’s early impressionistic tendencies, cleverly painting an image of a tender romance. It forms part of Debussy's early catalogue of mélodies that were written during his formative years, following his 1884 receipt of the Prix de Rome (a famous French scholarship, originally for young painters and sculptors, started by King Louis XIV in 1663; winners lived and studied in Rome at the state's expense) for his cantata, L’enfant prodigue.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) is one of France’s best-loved composers, the creator and leading exponent of French musical impressionism. Born to a seamstress and the owner of a china shop in Paris, he started his musical studies at the Conservatoire at the age of 10. In adulthood, he reacted against the dominant influence of Germanic music with its logical rigours of form and development, looking for a new music of colour, sensation, fleeting mood and a relaxed form that would be both distinctively French and his own.
During a very productive period of some 20 years he composed most of his major works, including String Quartet in G minor (1893), Clair de Lune (‘Moonlight’ in Suite bergamasque for piano, 1890–1905), the orchestral symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), his sole completed opera Pelléas et Mélisande (a landmark in 20th-century music, 1902), and La mer (‘The Sea’, for orchestra, 1905). Among his most popular pieces for piano are the enchanting Children’s Corner (1908), two books of Préludes (1910-13), a masterful (and difficult) book of Études, and two series of Images (1905-7). The orchestral ballet score, Jeux, was premiered in Paris in 1913, just a fortnight before Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and was his last orchestral score.
Debussy developed cancer in 1910, which sapped his strength during his final years of life; he died in Paris in 1918 and is buried in the Passy Cemetery. His famously dream-like solo piano miniature, Rêverie (1884), was adapted by Larry Clinton in 1938 to create My Reverie, a song recorded by many as a jazz standard, including Ella Fitzgerald.
L’âme évaporée et souffrante,
L’âme douce, l’âme odorante
Des lis divins que j’ai cueillis
Dans le jardin de ta pensée,
Où donc les vents l’ont-ils chassée,
Cette âme adorable des lis?
N’est-il plus un parfum qui reste
De la suavité céleste
Des jours où tu m’enveloppais
D’une vapeur surnaturelle,
Faite d’espoir, d’amour fidèle,
De béatitude et de paix?
Soul of lightest breath, softly sailing,
Soul so gentle, perfume exhaling
Of lily fair, the precious dower
Of thy dear thought, a garden gay,
Ah, whither is it borne away,
This soul so divine of a flower?
Is it the perfume that remaineth,
That heavenly sweetness yet retaineth
Of days when thou my heart didst hold,
As in celestial influence lying,
Of rosy hope, of love undying,
Of supreme delight, peace untold?
Original French lyrics by Paul Bourget (1852-1935)
English translation by Isabella G. Parker
Portrait of Claude Debussy (1902) by Jacques-Émile Blanche (George Grantham Bain collection, Library of Congress).
Paul Bourget’s original poem, Romance, was from the collection Les Aveux (1882).
Sheet music cover image: Chez le père Lathuille by Edouard Manet (1879).
Hear Romance beautifully sung by Jessye Norman on her album Salzburg Recital (with pianist James Levine, 1991): on Spotify or YouTube. There are also several recordings of the piece arranged for cello and piano/harp.
Sixteen carefully selected lyrical pieces (including six by women composers) arranged for solo piano are included in the printed Fullscore Publication Songs without Words, Book 1, available only from Amazon globally. Link: tinyurl.com/hs7mp85s
Other pieces for intermediate piano players are available as free pdf downloads from fullscoremusic.co.uk
