Overview

Jean Cras (1879-1932) was a remarkable man by anyone's measure. Twice a decorated hero of the Great War, this Rear-Admiral of the French Navy, scientist, inventor and moral philosopher was also a highly esteemed composer during his lifetime, enjoying, during the last decade of his life, the same stature and celebrity as Faure, Debussy and Ravel. Since his death in 1932, his music was overlooked until 1980, when his last surviving daughter, Monique, released the first monograph of the composer for the centenary of her father's birth. This assured his renaissance.Cras' thirty-eight early songs extend from adolescence to his early twenties, and with this publication, performers and scholars are now able to trace his evolution as one of France's greatest composers of melodie from the post-Romantic and Impressionist eras.This collection both complements and completes the published repertoire of Cras' prodigious song cycles: Elegies, L'Offrande lyrique, Fontaines and Cinq Robaiyats de Omar Khayyam, and his individual songs, as analyzed in depth by Paul-Andre Bempechat in his seminal biography, Jean Cras, Polymath of Music and Letters (Routledge, 2009). Analyses of these newly-published songs will be found in the second edition, released in 2021 (Peter Lang). Through the chronological presentation of Cras' youthful songs, we witness a remarkable evolution of both prosodic and harmonic ingenuity, demanding of the singer increasingly acute attention to enunciation and inflection; and for both performers, a heightened sense coloration and unfailing fidelity to the rhythm of language.***Jean Cras (1879-1932) etait un homme remarquable aux yeux de tous. Decore heros de la Grande Guerre par deux fois, ce contre-amiral de la Marine francaise, scientifique, inventeur et philosophe moraliste etait aussi un compositeur hautement estime de son vivant dont le renom etait comparable a celui de Faure, Debussy ou Ravel... Depuis sa mort, la personne de Jean Cras, tout comme sa musique etaient quasiment tombes dans l'oubli. La collection des premieres melodies de Jean Cras s'etend de son enfance jusqu'aux opus du jeune adulte de vingt ans. Cette publication permettra aux chanteurs comme aux pianistes et aux chercheurs de tracer l'evolution de l'un des compositeurs de melodies les plus eminents de son epoque, postromantique et impressionniste. Le present recueil de trente-huit melodies complete et acheve le repertoire publie des cycles Elegies, L'Offrande lyrique, Fontaines, Cinq Robaiyats de Omar Khayyam ainsi que les melodies separees qui ont fait l'objet d'une analyse de detail par Paul-Andre Bempechat dans sa biographie Jean Cras, Polymath of Music and Letters (Routledge, 2009). Les analyses de ces melodies de jeunesse figureront dans la seconde edition de la biographie de 2021 aux editions Peter Lang. Cette presentation, a dessein, suit l'ordre chronologique afin de mettre en evidence la remarquable evolution de la prosodie et de l'ingeniosite harmonique. Cette prosodie exige du chanteur une attention accrue dans l'enonciation comme dans l'intonation, et pour les deux interpretes, une scrupuleuse fidelite aux couleurs et au rythme de la langue

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