Two centuries ago, on April 9, 1821, Charles Pierre Baudelaire was born in Paris.
The accursed poet who believed in the musicality of words and sentences would perhaps have listened with pleasure to the reinterpretations of
L'Albatros
and
Un serpent qui danse
by Léo Ferré and Serge Gainsbourg.
Already during his lifetime he wrote to Victor Hugo's niece what he thought of the musical adaptation of his poems: “
Madame, here are some melodies by my friend Cressonnois, which I have never heard performed.
I am counting on you to do me this favor
”.
To read also: "Baudelaire is the man of modernity but he does not believe in Progress"
The idea was therefore not new.
The disc and the modern possibilities of the mid-twentieth century will have been able to carry out the melodic beginnings sketched in 1863, four years before the death of Charles Baudelaire.
"
It's the devil who holds the threads that move us!"
"
Léo Ferré and his heir Jean-Louis Murat were only his most respectful and humble continuers, only scratching the surface of the famous sickly flowers, which caused so many scandals on their first publication.
But we must admit that it was Serge Gainsbourg the cursed, and Mylène Farmer, the libertine poet who approached her mind as closely as possible by creating subversive melodies in line with the Baudelairean gesture which proclaimed at the beginning of
Fleurs du mal
: "
C he is the devil who holds the threads that move us!
"
Read also: Les Fleurs du Mal and Charles Baudelaire finally rehabilitated on May 31, 1949
In homage to the sometimes frightening imagination of the creator of the sickly flowers dedicated to Théophile Gautier
Le Figaro
has chosen four poems by Charles Baudelaire, revised but not corrected, by Léo Ferré, Serge Gainsbourg, Mylène Farmer and Jean-Louis Murat.
Here they are, in verse and in music.
●
Léo Ferré sings
L'Albatros
by Charles Baudelaire
“Often, for fun, the crew members take albatrosses, vast sea birds, which follow, indolent traveling companions, the ship gliding over bitter abysses.
Scarcely have they placed them on the planks, when these kings of the azure, clumsy and ashamed, pitifully let their great white wings like oars drag beside them.
This winged traveler, how awkward and weak he is!
Him, once so handsome, how comical and ugly!
One annoys his beak with a firebreaker, the other mimics, limping, the cripple who flew!
The Poet is like the prince of the clouds who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer;
exiled on the ground in the midst of boos, his giant wings prevent him from walking. "
●
Serge Gainsbourg sings
Le serpent qui danse
by Charles Baudelaire
“How I love to see, dear indolent, Of your beautiful body, Like a flickering fabric, Shimmering the skin!
On your deep hair With acrid perfumes, A fragrant and wandering sea In blue and brown waves, Like a ship which awakens In the morning wind, My dreamy soul sets sail For a distant sky.
Your eyes, where nothing is revealed Sweet or bitter, Are two cold jewels where gold mingles with iron.
To see you walk in rhythm, Belle of abandonment, It looks like a snake dancing At the end of a stick.
Under the burden of your laziness Your child's head Swings with the softness Of a young elephant, And your body bends and stretches Like a fine vessel Which rolls side to side and plunges Its yards in the water.
Like a flood swollen by the melting Rumbling glaciers, When the water of your mouth rises At the edge of your teeth, I think I am drinking a Bohemian wine, Bitter and conquering, A liquid sky that strews my heart with stars! "
●
Mylene Farmer sings
L'Horloge
by Charles Baudelaire
“Horloge!
sinister god, frightening, impassive, whose finger threatens us and tells us: “Remember!
The vibrating pains in your heart full of fear will soon plant themselves as in a target, The vaporous pleasure will flee towards the horizon like a sylph at the bottom of the scenes;
Every moment devours you a piece of the delight to each man granted for his entire season.
Three thousand six hundred times an hour, the second whispers: Remember!
- quick, with his insect voice, now said: I once am, And I pumped your life with my filthy trunk!
Remember!
Remember, prodigal!
Esto memor!
(My metal throat speaks all languages.) The minutes, frolic mortal, are gangues that must not be released without extracting the gold!
Remember that time is an avid gambler who wins without cheating, every time!
it's the law.
The day is waning;
the night is increasing, remember!
The abyss is always thirsty;
the clepsydra empties.
Sometimes the hour will strike when divine chance, when the august Virtue, your still virgin wife, where even repentance (oh! The last inn!), Where everything will tell you: die, old coward!
It's too late!"
●
Jean-Louis Murat sings
Reversibility
by Charles Baudelaire
“Angel full of gaiety, do you know the anguish, the shame, the remorse, the sobs, the troubles, and the vague terrors of those dreadful nights Which compress the heart like a piece of paper that crumples?
Angel full of gaiety, do you know anguish?
Angel full of goodness, do you know hatred, Fists clenched in the shadows and tears of gall, When Vengeance beats its infernal reminder, And of our faculties is made the captain?
Kind angel do you know hate?
Angel full of health, do you know the Fevers, Which, along the great walls of the pallid hospice, Like exiles, straggle away, Seeking the rare sun and moving their lips?
Angel full of health, do you know fevers?
Angel full of beauty, do you know the wrinkles, And the fear of aging, and this hideous torment To read the secret horror of devotion in eyes where our greedy eyes have long drunk!
Angel full of beauty, do you know wrinkles?
Angel full of happiness, joy and light, dying David would have asked for health From the emanations of your enchanted body;
But from you I implore, angel, only your prayers, Angel full of happiness, joy and light! ”