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- Jouni Kaipainen
Je Chante la Chaleur Desesperée, Op. 16 (1981)
- Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
Programme Note
I have given this piano piece of mine a French title, which in English would be something like ”I sing of the Warmth of Despair”. The title is a quotation of the French poet René Char. This poet has for a long time been one of the main influences in my compositional as well as artistic development: I have written a suite of orchestral songs (op. 12a) in his texts, and I have titled my opuses 12b, 16 and 17 after him.
I have now and then been told that the fact that a composer resorts to poets when searching for a title is a prominent proof of spiritual laziness. But, personally, I do not find this any kind of a problem. Anyway, in my case, the composition itself is always the important part, upon which I concentrate my forces, and if it happens, after a strength-demanding period of composing, that I find finding a title unfairly difficult, I right away turn to the professionals of using words, i.e. poets. Besides, I personally feel that quite a many of Char’s ideas have some kind of correspondence in my scores.
Je chante la chaleur désésperée is a piece of ”absolute piano music”, lasting for about 10 minutes. Characteristic to the piece is the fact that, properly, it only includes sections of extreme tempi, viz. very slow or very fast. As a culmination of this polarity, we can feel the ending of the piece, where, after a rapid, breathless allegro, we hear an utmostly slow, immaterial coda.
Strong human feelings tend to be manifold; they, as things in general, have numerous different sides. I think this is why Char writes about “the warmth of despair” which, according to the pet, appears e.g. in the face of a newborn baby. Perhaps this image helps somebody understand also my ideas.
Jouni Kaipainen
I have now and then been told that the fact that a composer resorts to poets when searching for a title is a prominent proof of spiritual laziness. But, personally, I do not find this any kind of a problem. Anyway, in my case, the composition itself is always the important part, upon which I concentrate my forces, and if it happens, after a strength-demanding period of composing, that I find finding a title unfairly difficult, I right away turn to the professionals of using words, i.e. poets. Besides, I personally feel that quite a many of Char’s ideas have some kind of correspondence in my scores.
Je chante la chaleur désésperée is a piece of ”absolute piano music”, lasting for about 10 minutes. Characteristic to the piece is the fact that, properly, it only includes sections of extreme tempi, viz. very slow or very fast. As a culmination of this polarity, we can feel the ending of the piece, where, after a rapid, breathless allegro, we hear an utmostly slow, immaterial coda.
Strong human feelings tend to be manifold; they, as things in general, have numerous different sides. I think this is why Char writes about “the warmth of despair” which, according to the pet, appears e.g. in the face of a newborn baby. Perhaps this image helps somebody understand also my ideas.
Jouni Kaipainen