Brand, a lyrical symphony (symphony n°2) for ténor and orchestra
text by Henrik Ibsen, french translation by Comte Prozor

 

Brand is a dramatic poem by Henrik Ibsen. It is a play in five acts published in 1866 that tells the story of Pastor Brand, a man desperate with absolutism. It is a dizzying journey into life and the choices of this man ready to do everything to be faithful to his ideal, taking mother, woman and child in the tornado of his sacrifices.

This play challenged me with the insight of the need for commitment and perseverance in its choices. Ibsen’s text resonates on me in periods of doubt. It confirms the need to believe in his ideas and above all to invest himself to achieve them. To invest but not compromise, to invest in keeping its trajectory, to invest by taking risks, to invest and to question the prejudices to upset the established orders, to invest by not seeking recognition but to seek saying and doing what is deep within us. It is this philosophical thought and this profound text that I wanted to put into music.

The original text of Henrik Ibsen, in the translation of Count Prozor, is a long play in five acts, written for some fifteen characters. The symphony will therefore retain only a few passages from the main role (Brand), in the form of a monologue. The monologues written by Ibsen are strong and poignant. From Brand’s speech there is a real existential reflection.

The adaptation I realized refine the action in order to enter, through music and vocality, into the depths of the thought, the flesh and the “soul” of Brand.

The wish of this symphony is to give the full force of the reflection that Ibsen gives us on life, commitment, perseverance, death, love…

 

Symphony in five movements

1- Un brouillard à couper au couteau
2- La race d’aujourd’hui
3- Absence de volonté
4- Les épaules du christ
5- Des temps plus grands