- Date: 1924
- Composer: Manuel de Falla
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
Falla was working in the neo-Classical mode of his harpsichord concerto when he turned his attention to a musical setting of a poem by his friend G. Jean-Aubry. Psyché was the central figure in a Greco-Roman myth, a princess so beautiful that she aroused the jealousy of Venus, the goddess of love. Venus ordered her son, Eros (or Cupid), to cause Psyché to love only the most despicable men. Venus' curse has afflicted many women during the past 2,500 years, but luckily for Psyché, Eros fell in love with his intended victim and persuaded Jupiter to let Psyché join the gods as Eros' wife. Falla had been immersing himself in old Spanish music and employed in Psyché some elements of what he called "the true music of the eighteenth century Spanish court," including modal melodies in a work that carefully balances the voice with a small and unusual chamber ensemble. In his dedication of the piece to a patron, Mme. Alvar, Falla evokes a scene at the Alhambra around 1730 when Queen Isabella Farnese sat with her ladies in a tower of the palace playing and singing music about this fashionable mythological subject. For all his interest in Renaissance and Baroque Spain, Falla begins Psyché like a piece of French Impressionism, a counterpart, perhaps, to Ravel's Introduction and Allegro. After this short introduction, though, the mezzo (sometimes soprano) enters solo with a very archaic melodic line. When all the performers come together, the singer continues to operate in archaic mode while the instruments bathe her in Impressionist harmonies and timbres. The poem finds our heroine at a low point in the story, but nature summons her to join it in beauty and joy:Psyché!
The lamp is dead; awaken.
Day watches you with eyes flooded with love,
And a new desire to serve you again.
The mirror, confidant of your tearful face,
Reflects this morning a pure lake amid the flowers,
A milky sky like an eternal dawn.
Noon approaches and dances, drunk on its golden feet.
Stretch your arms to it, dry your tears;
Abandon in flight, Psyché, the languor of your bed.
The bird sings in a treetop;
The sun smiles with joy sending the universal awakening,
And spring stretches with a rose in its mouth. ~ James Reel, All Music Guide
