Ma Bohème
SATB, a cappella
The nineteenth-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s desire to live the Bohemian life is portrayed in Ma Bohème (“My Bohemian Life”) as a joyous celebration of a soul discovering what it wants in life. I tried to keep the harmonic language light and the pacing quick and the music is garish and over-the-top as the poet—who wrote nearly all of his life’s work between the ages of 16 and 19—seems to disappear into the night with his newly discovered purpose.
Ma Bohème (“My Bohemian Life”) is the first movement of the song cycle, Chansons de la Vigne (“Songs from the Vine”). It can be purchased and performed separately.
The Texts
By Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
My Bohemian Life
Je m’en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées;
Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal;
J’allais sous le ciel, Muse!
et j’étais ton féal;
Oh! là là! Que d’amours splendides j’ai rêvées!
I went off, fists in my torn pockets;
My coat was becoming ideal;
I traveled under the sky, Muse!
and I was your companion;
Oh! What splendid loves I dreamed of!
Mon unique culotte avait un large trou.
—Petit Poucet rêveur, j’égrenais dans ma course
Des rimes. Mon auberge était à la Grande-Ourse.
—Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou
My only pair of trousers had a big hole.
—Tom Thumb daydreaming, I planted some rhymes
along my path. My inn was at the Big Bear.
—My stars rustled softy in the sky.
Et je les écoutais, assis au bord des routes,
Ces bons soirs de septembre où je sentais
des gouttes
De rosée à mon front, comme un vin de vigueur;
And I listened to them, sitting on the side of the road,
In these fine September evenings where I felt
some drops
Of dew on my forehead, like a strong wine;
Où rimant au milieu des ombres fantastiques,
Comme des lyres, je tirais les élastiques
De me souliers blessés, un pied près de mon cœur!
Where, rhyming amidst fantastic shadows,
Like lyres, I plucked the laces
Of my wounded shoes, one foot close to my heart!
Performed by the Chapman University Singers
(Dr. Joseph Modica, conductor).