Mathieu Crickboom - Les Grotesques from Dix mélodies Op. 12
The final song of Mathieu Crickboom's Dix mélodies Op. 12 Les Grotesques - a setting to a poem by the French poet Paul Verlaine (1844–1896)
Leurs jambes pour toutes montures,
Pour tous biens l'or de leurs regards,
Par le chemin des aventures
Ils vont haillonneux et hagards.
Le sage, indigné, les harangue ;
Le sot plaint ces fous hasardeux ;
Les enfants leur tirent la langue
Et les filles se moquent d'eux.
C'est qu'odieux et ridicules,
Et maléfiques en effet,
Ils ont l'air, sur les crépuscules,
D'un mauvais rêve que l'on fait ;
C'est que, sur leurs aigres guitares
Crispant la main des libertés,
Ils nasillent des chants bizarres,
Nostalgiques et révoltés ;
C'est enfin que dans leurs prunelles
Rit et pleure - fastidieux -
L'amour des choses éternelles,
Des vieux morts et des anciens dieux !
Donc, allez, vagabonds, allez, allez sans trêves,
Errez, funestes et maudits,
Le long des gouffres et des grèves,
Sous l'œil fermé des paradis !
With only their legs to carry them (translation by Peter Low, 2021)
With only their legs to carry them,
no goods but the gold of their gaze,
along the path of adventure,
they walk looking wild and tattered.
The wise man, angered, harangues them;
the idiot pities these dubious fools,
the children poke out their tongues
and the girls make fun of them.
That's because they're odious and laughable,
and indeed malevolent,
and they seem, in the hours of twilight,
to be somebody's bad dream.
It's because, on their shrill guitars
tensing their freedom-loving hands,
they drone out chants that are weird,
nostalgic and rebellious.
And because deep in their eyes
there laughs and weeps - tiresomely -
the love of eternal things,
of men long dead and of the ancient gods!
So off you go, unceasing vagabonds,
wander, tragic and accursed,
along the ravines and the beaches
under the closed eyes of paradises!
Mathieu Crickboom (1871–1947) was a Belgian violinist, composer and pedagogue. Eugène Ysaÿe, who was his teacher and later a colleague, dedicated his Sonata for violin solo Op. 27 No. 5 to him. Crickboom also became the dedicatee of other important pieces, including Ernest Chausson’s string quartet, Victor Vreuls’s and Joseph Ryelandt’s sonatas for violin and piano. He was appointed concertmaster of theatre La Monnaie in Brussels straight after graduating from the class of Ysaÿe, and the same year joined Ysaÿe string quartet as a second violinist. They premiered Debussy’s string quartet amongst other important chamber music works. Crickboom moved to Barcelona for 9 years, where he was artistic director of Catalonian philharmonic society, where he was in charge of programming and also tried his hand at conducting. In Barcelona he started regularly performing with Isaac Albeniz, Enrique Granados and Pablo Casals. On return to Belgium he became a professor at the Conservatoire of Liège and, subsequently, at the Brussels Conservatoire. He published his own compositions through Schott Frères, who also published his editions of over 70 violin concertos and pieces by great composers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Dedicated pedagogue, he also published his own violin method that is still being used to this day. Crickboom also set up a fortnightly magazine La Tribune Musicale to which he contributed his own writing, advocating the music of his contemporaries, including Vincent d’Indy, Fauré and Ravel.
Poetry by Paul Verlaine was set by such composers as Debussy and Fauré. In this poem, Verlaine focuses on the rejected characters, outcasts of society. It’s a very complex poem both rhythmically and in its meaning. Adjectives such as ‘odious’, ‘laughable’, ‘malevolent’ appear in progression creating a sense of darkness, which eventually reveals the human tragedy the heroes of the song are experiencing.
Performers:
Markus Matheis, baritone
Jocelyn Freeman, piano