It was in 1951, the day after her husband’s death, that Hélène Cadou wrote her first poem. She has never stopped writing since, and the texts dedicated to the man who illuminated her youth are numerous, like a dialogue never interrupted by time or death. I have therefore mirrored the texts of one and the other, so that we can see the correspondences in the simultaneity of the musical moment, even though in reality this dialogue took place over more than fifty years. The links between René-Guy’s intuition of his own death, which makes the words addressed to his wife even more heart-rending, and Hélène’s revolt, which over the years takes on a calmer tone but never loses any of its intensity, are so vivid that we discover a love comparable to the most moving in our history, Heloise and Abelard, Saint Francis and Saint Clare…
This work can also be considered a secular requiem.
Recordings, audio excerpts: CD “Nativités profanes”, Label Inconnu LI 09-1001, distribution Codæx.
Maîtrise de La Perverie (secondary school students), conducted by Gilles Gérard. Soloists Armelle Morvan, Xavier Stouff.
Difficulty rating: moderate
Hélène and René-Guy Cadou
(libretto by the composer)
French
Mixed choir (SATB), with occasional divisions, and S and T soloists
15 mins approx.
Cycle in 8 parts : « Maintenant », « Si quelqu’un » (voix d’hommes seules), « Je sais » (voix de femmes seules), « Depuis le temps », « Ecoute », « Tu es dans un jardin », « Ô feuilles lentes »