Claude Debussy (1862-1903):
Fantoches
(No. 2 of Fetes Galantes, série I)
(composed 1882, rev. 1891*; first published 1903)
Text: Paul Verlaine
Original Key/Recorded Key: A Minor
Teach-Track begins: m. 1
Accompaniment Track begins: m. 1
Pianist: Daniel Michalak
* This piece is Debussy?s 1891 revision of an earlier, much less familiar, but still basically similar version of the same piece; that earlier version, grouped as one of the five ?Fetes galantes pour Madame Vasnier,? appears in Volume I of the Hal Leonard ?Vocal Library? edition of Debussy?s songs (Milwaukee, 1993, ed. James R. Briscoe). Those five songs (two of which, ?Pantomime? and an earlier [1882] setting of ?Clair de lune,? also form the first two of the so-called ?Chansons de Jeunesse?) have never previously been published as a group; Briscoe?s group title [?Fetes galantes pour Madame Vasnier?] refers to the fact that all five songs were originally written for, and first performed by, the soprano Marie-Blanche Vasnier.
Notes © 1999 by Daniel O. Michalak
Fantoches
Marionettes
Scaramouche et Pulcinella,
Scaramouche and Pulchinella,
Qu'un mauvais dessein rassembla,
Whom an evil plot brought together,
Gesticulent noirs sous la lune, la la la
Gesticulate darkly under the moon, la la la
Cependant l'excellent docteur Bolonais
Meanwhile the excellent doctor of Bologna
Cueille avec lenteur des simples
Gathers with slowness some herbs
Parmi l'herbe brune.
Among the grass brown.
Lors sa fille, piquant minois,
Then his daughter, saucy thing,
Sous la charmille, en tapinois,
Under the arbor, furtively,
Se glisse demi-nue, la la la, en quête
She glides half naked, la la la, in search
De son beau pirate espagnol,
Of her handsome pirate Spanish,
Dont un langoureux rossignol
Of whom a languorous nightingale
Clame la détresse à tue-tête, la la la.
Proclaims the distress at the top of its voice, la la la.