The exuberant amorousness of a newly-wed couple pulsates in every note of Gabriel Fauré’s Dans les ruines d’une abbaye (In the ruins of an abbey). In this piece, the reverent silence of prayer no longer prevails, but within the venerable walls "various shouts of joy" and "sparkling laughter" are now heard. The old graves have long been overgrown by stinging nettles, and a new dawn of spring and of love fills the air. Napoleonic post-revolutionary France, which drove the author of the poem, Victor Hugo, into exile, is also building a new world on the ruins of olden days. Although the setting by the composer, 40 years younger than the poet, uses the romanticized backdrop of the old abbey, with its 6/8-meter it reflects the uninhibited happiness of the two lovers, who do not look back.
These art songs were originally composed not for chamber choir, but for solo voice and piano. Denis Rouger has carefully adapted them to suit the requirements and expressive possibilities offered by a larger ensemble, without losing the any of the qualities of the original in the process. Each part in the choir has a melodic line drawn from the harmonic and rhythmic framework. In the process, the variety and refinement of the choral language combines with an enormous flexibility in form and expression, as French melodies or German art song demand from a soloist and pianist.
The songs have been recorded by the figure humaine chamber choir on the CD "Kennst du das Land ..." (Carus 83.495).
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text (without music) for download, html file, Singing text, originalhtml file, Singing text, original (Sample)Seuls, tous deux, ravis, chantants,
Comme on s’aime;
Comme on cueille le printemps
Que Dieu sème.Quels rires étincelants
Dans ces ombres,
Jadis pleines de fronts blancs,
De coeurs sombres.On est tout frais mariés,
On s’envoie
Les charmants cris variés
De la joie,Frais échos mêlés
Au vent qui frissonne.
Gaîté que le noir couvent
Assaisonne.On effeuille des jasmins
Sur la pierre
Où l’abbesse joint les mains,
En prière....
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text (without music) for download, html file, Singing text, German translationhtml file, Singing text, German translation (Sample)
Alleine zu zweit, entzückt, singend,
wie sehr lieben wir uns;
wie nehmen wir den Frühling auf,
den Gott aussät.Welch funkensprühendes Lachen
in diesen Schatten,
einst voller weißer Angesichter,
voller dunkler Herzen.Wir sind ganz frisch verheiratet,
wir schicken uns
vielfältige reizende
Freudenrufe entgegen,Frische Echos verschmolzen
mit dem erschauernden Wind.
Fröhlichkeit, die das schwarze Kloster
würzt.Wir zupfen die Blütenblätter des Jasmin
auf dem Stein ab,
auf dem die Äbtissin ihre Hände faltet
zum Gebet....
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Composer
Gabriel Fauré
| 1845-1924
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Songwriter / Librettist
Victor Hugo
| 1802-1885
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Arranger
Denis Rouger
| 1961Denis Rouger grew up as the son of a family of musicians in Paris, where he learned trumpet, horn, piano and singing. He studied composition at the CNSM (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique), obtaining first prizes in harmony, fugue and counterpoint. He studied choral conducting in France and Holland at the Kurt Thomas Academy and received the Certificat d’Aptitude for vocal ensembles from the Ministry of Culture.
As “Professeur agrégé” at the University of Paris-Sorbonne he conducted the “Choeur de Paris-Sorbonne” and taught choral conducting for twenty years. From 1993 to 2003, he was choirmaster at Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral and from 2005 to 2006 at the Madeleine Church, where he received the title of “Honorary Music Director.”
He has conducted numerous professional and amateur ensembles, among others in Germany – where he was invited as a guest conductor by the Landesjugendchor Baden-Württemberg and the Balthasar Neumann Chor, as well as by radio choirs in Hamburg (NDR) and Stuttgart (SWR) –, Italy, Holland, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland (Lucerne Festival). He has also collaborated in several world premieres of contemporary works by Klaus Huber, N’guyen Thien Dao, Philippe Mazé and Yves Castagnet, among others. Denis Rouger gives master classes in choral conducting in Sweden, Bulgaria, France, Germany and Switzerland.
In April 2011, Denis Rouger was appointed Professor of Choral Conducting at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. The Chamber Choir of the Musikhochschule, which he founded in autumn 2011, won first prize at the International Choir Competition in Mosbach (Germany) in 2014. In collaboration with Carus the choral book French Choral Music has been published as well as the debut CD of the figure humaine kammerchor, founded in 2016 by Denis Rouger.
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