Déodat de Séverac - Sous les lauriers roses (audio + sheet music)

With the completion of Cerdaña in 1911, Séverac's productivity waned. En Vacances (On Vacation), an album of eight children's pieces, followed in 1912, indicative of a new interest in the world of childhood no doubt prompted by his closeness to Henriette Tardieu, a dozen years his junior, who bore him a daughter, Magali, in January 1913. He married her in May of that year, against his family's wishes, and settled down with her in Céret, a village in the Midi, leaving Paris more or less behind. The Great War's opening hostilities in August 1914 proved a profound shock, given an even deeper dimension by the death of his friend and former teacher, Albéric Magnard, on September 3, when Germans overran his estate at Baron and razed his house. As the war escalated a distaste for things German turned to loathing. Too old to be mobilized, Séverac exerted himself in several auxiliary capacities, serving through 1916 as an attendant in a military hospital while straining his already delicate health. A cousin, Henri de Séverac, was killed in action in April 1917. In the aftermath of the war's devastation came the inevitable nostalgia for a vanished world.

Sur les lauriers roses (Under the Oleanders) -- subtitled "Soir de Carnaval sur la Côte Catalane" -- composed in 1919, bears the superscription "Fantaisie dédiée a la Mémoire des Maîtres aimés: E. Chabrier, I. Albeniz et Ch. Bordes." As an improvisational genius who used the piano in a unique way, Séverac may be said to have inherited Chabrier's mantle. Albéniz, another improvising pianist, had been a close friend. Charles Bordes not only recruited the young Séverac for the first class of the Schola Cantorum, which, with Guilmant and d'Indy, he founded, but was the composer of a number of highly original piano works inspired by Basque folk music, often employing the zortziko rhythm of five beats to the bar. Séverac's most ambitious piano works -- Le Chant de la terre, En languedoc, Cerdaña -- had been cycles of several pieces each. Sous les lauriers roses plays for an unbroken quarter of an hour, through episodes of great verve laced with broad humor. The first strain evokes the municipal band (in which Séverac, as an adept of all its instruments, often played), a waltz for the carabiniers, a reminiscence of his popular Baigneuses au soleil (1908), an elaborate Sardana (imitating the fluviol, or Catalan flute), a barcarolle, sections recalling Bordes, Chabrier, and "the charming ghost of old Daquin" (Les Coucous) -- a comprehensive cornucopia.

(AllMusic)

Please take note that the audio AND sheet music ARE NOT mine. I do recommend changing the video quality to a minimum of 480p.

Performance by: Aldo Ciccolini

[thenameisgsarci]

Oh yeah, some pointers for today:
1) I don't accept any more requests. I'm really sorry.
2) I recommend you to click the notification bell to get updated on the latest vids on the channel.
3) I also would like to apologize if some parts were out of sync.

[fromsuntosun]

Wow you did it! Thank you very much. Severac is a composer whose work surely needs to be more known. His music is very peculiar and from some time he is trying to get off from the "forgotten libraries"... Many of his pieces are surely worth listening, and this one is one of them.
Again, thank you for the great work.

[daveluttinen]

I am, to borrow a British term, gobsmacked. This is delightful and wonderful and enchanting and uplifting and I am out of superlatives. Thank you!

[ChrisBreemer]

Severac's music is always delightful, written with great charm, gusto and superb pianism. If Chabrier and Albeniz had composed together, this is what could have resulted. Like most of his works, this one feels like a beautiful patchwork quilt rather than a work of unity. Each section is a glittering jewel but I have trouble feeling how it all hangs together (if it does at all). His habit of stringing together short different sections reminds me of Turina. It's impossible not to love this music, but how I wish there was a long line and some development. Perhaps the composer's aversion against all thing Germanic made him compose this way ?

[Kalen]

Very quizzical piece. Sounds very folksy. Thanks for sharing.

[nathanturczan]

Severac keeping it casual in the south of France

[docc]

Thanks for not only introducing me to this wonderful composer, but also the fantastic commentary that you add to your YouTube postings. I'm sure that you have not only my gratitude, but also that of your other 41K+ subscribers. Hopefully we'll all get the word out and you'll have many more in the near future.

[PianoHypnoshroom]

folk-like but also evoking impressionistic ideas influenced by debussy and others... unfortunately this is yet again one of those composers whose works are rarely played today