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These Deux mélodies saturniennes (Two saturnian songs) have been composed especially for the Académie Francis Poulenc-Tours, which honors in 2014 Verlaine’s 170th birthday. The first poem is taken from Premiers Poèmes ('Early Poems'), it is dated 10th of october 1862 (Verlaine was only 18), the second from the chapter Eaux-fortes of Verlaine's first published book (1866) Poèmes saturniens. None of the two has been set to music recently. Un soir d’octobre (October evening) opens the cycle in an atmosphere which evokes the mournful aspect of nature in Autumn, combined with the narrator's paradoxal trance. Cauchemar (Nightmare) contains elements showing extreme violence. The terrifying images of the poem are musically rendered by irregular bars, dissonant harmonies and, in the central section, by a 4 parts rhythmic ostinato fugato, which brings into the final culmination in an extremely anxious atmosphere.
- Un soir d'octobre (02'30'')
- Cauchemar (03'30'')