This week I wanted to talk to you about the Alsatian composer Rita Strohl, but I don’t have enough time to complete the article as I had planned, so what I’ll do instead is present one of her songs today and leave a more detailed discussion for later.
Do you remember that some time ago I told you about the Chansons de Bilitis, a selection of poems found in the tomb of a Greek poetess from the 6th century BC, translated into French by Pierre Louÿs? And that I also explained how, a few years later, Louÿs revealed that it had all been his invention? There never was a Bilitis, and even less her tomb.
This story came up in connection with Claude Debussy’s Trois chansons de Bilitis, composed between 1897 and 1898 and premiered in 1900. They are the best-known songs based on Louÿs’s collection, but not the only ones, because Rita Strohl composed a much more extensive cycle, Douze chants de Bilitis, recounting the love story of Bilitis and the shepherd Lykas, from their still innocent games to the birth of their daughter. Strohl wrote her work in 1898 and published it in 1900, with considerable public success that quickly led to a second edition. Critics also referred to it as a remarkable work, though at least one critic reproached the composer for daring to set to music two of the same poems chosen by Debussy: La flûte de Pan and La chevelure.
Here we know that poems are not subject to exclusivity, and that when a composer chooses one that has already been set to music, the aim is not to “surpass” the more famous version but simply to add their own voice. Yet this does not seem to be Strohl’s case, because she and Debussy wrote their songs in parallel, without either knowing of the other’s.
It is difficult to trace the chronology of the composer, since her work is only now beginning to be recovered and much documentation remains to be classified; it has been less than fifteen years since the first recordings, so we are all in the midst of rediscovery. That is why I think we should treat with caution some sources that claim she wrote the songs before Debussy. If we take La chevelure, for example, it seems that Debussy composed it from Louÿs’s manuscript (they were friends, perhaps he knew of the hoax?), while Strohl chose her poems from the volume her husband had given her. But in any case, this is not a competition, is it? Strohl stated that she did not know Debussy’s songs when she composed hers, and it is likely true; she was living in Brittany at the time and did not frequent Parisian musical circles. Simply, two composers paid attention to the same poems from a book that was a bestseller.
From Strohl’s twelve songs I have chosen to share the penultimate one, La nuit, in which Bilitis tells us how, after resisting Lykas’s desire for some time, it is now she who goes to find him at night. I hope you enjoy this song, performed by Elsa Dreisig and Roman Louveau, and that it invites you to listen to the complete cycle. For now, I have already noted in the blog notebook a week to talk to you more about Rita Strohl.
C’est moi maintenant qui le recherche.
Chaque nuit, très doucement, je quitte la maison,
et je vais par une longue route,
jusqu’à sa prairie, le regarder dormir.
Quelquefois je reste longtemps sans parler,
heureuse de le voir seulement,
et j’approche mes lèvres des siennes,
pour ne baiser que son haleine.
Puis tout à coup je m’étends sur lui.
Il se réveille dans mes bras,
et il ne peut plus se relever car je lutte !
Il renonce, et rit, et m’étreint.
Ainsi nous jouons dans la nuit.
… Première aube, ô clarté méchante, toi déjà ?
En quel antre toujours nocturne,
sur quelle prairie souterraine pourrons-nous
si longtemps aimer, que nous perdions ton souvenir ?…
It is now I who seeks him.
Each night, very softly, I leave the house
and I walk a long road,
to his meadow, to watch him sleep.
Sometimes I remain long without speaking,
happy just to see him,
and I bring my lips close to his,
to kiss only his breath.
Then suddenly I lie down upon him.
He wakes within my arms,
and he cannot rise because I struggle!
He yields, and laughs, and embraces me.
Thus we play in the night.
...First of dawn, o wicked clarity, you already?
In what ever nocturnal lair,
on which underground meadow could we
love for so long, that we forget the memory of you?
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