Le chant de la terre d'aujourd'hui

Description

For mezzo-soprano, tenor and sixteen instruments.Bruno Mantovani, director of the Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo, asked Laurent Cuniot to write a Song of the Earth for today. Taking on one of the most beautiful works in the history of music, "Das Lied von der Erde," following in the footsteps of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) to better forge his own path was a true challenge that the composer did not hesitate to take up. Investing in all expressive registers through a musical language renewed by the avant-gardes of the 20th century and personal at the same time, the commission gave him complete freedom, with the sole constraint of using the same texts as Mahler's, namely a set of six texts by 8th-century Chinese poets translated and adapted by the German poet Hans Bethge.Laurent Cuniot took the liberty of inserting two texts by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) from the Poems to the Night. This approach allowed him to draw on the Mahlerian imagination while breaking free from it and making the presence or absence of the Other, the connection to nature, and space resonate.A large-scale work therefore (over an hour and seven movements), two solo voices. Retaining the type of voices chosen by Mahler, tenor and alto (here mezzo-soprano), and their balance with the orchestra, but within the framework of a modern vocality that enhances the magnificent technique of lyrical singers while leading it toward a style more stripped-down than that bequeathed by tradition, in order to get as close as possible to the text.