When I started this project I had a general feeling about Baudelaire, and I liked the poetry. Having read a lot more of him, thought about it hard and struggled to get it into song I have some more definite ideas. Today, with the project finished, I am pleased to have found an essay by Kenneth Rexroth that echoes my thoughts and gives me more to think about. It’s short, but packed full. I encourage you to read it.
The first thing I discovered was how utterly unsatisfying almost all the English translations were. I like what James Wright did with “The Voyage” and Roy Campbell hit the mark from time to time–neither Wright nor Campbell sounds like Baudelaire, but they produce vigorous and exciting poems. Most of the others leave too much to be desired. I agree with Rexroth: the poems are best in French.
In any case, after digging into a few, I realized that not only could no accurate translation be made but even if there were one, it’d make a lousy lyric. This is the case for most poetry: it’s too dense–too many words–and its logic defies musical setting. A poem carries its own music, and real music would get in the way.
So…forgive me Mr. Baudelaire. I pruned mercilessly. I abandoned your forms. I made whatever kind of lyric I thought would carry some of your meaning, and I made music to carry some more of it, and I made my own meaning out of your poems. I did what we do when we read them; I interpreted.
I feel an obligation to be faithful to something about the poems, to their ideas and images, and to Baudelaire’s mind. Baudelaire’s experiences, philosophies and attitudes were important to my understanding of the poems. I wanted to make the songs a journey with him through time; his day, his city.
Seven songs are not enough to give a listener all of Baudelaire. I picked poems about things I thought most important, and ones I thought would make good songs. If I add more later, I would like to set some poems to his mistresses, more Parisian poems, and maybe tackle the Litanies of Satan. Although Diamanda Galas kinda has lock on that one.
