Un Chant d’Amour (2006)
Genre / ジャンル
Solo Organ
Duration / 演奏時間
26 minutes
Other information / 他の情報
Premièred 6 May 2006, Sir Jack Lyons Hall, University of York, by James Roriston
Written to accompany Jean Genet's silent of the same name, but can be performed on its own.
Written to accompany Jean Genet's silent of the same name, but can be performed on its own.
Score available for purchase (pdf or printed copy) from the Canadian Music Centre.
Programme Note
Jean Genet’s 1950 silent short Un Chant d’Amour is a classic of the underground cinema, an erotically-charged visual poem, one of the first gay-themed films ever made. Given its undoubted artistic success, it is unfortunate that it is Genet’s only film, though it fits easily into the grand canon of his other works, employing symbols and subjects (flowers, prisons, unrequited love) that also appear in his poems, plays and novels. The plot revolves around three men in an Algerian prison: an older man and a younger man, both on death row and in some sort of love, and the prison guard who observes them, who is both aroused and horrified at the sexual energy at play within the prison.
Genet left no musical instructions for the film, and it has been set many times by many different composers. My version, for organ solo, is quite spare, and does not time itself exactly to the film. It evokes the mood of Genet’s film, reflects its pacing, and is more like a companion piece than an accompaniment.
Genet left no musical instructions for the film, and it has been set many times by many different composers. My version, for organ solo, is quite spare, and does not time itself exactly to the film. It evokes the mood of Genet’s film, reflects its pacing, and is more like a companion piece than an accompaniment.