Fêtes galantes, Set II

Set II of Fêtes galantes supplies three more settings of poetry by Verlaine that, in dreamlike terms, invoke the world of 18th-century French paintings where young people frolic, with an undercurrent of subdued eroticism, dressed as nymphs and shepherds in enchanted pastoral environments. But where the songs of Set I had a random quality, the ones in Set II—which came later, in 1904—suggest a connecting storyline about the decay of love over time. And their mood is accordingly darker. “Les ingénus" (“The Innocents”) begins brightly enough as the party-goers flirt and enjoy the awakening desires of youth. But in “Le faune” (“The Faun”), a statue of this satyr-like creature sees the fun, thinking that it won’t end well. And perhaps it doesn’t, because “Colloque sentimental" (“Sentimental Conversation”) presents the ghosts of two former lovers as they haunt the landscape of their younger days, exchanging equivocal memories of what happened there.