Les Nuits d'Ete...

This is a week of intense writing as I have 3 projects due for school, so it was lovely to be able to dash downtown yesterday evening to my old stomping ground and see a concert featuring one of my former students at Alice Tully Hall. I don't generally review the work of people I know, so I'll just offer an appreciation - Sasha's Cooke's debut New York concert with orchestra singing Les Nuits d'Ete was uncommonly self-possessed. She brought something distinctly personal to Berlioz's setting of Theophile Gautier's poems - singing them with great warmth. Really lovely stuff. Here's one, just for fun - Dites, la jeune belle...

Say, young beauty,
Where do you wish to go?
The sail swells itself,
The breeze will blow.
The oar is made of ivory,
The flag is of silk,
The helm is of fine gold;
I have for ballast an orange,
For a sail, the wing of an angel,
For a deck boy, a seraph.

Say, young beauty,
Where do you wish to go?
The sail swells itself,
The breeze will blow.

Is it to the Baltic?
To the Pacific Ocean?
To the island of Java?
Or is it well to Norway,
To gather the flower of the snow,
Or the flower of Angsoka?
Say, young beauty,
Where do you wish to go?
Lead me, says the beauty,
To the faithful shore
Where one loves always!
This shore, my darling,
We hardly know at all
In the land of Love.