Claude Debussy (1862-1918):
Beau Soir
(composed ca. 1883*; first published 1891)
Text: Paul Bourget
Original Key/Recorded Key: E Major
Teach-Track begins: m. 1
Accompaniment Track begins: m. 1
Pianist: Daniel Michalak
* This estimated date of composition is according to James R. Briscoe, editor of the Hal Leonard ?Vocal Library? edition of Debussy?s songs (Milwaukee, 1993), which features the most recent and most detailed scholarship of any edition currently available. The New Grove?s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan, London, 1980, ed. Stanley Sadie) places the estimated date of composition three years earlier (ca. 1880).
Notes © 1999 by Daniel O. Michalak
Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivieres sont roses,
When at the sun going down the rivers are pink,
(When the rivers are red at sunset)
Et qu'un tiede frisson court sur les champs de blé,
And a tepid shudder runs over the fields of wheat,
Un conseil d'etre heureux semble sortir des choses
An advice to be happy seems to emerge from things
Et monter vers le coeur troublé,
And to ascend toward the heart troubled,
Un conseil de gouter le charme d'etre au monde,
An advice to taste the charm of being in the world,
Cependant qu'on est jeune et que le soir est beau,
While one is young and the evening is beautiful,
Car nous nous en allons, Comme s'en va cette onde;
For we go away, as goes away this river;
Elle a la mer, Nous au tombeau.
It to the sea, we to the tomb.