KehuiWu
D.M.A. of Voice Performance Recital I
Organ Hall IApril 17, 201717:30 p.m.
Professor: David Britton
Pianist: Dongfang Zhang

Program

A Chloris
Si mes vers avaient des ailes
L'heure exquise
Trois jours de vendange

Reynaldo Hahn
(1874-1947)

Cinq melodies "de Venise"
1. Mandoline
2. En Sourdine
3. Green
4. Aclymene
5. Cest l'extase

Gabriel Faure
(1845-1924)

Intermission

Chanson triste
Soupir
Au pays ou se fait la guerre

Henry Duparc
(1848-1933)

Serenade
Au rossignol

Charles Gounod
(1818-1893)

"Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle" from Romeo et Juliette

Charles Gounod

1l&l~N~
ARIZONA

STATE

UMtVERSITY

School of Music

A vast and tender calm
seems to descend from a sky
made iridescent by the moon.
It is the exquisite hour!

Kehui Wu
1st D.M.A Recital
Program Notes

Trois jours de vendange
During the vintage I met her one day,
Skirt tucked in, dainty feet,
No yellow veil, no coiled-up hair,
A maenad with an angel's eyes,
Leaning on a sweet friend's arm.
I met her at Avignon in the fields,
During the vintage one day.

Achloris
If it is true, Chloris, that you love me,
(But I do hear that you love me well),
I don't believe that even kings
themselves
Ever had a happiness equal to mine.
How unwelcome Death would be,
[Even] if it replaced my fortune
With the bliss of heaven!

During the vintage I met her one day,
The plain was bleak and the sky ablaze.
She was walking alone, with faltering steps,
Her face was lit by a curious glow
I still shudder as I remember
How I saw you, dear white spectre,
During the vintage one day.

[For] everything they say about ambrosia
Fails utterly to spark my imagination,
[Especially] if I had to give up the charms
of your gaze.

During the vintage I met her one day,
And still almost daily I dream of it:
The coffin draped in velvet,
The black shroud with its double fringe.
The Avignon nuns wept all around it!
The vine had too many grapes
Love had gathered its harvest.

Si mes vers avaient des ailes
My verses would flee, sweet and frail,
To your garden so fair,
If my verses had wings,
Like a bird.
They would fly, like sparks,
To your smiling hearth,
If my verses had wings,
Like the mind.

Mandoline
The givers of serenades
And the lovely women who listen
Exchange insipid words
Under the singing branches.

Pure and faithful, to your side
They'd hasten night and day,
If my verses had wings,
Like love!

There is Thyrsis and Amyntas
And there's the eternal Clytander,
And there's Damis who, for many a
Heartless woman, wrote many a tender verse.

L'heure exquise
The white moon shines in the woods.
From each branch springs a voice
beneath the arbor.
Oh my beloved ...

Their short silk coats,
Their long dr.esses with trains,
Their elegance, their joy
And their soft blue shadows,

Like a deep mirror
the pond reflects
the silhouette of the black willow
where the wind weeps.
Let us dream! It is the hour ...

Whirl around in the ecstasy
Of a pink and grey moon,
And the mandolin prattles
Among the shivers from the breeze.
1

AClymene
Mystic barcarolles, Songs without words,
My darling, because your eyes,
The color of the heavens.

En Sourdine
Calm in the half-day
That the high branches make,
Let us soak well our love
In this profound silence.

Because your voice, strange
Vision that upsets
And troubles the horizon of my reason.

Let us mingle our souls, our hearts
And our ecstatic senses
Among the vague langours
Of the pines and the bushes.

Because the wonderful aroma
Of your cygnet-like pallor.
And because the distinctness
Of your fragrance.

Close your eyes halfway,
Cross your arms on your breast,
And from your sleeping heart
Chase away forever all plans.

Ah! Because your entire existence,
Like music that pervades all,
Nimbuses of former angels,
Tones and perfumes.

Let us abandon ourselves
To the breeze, rocking and soft,
Which comes to your feet to wrinkle
The waves of auburn lawns.

Has, in wondrous cadences,
Attracted into a connection
My subtle heart. Let it be praised! Amen.

And when, solemnly, the evening
From the black oaks falls,
The voice of our despair,
The nightingale, will sing.

C'est l'extase
It is the langorous ecstasy,
It is the fatigue after love,
It is all the rustling of the wood,
In the embrace of breezes;
It is near the gray branches:
A chorus of tiny voices.

Green
Here are some fruit, some flowers,
some leaves and some branches,
And then here is my heart,
which beats only for you.
Do not rip it up with your two white hands,
And may the humble present
be sweet in your beautiful eyes!

