“This is what I read in it: A faun—a simple, sensuous, passionate being—wakens in the forest at daybreak and tries to recall his experience of the previous afternoon. Was he the fortunate recipient of an actual visit from nymphs, white and golden goddesses, divinely tender and indulgent? Or is the memory he seems to retain nothing but the shadow of a vision, no more substantial than the ‘arid rain’ of notes from his own flute? He cannot tell. Yet surely there was, surely there is, an animal whiteness among the brown reeds of the lake that shines out yonder. Were they, are they, swans? No! But Naiads plunging? Perhaps! Vaguer and vaguer grows that impression of this delicious experience. He would resign his woodland godship to retain it. A garden of lilies, golden-headed, white-stalked, behind the trellis of red roses? Ah! the effort is too great for his poor brain. Perhaps if he selects one lily from the garth of lilies, one benign and beneficent yielder of her cup to thirsty lips, the memory, the ever receding memory, may be forced back. So when he has glutted upon a bunch of grapes, he is wont to toss the empty skins in the air and blow them out in a visionary greediness. But no, the delicious hour grows vaguer; experience or dream, he will never know which it was. The sun is warm, the grasses yielding; and he curls himself up again, after worshiping the efficacious star of wine, that he may pursue the dubious ecstasy into the more hopeful boskages of sleep.
“This, then, is what I read in the so excessively obscure and unintelligible. L’Après-midi d’un faune; and, accompanied as it is with a perfect suavity of language and melody of rhythm, I know not what more a poem of eight pages could be expected to give. It supplies a simple and direct impression of physical beauty, of harmony, of color; it is exceedingly mellifluous, when once the ear understands that the poet, instead of being the slave of the Alexandrine, weaves his variations round it, like a musical composer.”
The Afternoon of a Faun is scored for three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two harps, small antique cymbals, strings. It is dedicated to Raymond Bonheur.
The chief theme is announced by the flute, très modéré, E major, 9-8. Louis Laloy gives the reins to his fancy: “One is immediately transported into a better world; all that is leering and savage in the snub-nosed face of the faun disappears; desire still speaks, but there is a veil of tenderness and melancholy. The chord of the wood-wind, the distant call of the horns, the limpid flood of harp tones, accentuate this impression. The call is louder, more urgent, but it almost immediately dies away, to let the flute sing again its song. And now the theme is developed: the oboe enters in, the clarinet has its say; a lively dialogue follows, and a clarinet phrase leads to a new theme which speaks of desire satisfied; or it expresses the rapture of mutual emotion rather than the ferocity of victory. The first theme returns, more languorous, and the croaking of muted horns darkens the horizon. The theme comes and goes, fresh chords unfold themselves; at last a solo violoncello joins itself to the flute; and then everything vanishes, as a mist that rises in the air and scatters itself in flakes.”[23]
NOCTURNES
a. Nuages b. Fêtes c. Sirènes
Baudelaire’s prose poem, “The Stranger,” might serve as motto for the first nocturne, and for a hint to performance.
“Enigmatical man, whom do you love best? Tell me—your mother, your sister, or your brother?”
“I have neither father, mother, sister, nor brother.”
“Your friends?”