“Les Roses d’Ispahan” Op.39 No.4 (Gabriel Fauré /Leconte de Lisle) – A love affair in the Capital of Persia

Oh, if only your youthful love, that light butterfly,

would return to my heart

and perfume once more the orange blossom

and the roses of Ispahan in their sheath of moss.

One of Fauré’s most-loved and most-performed songs, even the title conjures up expectation of something exotic, fragrant and special. The ‘Rosa Ispahan’, also known as ‘Pompon des Princes’, is a clear pink, half-open kind of Damask rose (an early type, introduced from [read more…]