AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS ON MDSC'S 2005 PROGRAM
by David Schildkret
| Text © 2008 David Schildkret.
If this content is used to prepare a concert program or
other published/presented work
please credit David Schildkret, ASU School of Music, and Music Director,
Mount Desert Summer Chorale (also include the URL of this web page).
|
GABRIEL FAURÉ’S REQUIEM, among the most beloved compositions of the late nineteenth century,
is the product of a complex genesis that was not widely known until John Rutter published his edition
of the work in 1984. The Requiem has become familiar in a form that may be said to have evolved over
a period of some 33 years. The earliest movements date from 1877, shortly after Fauré took over
leadership of the choir at the Madeleine, a church in Paris famous for its music (Saint-Saëns was
organist there shortly before Fauré became choirmaster). In that year, Fauré made settings of
the Introit and Kyrie, Pie Jesu, possibly Libera me, and In paradisum, which belongs not to the Mass
for the Dead, as the other pieces do, but to the Burial Service. With the exception of the Libera me,
which was for baritone solo and organ, each of the pieces called for chorus and orchestra of strings
(without violins) and organ. The Pie Jesu and In paradisum also call for harp; sometime later,
Fauré added parts for horns, trumpets, and timpani to some of these movements.
A second stage of the composition was in 1888, when Fauré composed the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei,
again with strings, organ, and harp. In 1893, he added the Offertory and an orchestrated version of
the Libera me. At this stage, the Requiem included all of the texts that Fauré would set for this
type of Mass. The fourth and final stage of the process was the creation of a larger-scale orchestration
for the seven movements that Fauré had created by 1893, and it is possible that Fauré himself did
not even carry out the task of adding more woodwind and brass parts to the small orchestration that he
typically used at the Madeleine. It is in the larger-scale version that the work has become familiar
and a staple of the concert stage.
Yet it is worth hearing Fauré’s Requiem in the intimate form that he first conceived its various
sections. Our performance this evening uses John Rutter’s reconstruction of the early score played
by the minimal forces called for: a small string section made up of violas, cellos, and double bass,
a harp, organ, and occasional colorations by the horns and a solo violin. In this version, it is
possible to use a smaller chorus, such as the one that Fauré would have conducted at the Madeleine,
and the piece takes on a personal character that can be obscured in larger-scale performances.
All the versions of the Fauré Requiem share the unusual string section that makes virtually no use of
the violin—although the exquisite violin solos in the Sanctus and In paradisum are notable and sublime
exceptions. The inspiration for this unique orchestration is unclear: Rutter suggests that Fauré may
have been thinking of the opening of Brahms’s German Requiem, but notes that Brahms’s work was
little-known in France in the 1870s. The more likely inspiration for both Brahms and Fauré is
Cherubini’s C Minor Requiem, written in 1816 and first performed in January of 1817 at the church of
St. Denis in Paris to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. This work omits violins in
the first movement, and it is likely that Brahms, who admired Cherubini’s music enormously, took the idea
of using only violas, cellos, and basses in the first movement from this source; Fauré may have been
thinking of the same model when he chose to limit the appearance of the violin to a solo in two of the movements.
Though he clearly rethought the work several times, Fauré actively avoided setting the text that is often
the centerpiece of such compositions, the vivid evocation of the Day of Judgment in the Dies irae. There
is a brief reference to the text imbedded in the Libera me, which the liturgy demands, but there is no
separate setting of it. Composers had often responded to the lurid imagery of the text with highly dramatic
effects. Most notably—and most repugnantly, in Fauré’s view—Berlioz had surrounded the church with
four brass bands and batteries of kettledrums to portray the sounding of the Last Judgment. Fauré, who
wrote that he set the Requiem texts not for a specific occasion, but “for the pleasure of it,” deliberately
avoided such theatrics, preferring instead to focus on comfort and consolation. The result is a work of
magnificent simplicity and elegance, qualities that shine forth even more abundantly in the chamber
version we perform this evening.
* * *
ROUNDING OUT this evening’s program are several other works from the French tradition, including two
other Fauré compositions. The Cantique de Jean Racine, written in 1865, already shows Fauré’s
ability to craft beautiful melodies that lie gratefully in the voice—qualities he would exploit to
even more felicitous ends in the Requiem. The Ave verum corpus is one of several works Fauré composed
for treble voices and organ; it too displays the sense of melody and harmony that distinguish Fauré’s
compositional style. It belongs to 1894, just after Fauré composed the final movements of the Requiem.
Fauré is further represented by three of his best-loved songs.
Maurice Duruflé, noted organist and occasional composer, was a great admirer of the work of Fauré.
Duruflé’s Requiem follows the model of Fauré’s in omitting the Dies irae. Ubi caritas, one
of four motets by Duruflé on Gregorian melodies, reflects his lifelong interest in using chant as the
basis for his music. Camille Saint-Saëns preceded Fauré at the Madeleine and, along with César
Franck (organist at Ste. Clothilde for most of his life), was one of the grand composers of
mid-nineteenth-century France. Both Saint-Saëns and Franck’s music show the influence of the
Germanic style of Meyerbeer and Wagner to a much greater extent than does the music of the younger
Fauré and Duruflé. Saint-Saëns’s setting of Ave verum corpus was composed in 1865,
the same year that Fauré wrote his Cantique de Jean Racine. Franck’s Psalm 150 comes from 1883.
To begin, our concert recognizes the overarching impact of the organ on the French musical scene with
two movements from Boëllmann’s grand Suite gothique. Boëllmann, born in Alsace, was educated
in Paris and became organist at the church of St. Vincent-de-Paul there in 1881. He died at the age of
35, leaving a small catalogue of vocal and instrumental works, of which this suite for the organ is
the best known.
—David Schildkret
|
