Pelléas et Mélisande

1902 · Opera in five acts; Maeterlinck’s French prose

Composed over nine years. Maeterlinck’s play is set almost word for word, nearly a note to a syllable. First performed at the Opéra-⁠Comique under André Messager.

2 min

Recording

Act III, scene 1 · Mes longs cheveux descendentMary Garden, soprano; Claude Debussy, piano · 1904, Paris
1:43
Mélisande sings this song at her tower window while combing her loosened hair. Mary Garden, the first Mélisande, recorded it with Debussy at the piano; after his prelude, the voice is unaccompanied for most of the song.
Listening notes · joins
1. Mélisande at the tower window
  A piano prelude marked Doux et calme repeats its quavers beneath held notes. Mélisande appears at a window, combing her loosened hair. The piano stops when she sings, Modéré et librement, of her hair reaching down to the foot of the tower, and the vocal line moves through repeated notes.
2. Mary Garden as Mélisande, 1902
  Mary Garden created the role of Mélisande in 1902, with André Messager conducting. Two years later, in Paris, she recorded this scene with Debussy.
3. Mélisande’s unaccompanied stanza
  After a two-bar piano link, Mélisande sings alone again. She names Daniel, Michael and Raphael, then says she was born on a Sunday at noon, and the line slows on those words, marked En retenant. The piano takes over where her song ends.
Joins
1. Piano link between two stanzas
  The piano enters beneath Mélisande’s held final word, jour. Low quavers move under sustained treble notes for two bars of 6/4, ending on a fermata. The voice then resumes unaccompanied in 4/4 with the stanza naming the saints.
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