Harawi (Messiaen)

They received their première on 27 June 1946 in Brussels with the composer himself at the piano and his preferred singer Marcelle Bunlet [fr] as vocalist.

A harawi or yaravi is a genre of Peruvian folk music and poetry, akin to a tragedy, often dealing with lost love and a contemplation on death, often played on the flute.

The cycle concentrate on Messiaen's Peruvian reimagining of the myth of the two fated lovers, Tristan (unnamed) and Iseult (Piroutcha).

As is the case for almost all of his vocal works, Messiaen himself wrote the libretto; following Wagner's music dramas and Debussy who set his own symbolist poetry in his four Proses lyriques [fr].

The work borrows melodies from numerous traditional folksongs of the Andes as compiled in a book by Raoul d'Harcourt and his wife Marguerite Béclard.

In addition to the French text, Harawi also uses Quechua words, some faux, some real, not for their semantic meaning, but for their sound, that is, their timbral and syllabic qualities.

Symbolism occurs in the lines: "Enchained Star, shared shadow, thou, of flower, fruit, sky, and water, [of] Bird song".

In what is perhaps the most famous song of the Harawi cycle, the male lover performs, with crotal bells attached to his ankles, a dance of courtship, which then turns into an ecstatic serenade.

Contrary to popular belief, the words are at variance with Quechua phonetics and are gibberish (similar to what Messiaen practised in his later Cinq rechants).

A sombre equivalent to the second movement 'Bonjour toi', transforming the joyous serenade into a dolorous lament of grief expressing worries of an eternal farewell.