Reynaldo Hahn – À Chloris
This song, À Chloris, sets a remarkably tender text of love poetry – the speaker (possibly Zephyr, the god of the west wind?), is marveling that the nymph Chloris (also called Flora, the goddess of spring and new growth) actually loves him, too. The text was written by Théophile de Viau, a bisexual French Huguenot poet who faced a sentence to be burned at Notre Dame for homosexual activity. He fled before he could be captured and the sentence was changed to banishment.
The setting is by Reynaldo Hahn, a particularly prolific Venezuelan-born French composer who was known to be a homosexual in the turn-of-the-century Parisian milieu.
The text is so beautifully conversational, starting with a hopeful “if it’s true!” and the little aside: (I hear you love me dearly). Hahn’s music is written in the style of a desperately gentle courtly dance and is elegantly, minutely embellished. The walking bass-line calls to mind Bach’s accompaniment figures, and the whole character of the song depicts an earnest & devoted love that grows in quiet, restrained conversation rather than grand gestures. It’s a picture of storge love, and I like to read it much like Bernard of Clairvaux read the Song of Solomon – as a depiction of the faithful mutual love shared between Christ and His church.
If it’s true, Chloris, that you love me,
(And I hear that you love me dearly),
I can’t believe that even kings
Could possess a happiness like mine.
Even death would be powerless
To alter my fortune
With the promise of heavenly bliss!
All that they say of ambrosia
Does not stir my imagination
Like the favor of your eyes!
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