"THE DJINNS," SYMPHONIC POEM FOR ORCHESTRA AND PIANO [60]
Les Djinns was written in illustration of lines from Victor Hugo's Les Orientales, which, translated into prose, are as follows:
"In the plain is born a sound; 'tis the breathing of the night.
"The sound draws near. It grows louder! Heavens! It is the galloping of the Djinns.
"It is their funeral plaint. Hark to them! Cries of Hell! Voices that howl and weep!
"They depart, ... but the air groans again. Then silence.
"All passes away, and space swallows up the sound."
The Djinns (or Jinns, from an Arabic word meaning "to be dark" or "to be veiled") were, in Arabian mythology, supernatural beings of prevailingly malevolent character and purpose. They were both male and female, and were regarded as extremely long-lived. Created two thousand years before Adam, of smokeless fire, their homes were in the mountains named Kaff, which were believed to girdle the earth. Yet they haunted all places and all elements—the sea, the land, the air. They could assume any form at will, but were prone to appear to men in whirlwinds, tempests, and dust clouds.
In Franck's symphonic poem (in which the piano is employed rather as an orchestral adjunct than as a solo instrument) the music delineates the sudden and terrifying approach through the air of the horde of tempest-driven demons, their horrible lamentations and imprecations, their passing and final disappearance.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] The English equivalent of this title, "The Daughters of Æolus"—or, as Mr. W. F. Apthorp once translated it, "The Æolidæ"—would scarcely be recognized by the concert-goer as denominating Franck's well-known work.
[54] Without opus number.
"O brises flottantes des cieux,
Du beau printemps douces haleines,
Qui de baisers capricieux
Caressez les monts et les plaines;
Vierges, filles d'Éole, amantes de la paix,
La nature éternelle à vos chansons s'éveille."
[56] Chapman's translation.
[57] Without opus number.
[58] Translated by Mr. Philip Hale.
[59] Without opus number.
[60] Without opus number.