Danses Gothiques

Richard David HAMES
Born 1945, England

Danses Gothiques Nine Ceremonies after Erik Satie (1989)

soprano, flute/piccolo/alto flute, clarinet/Eb clarinet/bass clarinet, mandolin, acoustic/electric guitar, harp, percussion, piano, violin, viola, violoncello, contrabass
Commissioned by ELISION Ensemble with the assistance of the Australia Council

I. à l'occasion d'une grande peine

on the occasion of major suffering

In his Danses Gothiques Satie deliberately juxtaposes preprogrammed construction segments which, however, contain no elements relating to the course of the piece itself. Each dance is assembled on the building section principle from five parts which are stated in number I. Numbers II and III each add a further new element.

II. Dans laquelle les Pères de la Très Véritable et Très Sainte Église sont invoqués

In which the fathers of the very truly and holy church are invoked

Joseph Peladan was born in Lyons, in 1858, into a milieu obsessed with occultism. In 1892 he founded the Salon des Rose et Croix. The first salon, at the Durand-Ruel Gallery was opened to the sound of Erik Satie's trumpets.

Rouge, rouge saigne le soir sur un merveilleux paysage;
J'ai vu un terrible visage d'un majestueux ange noir.

Vour boirez le vertige obscêne
L'élixir des ruts monstrueux,
Le sang du stupre et de la haine
Et des grands viols incestueua.

--Ivan GILKIN Ténèbres

Red, red bleeds the evening in a wonderful landscapes;
I have seen the terrifying face of a majestic black angel.

You will drink the obscene vertigo,
The elixir of monstrous ruts,
The blood of debauchery and hate
And of great incestuous rapes.

III. En faveur d'un malheureux

In favour of a poor one

Pierrot is passionate; but he does not believe in great passions. He feels himself to be sickening with a fever, or else perilously convalescent. For love is a disease, which he is too weak to resist or endure  . . .  He knows that his face is powdered, and if he sobs it is without tears; and it is hard to distinguish, under the chalk, if the grimace which twists his mouth away is more laughter or mockery. And so he becomes exquisitely false, dreading above all things that "one touch of nature" which would ruffle his disguise, and leave him defenceless  . . .  His mournful contemplation of things becoming a kind of grotesque joy  . . . 

IV. A propos de Saint Bernard et de Sainte Lucie

Concerning Saint Bernard and Saint Lucie

And that other chimera nostalgia. The muse of dead cities and melancholy music, the one who inspired "Pelleas"  . . .  and the grey twilight of gothic landscapes and innocent children.

IV. Pour les pauvres trépassés

For the poor departed

 . . .  a soul exhausted by secret thoughts  . . .  Insidious appeals to sacrilege and debauchery  . . .  The crushed globes of bleeding suns and haemorrages of stars flowing in crimson contracts. Exceptional individuals retrace their steps, hurl themselves into the abyss of bygone ages, into the tumultuous spaces of dreams and nightmares  . . .  ("and like a monstrance your memory shines in me").

Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur satige,
chaque fleur s'évaporer ainsi uq'un encensoir; Les
sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir,
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!

Chaque fleur s'évaporer ainsi uq'un encensoir; Le
violon frémit comme un coeur, qu'on afflige Valse
mélancolique et langoureux vertige; Le ciel est triste
et beau comme un grand reposoir.

Le violon frémit comme un coeur, qu'on afflige, un coeur
tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir! Le ciel est
triste et beau comme un grande reposoir; Le soleil s'est
noyé dans son sang qui se fige.

Un coeur tendre qui hait le néant vaste et noir du
paysage lumineux recueille tout vestige! Le soleil
s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige; Ton souvenir en
moi luit comme un ostensoir!

--Charles BAUDELAIRE Les Fleurs du Mal

Now the days are coming when, throbbing on its stalk,
each flower sheds its perfume like a cencer; the
sounds and perfumes spiral in the evening air, in a
melancholy waltz, a slow, sensual gyre.

Each flower sheds its perfume like a cencer; the
violin trembles like a wounded heart, in a melancholy
waltz, a slow sensual gyre; the sky is sad and
beautiful, like a vast altar.

The violin trembles like a wounded heart, a tender
heart that hates the huge black void; the sky is sad
and beautiful, like a vast altar; the sun has drowned
in its congealing heart.

A tender heart that hates the huge, black void, is
gathering to itself all traces of the luminous past; the
sun has drowned in its congealing blood, and like a
monstrance your memory shines in me.

VI. Où est question des injures reçues

Where it is a question of forgiving injustices suffered

Souls are to the "Fin de Siecle" what angels were to romanticism; they float "incorruptible" above the most appalling horrors and near deserted graves death is there  . . .  "Distantly, mystically alike great mairs of silver harried by the mist drift in the failing light across the setting suns".

VII. Par pitié pour les ivrognes, honteux, debauchés, imparfaits, désagréables, et faussaires en tout genres

Out of pity for the drunkards, those burdened with shame, the debauchers, the imperfect, the unpleasant and the false ones of every kind

Remembrance vibrates and lingers in the air. The sufferings of memory are exacerbated by similarities. The present desire murmurs vaguely towards the past, towards the distance. And without looking for the way out of the labyrinth, the poor soul will relieve perpetual rebirths, perpetual reawakenings.

J'ai trempé dans mon esprit blue les roses des essences mortes. Et j'ai vu la mort (j'entendis son âme) et j'ai vu la mort qui l'attend encore.

--Maurice MAETERLINCK Pan

I have steeped in my blue mind the roses of dead essences. And I saw Death (I heard his soul) waiting for him still.

VIII. En le haut honneur du vénéré Saint Michel, le gracieux Archange

In praise of the highly honourable merciful Archangel Micheal

For a long time the chimeras have slept, stifled by the images they have inspired. Dust covered the books of poetry on the shelves and hid the pictures beneath a grey mist. Their palace resembles the castles of Ludwig II of Bavaria, but with the bad taste of historical pastiche corrected by symbolist precocity and decadent exaggeration. For a long time it was thought that it had crumbled beneath the mockery of those who recorded it as Sodom rather than Mont Salvat. But in the rooms of this palace, smelling of opium or the grave, there are treasures which will fascinate those who ask psychedelic art, mantras or drugs to take them out of this world.

IX. Après avoire obtenu la remise de ses fautes

After receiving forgiveness for his sins

And the huge black lilies, flowers of shade and darkness, opening their mournful calyxes against my mouth, revealed to me my infamous and chase dishonour, and descending alas into the horror of my being savoured the strange sweet happiness of adoring myself after thinking I knew myself.

Silence où toute l'âme assombrie est encline
A se sentir de plus en plus comme orpheline
Toute seule parmi le soir endori
A revoir son passé comme un tombeau fleuri

--Gustav RODENBACH Petits Poèmes de Bruges

Silence in which the saddened soul is inclined to feel
more and more like an orphan, all alone in the
melancholy evening, looking back at the past as at a
flower-covered grave.

Programme note © 1989 Richard HAMES

Dedicated to Daryl BUCKLEY, Trina PARKER, Douglas HORTON, Christopher Lyndon GEE and the members of ELISION Ensemble and Handspan Theatre.

First performances were on the 6th and 8th October 1989 in the Great Hall, Montsalvat, Melbourne.
ELISION Ensemble, Christopher Lyndon GEE conductor, Merlyn QUAIFE soprano