Per Noi

This is among the most widely used teaching repertoire for singers in the U.S. Over 30 songs in each book, including American and British art songs, folk song arrangements, sacred songs and a sampling of beginning songs in German, Italian, Spanish and French. There is a completely different song selection for each voice type.

In his "Chantefleurs et chantefables", Lutosławski set nine short rhymes about flowers and animals written by the French poet Robert Desnos (1900 - 45) in 1940. The word "Chantefables" ("song-fables") was invented by Desnos to refer to miniature stories about animals, birds and insects, whereas the word "Chantefleurs" ("song-flowers") denotes correspondingly short lirycal poems about flowers. Lutosławski had already used Desnos' poetry in his songs for baritone and orchestra, Les espaces du sommeil. The work Chantedleurs et chantefables also begins with a dream-like atmosphere - reminiscent of the surrealistic Les espaces du sommeil (1975) - in The Beauty of the Night (La Belle-de-nuit), denoting a flower, which blooms after the sunset and therefore is called like that in France. The music helps us to form in our minds an image of dreams floating to the moon. The Rose (La Rose) drifts into sleep in the heat of the summer sun. Throughout his life Lutosławski declared himself an opponent of programmatic and illustrative music, but the sound painting in Chantefleurs et chantefables is simply striking. Musical humour appears, in the first place, in the four zoological portraits - of the grasshopper, the tortoise, the alligator and a swarm of butterflies. The grasshoper hops with abandon, the tortoise plods along and dreams. The hungry alligator tries in vain to entrap an appetizing little black boy, while the swarm of 300 million butterflies drink up a cup of broth in Chatillon, taking it away from the local people.

Lista utworów:
La Belle de nuit (Lutosławski Witold)
La Sauterelle (Lutosławski Witold)
La Véronique (Lutosławski Witold)
L'Eglantine, l'aubépine et la glycine (Lutosławski Witold)
La Tortue (Lutosławski Witold)
La Rose (Lutosławski Witold)
L'Alligator (Lutosławski Witold)
L'Angelique (Lutosławski Witold)
Le Papillon (Lutosławski Witold)