Five songs based on Lewis Carroll’s letters to his child-friends

Voice; flute (also piccolo/alto fl.); Bb clarinet (also Bb bass cl.); violin; viola; cello

2001 – 11mn

Jody Pou : voice; Ensemble S:I.C. : Sophie Deshayes : flute; Pierre Dutrieux : clarinet; Karine Gillette : violin; Gilles Deliège : viola; Elena Andreyev : cello / Recorded at Radio-France studios for the broadcast Alla breve, Paris – autumn 2001

Words

• I.
  My dear Marion,
  Dear indeed! Remarkable dear, I should say!
  What doesn’t that child cost me in journeys by railways, and admissions to aquariums, and luncheons, at which nothing will serve her but the most expensive jellies, and turtle-soup, and such things!
  Not to mention the damages I have to pay for, when she gets savage and breaks things!
  I should just think she was dear indeed!
• II.
  Some children have a most disagreeable way of getting grown-up : I hope you won’t do anything of that sort before we meet again.
• III.
  She may be limited and superficial, she may even be without depth. But she is at least equilateral and equiangular – in one word, what is she but a polygon?
• IV.
  And I like two or three handfuls of hair; only they should always have a little girl’s head beneath them to grow on, or else whenever you open the door they get blown all over the room, and then they get lost, you know.
• V.
  He thought he saw an argument
  That proved he was the pope :
  He looked again, and found it was
  A bar of mottled soap.
  “A fact so dread”, he faintly said,
  “extinguishes all hope!”