Le Soleil des eaux (The Sun of Waters) is a two-movement cantata for soprano, choir and orchestra by Pierre Boulez, based on two poems by René Char, and having a total duration of about nine minutes.
Background
Boulez first encountered Char's poetry in 1945 or 1946, and was immediately attracted to its conciseness and "internal violence". Boulez based his first cantata, Le Visage nuptial (1946–47) on the poet's work, and would later use Char's poems as the basis of Le Marteau sans maître (1953–55). The two met in the summer of 1947, at which point they began a long friendship.
Le Soleil des eaux began life as incidental music for a radio drama of the same name, written by Char, broadcast on RTF on April 29, 1948 and published in April 1949 with illustrations by Georges Braque. The play revolved around a story of fishermen on the river Sorgue whose livelihoods are threatened by pollution from a new factory, and who revolt and attack the factory in response. (Char was born in L'Isle-sur-Sorgue, and the river was a source of inspiration for him throughout his life. Joan Peyser also noted that the story parallels Char's own struggle against Nazism as a member of the French Resistance.) Boulez's contribution to the project, composed at the request of Alain Trutat, a friend of poet Paul Éluard and later the founder of the radio station France Culture, was a 32-minute work which was in part newly-composed, and in part based on a movement for two pianos written in February 1948 and titled "Passacaille-Variations" (later incorporated into an unpublished Sonata for two pianos). The score is a setting for soprano of Char's poem "La complainte du lézard amoureux" ("Lament of the lizard in love"), with orchestral interludes. The poem, written in 1947, was unpublished at that time, but was later included as part of a group of poems titled La Sieste blanche in the collection Les Matinaux (1950). The setting of the poem is unaccompanied; according to Boulez, he conceived of it as a monody and "thought it would be interesting, rather than trying to find an accompaniment, to articulate it by means of interjections, reflections, landscapes, and distorted images." (Boulez also stated that the setting was never performed in its entirety due to its length.) Char was evidently happy with the results, and, in a letter to Boulez, wrote: "I am really pleased with what you are creating and establishing for my poems. The score of Le Soleil des eaux was very beautiful and worthy of our attention. I would like for all your work, drawn up in a fearsome platoon, to properly shoot the idiocy of our time."
In October 1948, Boulez revised the score, adding a second movement based on Char's poem "La Sorgue: chanson pour Yvonne", which appeared as part of La Fontaine narrative, included in the collection Fureur et mystère (1948). (The dedicatee was Yvonne Zervos, a long-time friend of Char who, with her husband Christian Zervos, edited the magazine Cahiers d'art.) This second version, for three vocal soloists and chamber orchestra, was premiered on July 18, 1950 by the RTF orchestra, conducted by Roger Désormière, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
In 1958, Boulez revised the score a third time, adding mixed 3-part chorus and rescoring the work for full symphony orchestra. This version was premiered on September 9, 1958 at Darmstadt by the Hessian Radio Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bour. Finally, a "definitive" version for soprano soloist, mixed 4-part chorus, and orchestra was prepared. This version was premiered on October 4, 1965 by the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra and chorus, conducted by the composer, with Catherine Gayer as the soloist. The third and fourth versions were published by Heugel in 1968.
Overview
Regarding the two poems on which Le Soleil des eaux is based, Boulez, in an interview, stated: "these two particular texts represent a somewhat free-and-easy version of anguish and violence, and even of the formal discipline of language." He also drew attention to a quotation from Char included in the preface to the score:
We have within us, on our temperate side, a series of songs by which we are flanked, wings by which are linked our restful breathing and mightiest fevers. They are pieces almost commonplace in character, mild in colouring, old-fashioned in outline, yet their texture bears a tiny wound. It is open to everyone to determine where this disputable sore spot begins and where it ends.