Nouvelle publication de la chaîne YouTube de Carnets sur sol

This is the fifth of the Cinq Robaiyat d'Omar Khayyâm (Five Omar Khayām Rubaiyat), a song cycle by Jean Cras, great French composer (1879-1932), also involved in mathematics (geometry instead of algebra - for Khayyâm), and colonel in the French navy (he took part in the First world war). Henri Duparc helped him to chose his life, and advised him not to give up the army - and he could write, however, quite an amount of music, despite his large responsibilities and the agitated times he had to go through.

His style can change a lot among his works. In some ones, Cras used a French postromantic tone, lyric and soft, very melancholic, with little originality (Cello Sonata) ; in others, he explored the best French way in harmonies (those French works, nevertheless, were deeply influenced by wagnerism), as the last chamber Fauré, or Chausson, for instance (Piano Trio) ; lastly, a large part of his music uses debussyst colours and techniques (with a more tonal language, as in his opera Polypheme and in his mélodies).

The Cinq Robaiyat d'Omar Khayyâm belong to the debussyst part of Cras, but this last one, based on only two chords (and an oriental motive which appears one time for two pairs of chords), is very original and personal.

The persian Omar Khayyâm (1048-1131) was above all distinguished as a mathematician and astronomer. Cras chose his quatrains, translated by Franz Toussaint - most of them seems to me to be apocryphal, since Khayyâm was given much more than he wrote, and since it is not always very close to his own meditations on death. Khayyâm is fascinated by the transformation into dust - the drinker will become the clay of the pot with which he drinks... The poems in these Robaiyat are not very interesting - usual oriental aphorisms, not as witty as the real Khayyâm, at least in the Toussaint translation (published in 1924).

I translated this for the comfort of the video and for not-French-speaking people.

Serviteurs n'apportez pas les lampes,
puisque mes convives exténués se sont endormis.
J'y vois suffisamment pour distinguer leur pâleur.
Etendus et froids, ils seront ainsi dans la nuit du tombeau.
N'apportez pas les lampes, car il n'y a pas d'aube chez les morts.

Servants, do not bring lamps,
since my exhausted guests fell asleep.
I can see enough to distinguish how pale they are.
Cold, lying down, so they will be in the funeral night.
Do not bring lamps, because there is no dawn among the deads.

Disclaimer : Amateur recording (interpretation and sound). Moreover, I am playing and singing at the same time (al roles), which is not very helpful to do this correctly. It does not pretend to be an honest version of the score : it is only made to give some idea of rare repertoire. Not to propose a reference.

Please note : I often propose never recorded works, but for this exists a fantastic recording by Lionel Peintre and Alain Jacquon (on the excellent label Timpani) - and I warmly recommend buying this interpretation, as mine is only meant to sharpen curiosity.