Program note

In 1971 I set of Richard Wilbur's translation of Baudelaire's famous L'Invitation au voyage for a cappella chorus. Wilbur's poignant setting pictures a world of obsessive imagination — a drugged version of heaven full of sensual imagery. The music echoes the quality of the repeated refrain found in this lush translation: "There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, richness, quietness and pleasure."

This version for flute and string quintet is derived from the arrangement I made for flute and string orchestra in 1983.

–John Corigliano