 Albert Giraud / Pierrot: 'Chopin's Waltz', 1884. | | |
Image: 'Pierrot', by Mrs. Mabel Dearmer (1872 - 1915) From: 'The Studio' (magazine) Volume 11, page 262, 1897 The Arts are inseparable from the phenomenon of synaesthesia. For all who drink deeply at the fount of the muses, the many streams flow into one great over-arching flood of sensation. Images can have a smell, music a color, and so forth. This phenomenon can develop even more deeply into moral and aesthetic metaphors; the more one allows oneself to dwell in such reveries.
Here then, is the impression (as our old friend Albert Giraud describes) that a waltz by Chopin leaves upon the sensibilities of our old, heartbroken ‘son of the moon’, Pierrot…
|
Valse de Chopin
Comme un crachat sanguinolent,
De la bouche d'une phtisique,
Il tombe de cette musique
Un charme morbide et dolent.
Un son rouge - du rêve blanc
Avive la pâle tunique,
Comme un crachat sanguinolent
De la bouche d'une phtisique.
Le thème doux et violent
De la valse mélancolique
Me laisse une saveur physique,
Un fade arrière-goût troublant,
Comme un crachat sanguinolent.
Albert Giraud, ‘Pierrot Lunaire: Rondels Bergamasques’, 1884.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chopin’s Waltz
Like spit with blood imbued,
From the mouth of a consumptive falling,
This music still is calling
With morbid, mournful mood.
A red sound – within a white dream
Pale gown with scarlet galling
Like spit with blood imbued,
From the mouth of a consumptive falling
Soft theme, violently hued;
This waltz melancholic
Infuses with a physical flavor;
Disturbing aftertaste I savor,
Like spit with blood imbued.
Albert Giraud, ‘Pierrot Lunaire: Rondels Bergamasques’, 1884.
[Traduction Anglaise : Sardonique Schadenfreude Rictus / Dr. Bathybius, 2008]