Dirait-on

From Les Chansons des Roses

Music by Morten Lauridsen

Poetry by Rainier Maria Rilke

Student Glossary of Terms

Rubato– Rhythmic flexibility within a phrase or measure; a relaxation of strict time.

A Tempo – Back to the original tempo.

Tempo primo – the first primo

Ritard- becoming gradually slower.

Phrasing– a division of a composition, commonly a passage of four or eight measures, forming part of a period.

Molto Menno Mosso – much less movement

Subido– suddenly

MORTEN LAURIDSEN

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).

http://www.mortenlauridsen.com

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.

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Compare/Contrast Music Sheet

(Morten Lauridsen’s Dirait-on)

List similarities in phrasing between the recordings.

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