related works
Wahnfried (oder die Wagnerdämmerung) : voor orkest en figurant / Wim Laman
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
3333 6332 5perc str(12.12.10.10.8.)
Nonnen-Klage : voor sopraan en klein orkest / Léon Orthel; tekst: Rainer Maria Rilke
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and orchestra
Scoring:
sopr 2030 2000 hp str
Sechs Lieder : für Alt-Mezzo und Streichorchester / Henk Klop; Texten Joseph von Eichendorff
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and orchestra
Scoring:
mezzo str
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and orchestra
Scoring:
b-solo 2fl 2ob 2cl 2bsn 2h timp perc str
composition
Fleurs du mal : 1980/81 / [texte] (Ch. Baudelaire), Wim Laman
Other authors:
Baudelaire, Charles
(Text writer/Librettist)
Laman, Wim
(Composer)
Contains:
La destruction
La mort des amants
Les bijoux
Description:
Program note (English): Each poem should speak for itself. That I nevertheless have set three of Baudelaire's poems to music is due to their great expression. Inspired by their strong set form (that however only leads to empty, inexpressive constructions) I have tried emphasize the tension and the intensity of Baudelaire's poetry in all their gradations from violent emotions to conceding resignation. A solid form was chosen where the logic of the poetry and music could influence each other. It was important for the music to create a strong connection - but then without a predictable, and therefore, uninteresting course. Of course this fully required an intuitive control of the course of tension or, in short for the insiders, a clear alternation between the associative and dissociative strength proportions within music. (In traditional tonal music one recognizes the chords which emphasise the nature of the key (= associatively) and those chords which abandon the key (= dissociative); consequence is a
certain contrast functioning - one of the resources of making music "exciting"). Baudelaire, who remained during his entire life fascinated with the bizarre and the transient of all beauty, has, in all of his poems, given the melancholic an important role. Thereby he used an extremely suggestive, almost hallucinating manner of imagery, particularly when love, with her all encompassing nature formed the subject: La destruction sketches the demonic strength of love, which finally leads the 'most seductive of women' to a loneliness and a destructive strength. La mort des amants is full superb metaphors, painting the death of two lovers. They exchange a last glance, their souls are compared to mirroring pictures which slowly blur, while the flames extinguish. Les bijoux is a song of praise to female beauty in all its enchanting facets, the seductive, the dreamy seems to take on all kinds of fascinating forms by an ever so slight change in light, while the extinguishing lamp ("résignée à
mourir") magically brings out a deep-red shimmer. (This poem is only partially set to music and is combined with fragments from La destruction). - WIM LAMAN