I arrive all coverered in dew,
Which the wind of morning
comes to freeze on my forehead.
Suffer my fatigue as I repose at your feet,
Dreaming of dear instants that will refresh me.
On your young breast allow my head to rest,
Still ringing with your last kisses;
Let it calm itself after the pleasant tempest,
And let me sleep a little,
since you are resting.

2

Oh, what a frail and fresh murmur!
It babbles and whispers,
It resembles the soft noise
That waving grass exhales.
You might say it were, under the bending
stream,
The muffled sound of rolling pebbles.
This soul, which laments
And this dormant moan,
It is ours, is it not?
Is it mine? -- tell [me] -- and yours,
Whose humble anthem we breathe
On this mild evening, so quietly.

Au pays ou se fait la guerre
To the country where war is waged
My beautiful love departed.
It seems to my desolate heart
That I alone remain on earth.
When leaving, at our kiss goodbye,
He took my soul from my mouth ...
Who is holding him back so long, 0 God?
There is the sun setting.
And I, all alone in my tower,
I still await his return.

Chanson triste
In your heart sleeps a moonlight,
a soft summer's moonlight,
and, to flee from this relentless life,
I shall drown myself in your brightness.
I shall forget past sufferings,
my beloved, when you cradle
my sad heart and my thoughts
in the loving peace of your arms.
Oh! Sometimes you will take
my sick head upon your knees,
and will tell it a ballad
which will seem to speak of us;

The pigeons on the roof are cooing,
Cooing lovingly
With a sad and charming sound;
The waters under the large willows flow...
I feel ready to cry;
My heart, like a full lily, overflows
And I no longer dare to hope.
Here gleams the white moon.
And I, all alone in my tower,
I still await his return.

and in your eyes full of sorrows, ·
in your eyes then I shall drink
so many kisses and tokens of love,
that perhaps I shall recover.

Soupir
Never to see or hear her,
never to name her aloud,
but faithfully always to wait for her
and love her.

Someone is climbing the ramp rapidly.
Could it be him, my sweet love?
It isn't him, but only
My little page with my lamp.
Evening winds, veiled, tell him
That he is my thoughts and my dream,
All my joy and my longing.
Here is the dawn rising.
And I, all alone in my tower,
I still await his return.

To open my arms and, tired of waiting,
to close them on nothing,
but still always to stretch them out to her
and to love her.
To only be able to stretch them out to her,
and then to be consumed in tears,
but always to shed these tears,
always to love her.

Serenade
When you sing in the evening
cradled in my arms,
can you hear my thoughts
softly answering you?
Your sweet song recalls to me
the happiest days I've known.
Sing, sing, my pretty one,
sing on forever!

Never to see or hear her,
never to name her aloud,
but with a love that grows ever more tender,
always to love her. Always!

3

"Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle?"
from Romeo et Juliette
(translated by Aaron Green)

When you laugh,
love blossoms on your lips,
And at once cruel suspicion vanishes.
Ah, faithful laughter
shows a heart without guile.
Laugh, laugh, my pretty one,
laugh on forever!

Since yesterday I try
in vain my master
Is he still with you?
My lords, Capulet?
Let's see if your worthy servants
To the sound of my voice this morning
Dare to reappear.

When you sleep calm and pure
beneath my gaze, in the shadow,
your breathing murmurs
harmonious words.
Your lovely body is revealed
without veil or finery.
Sleep, sleep, my pretty one,
Sleep on forever!

What do you do white dove
In this nest of vultures?
Some day, you will spread your wings,
You will follow love!
Vultures, they must battle
To hit, to cut, and thrust
Their sharp beaks!
Let these birds of prey be,
Live to your joy dove
Lovers kissing!
Keep well and beautiful!
Time will tell!
Your turtledove will escape you,

. Au rossignol
When your celestial voice presages
The silence of serene nights
Winged bard of my solitude,
I know not what I am to you.
You do not know that my ear
Is in suspense at your sweet voice,
At these harmonious marvels,
I remain long intoxicated in the wood!

A pigeon, far from his green grove,
By love, is attracted
Round about this wild nest
A, I think, sigh!
Vultures are at the quarry,
Their songs, which fled Cytherea,
Sounds with a loud noise!
However, their sweet intoxication
Happy lovers in their loving tenderness tell
The stars of the night!
Keep well and beautiful!

I do not know if my breath
Dare pass over my lips!
If my silent foot barely treads upon
the leaf that it dreads to rustle.
Ah! these sweet nocturnal scenes,
These reverent mysteries of the night
And the flowers that incline their trumpets
Like the urn of a censer.
And this mysterious voice
that the angels and myself both hear,
This sigh of the suppliant night,
Melodious bird, 'tis thou!.
Oh! blend your voice with mine!
The same ear hears us;
But your etherial prayer
Mounts better to the sky that awaits it.

All the translations are from www.lieder.net. (except the last one)
4