La nuit n’est jamais complète

One often hears it said that the task of a sculptor is to reveal from the raw material the sculpture that is already there. This is somewhat the feeling I had when I was composing these four songs – that it was simply enough to elicit the music contained in Éluard’s words and to translate it into notes … For sure, all good poetry is music, but the poetry of Éluard is more than even that to my ears. The melodies and various musical atmospheres therefore came to me very naturally, as if my task was more that of transcriber than composer. I. Le temps déborde In this text Éluard evokes the death of his wife Nusch, even mentioning the exact date, and the torment that this upheaval unleashed in his life. II. La nuit n’est jamais complète This poem is about the hope inspired in him by Dominique, his third and last companion, who he married in 1951 just one year before his death. III. Même quand nous dormons Sublime expression of Paul Éluard’s idea about love between a man and a woman. IV. Ma morte vivante This text evokes again the early death of Nusch, the nostalgia provoked by her absence and what seems to be Éluard’s renunciation of life, deprived of the person with whom he was so close and whose loss made him so cold even to others who knew him well.