Janie Anthony

Music 670 - Score Analysis

Spring 2007

Selection: Dirait-on from the Les Chansons des Roses song cycle

Composer: Morten Lauridsen (1993), with poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke

Published by: PeerMusic

Composer Biographical Information

Mr. Lauridsen (b. 1943) was raised in Portland, OR and attended USC where he studied composition. After much success as a composer of vocal literature, He has since served as Composer-in-Residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994-2001 and Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than thirty years, His works have been recorded on over a hundred CDs by ensembles including the Robert Shaw, Dale Warland and Donald Brinegar Singers, the San Francisco, Cleveland and Dallas Symphony Choruses, and Germany’s Nordic Chamber Choir. It was noted that at the end of the century he had surpassed Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American composer.

Lauridsen is most well-known as a composer for his seven major vocal cycles--Les Chansons des Roses, Mid-Winter Songs, Cuatro Canciones, A Winter Come, Madrigali: Six “Firesongs” on Renaissance Italian Poems, Nocturnes and Lux Aeterna—and a series of sacred a cappella motets (including O Magnum Mysterium, Ave Maria, O Nata Lux and Ubi Caritas et Amor).

Historical and Stylistic Background

Rilke (1875-1926)was considered one of the greatest lyric poets of modern Germany. He created the "object poem" as an attempt to describe with utmost clarity physical objects. Lauridsen was attracted to his poems on roses, describing them as “especially charming, filled with gorgeous lyricism, deftly crafted and elegant in their imagery. These exquisite poems are primarily light, joyous and playful and the musical settings are designed to enhance these characteristics and capture their delicate beauty and sensuousness.” The English translation of Dirait-on is:

Abandon surrounding abandon,

Tenderness touching tenderness…

Your oneness endlessly

Caresses itself, so they say;

Self-caressing

Through its own cleare reflection.

Thus you invent the theme

Of Narcissus fulfilled.

Les Chansons des Roses (The Rose Songs) was premiered and recorded in 1993 by Portland, Oregon's celebrated chamber choir Choral Cross-Ties, conducted by Bruce Browne. The complete cycle has been widely performed since then. It is available in SATB, TTBB, treble chorus, solo, voice and guitar, and a vocal duet.

Melodic Content

Dirait-on weaves together two melodic ideas heard in fragmentary form in the preceding movements of the song cycle and serve first as call and response to each other in the first 2 sections and then as counter melodies in other sections of the piece. Both melodies are 8-bar phrases.

The verses of the poem are used as lyrics for the first melody and the second (countermelody) is composed using on the phrase “Dirait-on”. Throughout the piece, the melodies are sang in unison, within one line, in a 2-part round, and four part independently staggered. I feel that the echoing and layering of the melodies is very fitting to the text and image of a rose.

Harmonic Content

The harmonic structure of the piece is repeated over and over, but written in a way that emits the imagery and lush beauty of a rose. The piece is composed in the key of Db major, using mostly inverted, arpeggiated chords. The basic repeated chord progression is as follows:

I⁶ – IV - I - V⁷- I⁶

Every once in a while a V chord is substituted with a ii ^o chord of some kind to add minor color. Throughout the piece Lauridsen utilizes suspensions or a 9^th chord to add a sense of caress and lushness to the accompaniment and choir. The inversion chords give the piece a distinct harmonic theme and provide the light, beautiful imagery found in the lyrics. He does not even use a I chord in root inversion until measure 48 at the end of the B section when the piece as a whole becomes full and reaches a mezzo forte dynamic. He ends the piece on an unresolved V⁷ chord, again to promote the imagery and leave the piece with a sense of longing and beauty.

Rhythmic Content

The piece is composed entirely in time at a tempo rubato (quarter = 108). The accompaniment itself is almost all arpeggiated eighths notes with a few full quarter blocked chords in the middle lush section of the piece. The melodies themselves are rhythmically simplistic, mostly eighth and quarter notes with only a few dotted eighth-sixteenth rhythms at the end of end of the second melodic line. The simplicity is part of the beauty of the piece. The most difficult part rhythmically comes in the ritardando sections at the end of the piece when the sopranos resolve one or a half beat before the rest of the choir (examples are measure 83 and 89).

Formal Content

Lauridsen describes this piece as composed as a tuneful folksong, weaving together two melodic ideas. This piece is divided into 4 sections (A-D respectively) and explores the two themes or melodies with different voicings as outlined on the content map. For the first section, melody 1 almost acts as the verse and melody 2 the refrain. However, the composer immediately deviates from this and uses the 2 themes as countermelodies to each other and then as a round.

Texture and Timbre

Piano accompaniment is used through out and each section of the piece contains a different voicing combination. The composer begins by intruding the melodic ideas in gender unison, increases to a 2-part round, and finally one can hear four part independent lines, each singing one of the melodies staggered from the other parts.

The different sections include:

Section A: Soprano and Alto unison both theme 1 and 2

Section B: Tenor and Bass unison, ending in 4-part homophonic for theme 1,

SATB unison for theme 2, and then repeated in 2-part round

Section C: S & B in a round for theme 1 with A & T providing harmonic texture,

Theme 2 in a round between S & T on top of theme 1 in A & B

Section D: Theme 2 melody in Soprano, Theme 2 in a round between SA & TB

The texture of the piece provides imagery of a rose, starting on the outside and then looking in at the layers and overlay of petals.

Stylistic and Expressive Content

The composer repeats several stylistic considerations to elicit the intended imagery and effect for this piece. The piano is given much liberty when not accompanied by the singers. Also, after every 8-bar phrase he adds a ritard, sometimes poco rit. and other times molto rit., followed by a fermata. Dynamically, the piece builds to a mezzo forte, but not every really exceeding. The piece begins at a piano marking and remains in the lower dynamic level for most of the piece. One does not think of a rose as overly loud, thus providing reason for the composer’s choice of dynamics.

The conductor must be aware of when the ritards are to occur, how much of one to take, and how to lead into the next section. Communication with the accompanist at these points will be key. There are few to no articulation markings so the texture should be as legato and lush as possible for the singers.