Duruflé Requiem

Christian texts once provided the inspiration for most of the great works of Western music. This changed radically after the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, as men increasingly thought of themselves as creative individuals, rather than simple servants of God. Correspondingly, major composers began to write religious music less frequently, perhaps also due to changes in the tastes of the audience and to a lack of religious patronage for composers. Composers, reflecting society, are now more likely to be residents of the secular, rather than the spiritual world; monks such as Josquin des Pres or composers writing “only for the glory of God” like J.S. Bach have become rare. The two major works on today’s program, Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem and Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, represent contrasting solutions to the problem of how to write religious music in an increasing secular world.

Britten: Rejoice in the Lamb (1943)

This cantata sets selections from a remarkable poem by Christopher Smart (1722-1771), a Cambridge poet and scholar whose life declined into alcoholism, insanity, and religious mania. While under near-constant restraints in an insane asylum in 1756-63, he wrote the lengthy poem Jubilate Agno (Rejoice in the Lamb), of which several fragments containing about 2,000 lines still exist. Smart expresses a quirky delight in his Lord, cataloging the wonders of dozens of different fish, gemstones, animals, flowers, etc. At his most coherent, he structures his poem symmetrically, composing paired, often amusingly related verses alternately beginning “Let...” and "For...":

Let Noah rejoice with Hibris
who is from a wild boar and a tame sow.
For I bless God
for the immortal soul of Mr. Pigg...

Let Philip rejoice with Boca,
which is a fish that can speak.
For the ENGLISH TONGUE
shall be the language of the WEST.

With its repeated “Lets” and “Fors,” much of the poem has the repetitive cadence of a responsive Hebrew chant. In some places, however, the poet’s mental decline is obvious, leading to haphazard cataloging and incoherent associations:

Let Humphreys, house of Humphreys rejoice with the Beardmanica a curious bird.

When reading the poem in its entirety, one senses a great, imprisoned creative intellect struggling to focus his religious and creative inspiration by writing one verse per day, just as a prisoner tallies each passing day on his cell wall.

Britten’s setting of these ecstatic and often delusional words maintains the delightful character of the poetry. The musical tone changes abruptly and often, with little attention given to transitions, perhaps depicting the chaotic mind of the schizophrenic. Moods swing between inward intensity and manic rhythmicity. The colorful solos in the central part are perhaps the most balanced and charming lines set in the piece, although even the tenor’s delight with flowers has a hallucinatory quality. In Rejoice in the Lamb, Britten finds a novel way to express religious ecstasy in the 20th century—through the eyes of a mad religious mystic.

Debussy: Three Songs of Charles d’Orleans (1898/1908)

While Claude Debussy’s song settings of contemporary French poets (Rimbaud, Verlaine) are well known, he also had an interest in earlier poets such as the medieval Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465). Charles was a participant in the Hundred Years War and a compatriot of Joan of Arc. His poems combine romantic passion of the knightly court with religious fervor. Some of his poems, including the ones heard on this program, exist in both old French and middle English versions, the latter composed while he was imprisoned in England during the war. Debussy’s settings contain beautiful examples of his characteristic impressionistic harmony and, in the last song, evocative tone painting. Perhaps aiming for an “old music” sound that reflects the text source, he also uses several devices characteristic of Medieval/Renaissance music such as organum (parallel fifths) and fauxbordon (parallel first inversion chords).

Barber: Reincarnations (1942)

Samuel Barber’s music was generally snubbed by critics in the 1940s and 50s. At a time when serialism was in vogue, his unabashedly romantic music seemed anachronistic. Now, however, with a Neo-Romantic revival in full swing, his music is being reexamined anew. These emotional and evocative songs have remained popular with choirs and audiences since their publication. Their fresh sound, economical and idiomatic text setting, and clean counterpoint belie their technical difficulty. The texts are by the Irish poet James Stephens (1882-1950), who incorporated Irish folklore and theosophy (a belief in the organic oneness of all things, including a belief in reincarnation) into his poems. Evidence of the poet’s philosophy can be seen in the first poem of the set, "Mary Hynes."

Duruflé: Requiem (1948)

While Britten chose to express religiosity filtered through the words of a schizophrenic poet, Maurice Duruflé returned to the past, when music of the Christian church was dominant. He was a slow, obsessive composer, constantly reworking his manuscripts, and in nearly 50 years of composing, he produced only 12 works. His Requiem is his major achievement, and reflects his lifelong interest with setting the plainchant of the Catholic ritual in a 20th-century harmonic guise. While many composers have used fragments of chant as a basis for their music, Duruflé goes well beyond this to base his entire Requiem, sometimes note for note, on the medieval Offices and Mass for the Dead. He thus returns to a model of writing masses abandoned since the early 1400s. Today’s performance emphasizes the central role of chant in this piece by beginning with two Gregorian plainchants: Psalm 50, sung as the body is borne to the church, followed by the introit "Requiem aeternam."

Duruflé’s Requiem shows close spiritual and structural ties to the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré, composed 50 years earlier. Both composers wrote a peaceful, ethereal farewell to the dead, mostly avoiding the moments of high drama that so inspired the versions of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi—note that the dramatic “Dies irae” movement, with its flames of hell and visions of the damned, is reduced to its short, plaintive “Pie Jesu” conclusion by both composers. Even at its dramatic peaks, Duruflé’s view of death rarely suggests the tortured uncertainty of other composers; instead, the piece seems designed to reassure the listener that eternal rest will indeed be granted and is only a step towards better things.

Today’s performance uses the organ version of the score (there are also versions for full orchestra and for organ and strings). This is not just an orchestral reduction, but a fully realized, highly virtuosic organ piece drawing on Duruflé’s extensive experience as an organist. He studied in the 1920s with the organ master Vierne and worked for most of his life as the organist at St. Etienne-du Mont in Paris. The organ version emphasizes the inward, reflective qualities of Duruflé’s vision of death, a vision emphasizing comfort over the struggle and torment so characteristic of Mozart’s and Verdi’s versions.