Le chant de la Mine Digipack

Description

Le Chant de la Mine is the first oratorio (1956) entirely dedicated to the glory of all the men who risked their lives, day after day, to extract coal from the depths of the North and beyond. In May 1956, Valenciennes had the privilege of hosting the stage premiere of Le Chant de la Mine, an oratorio for choir, soloists, narrator, and orchestra, a significant work resulting from the collaboration of Messrs. Eugène Bozza and José Bruyr. A sort of "credits" musically presented at the beginning of the work warns us that they created it together "one with words, the other with sounds." It is a close collaboration because the music emerges directly from the text without any contradiction, without any clash. Everything holds together, everything is connected in the work, which draws from this cohesion a convincing expressive power. It took a musician as skilled as Mr. Eugène Bozza, Grand Prix de Rome and knight of the Legion of Honor, not to shy away from such a heavy task. It is true that Mr. José Bruyr provided him with a powerfully dramatic and well-balanced scenario, a deep description – which is indeed the case here – of the miner's life. His task was also difficult since he had to, as much as the musician, avoid banality if not vulgarity, while still making it authentic, and then prevent the monotony that could result from an action closely confined by the mine, in reality developing an abstraction represented by a series of images. The plan is simple: the oratorio recaps the miner's day. But first, a short introduction, made up of the already mentioned credits and a symphonic prelude, gives way to the narrator who evokes the slow work accomplished by nature over the millennia, the transformation of a dense forest, immense trees, and oversized ferns, becoming the black wealth, the coal mine from which today's men draw the sources of light and heat necessary for their lives. One hears the metallic clinking of picks, the sound of hammers, and the panting of machines… And the ever-present death. Without complacency, the music remains the faithful translator of the libretto, and Le Chant de la Mine ranks among the best contemporary oratorios of the French school.