Program Notes
Requiem by Duruflé
May 11, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
Christ United Methodist Church, Plano Texas
Songs of Faith by Paul Basler (b. 1963)
Sarah Wilkinson, horn
Jacob Chapman, percussion
Brady Garrison, percussion
Terry Metzger, piano
Songs of Faith explores and celebrates the American Spirit. Written in the Fall of 1998, as a “sequel” to Basler’s Missa Kenya. Each of the five movements was written for a different conductor and choral ensemble. The work is in arch form, with a hymn tune setting surrounded by two Psalms and two Latin texts: Psalm 150, Ubi Caritas, Be Thou My Vision, Alleluia, and finally, Psalm 23. Cross references between the movements abound, whether harmonic, melodic or gestural. The piano and horn play very important roles in the work, serving as equal counterparts to the choral ensemble. Songs of Faith is dedicated to Bernie Fisher, in heartfelt gratitude for immense contributions he has made over the years of the choral world. Paul Basler
Paul Basler (b. 1963) is Professor of Music at the University of Florida where he teaches composition and horn. In the 1993 he was a Fulbright Senior Lecture in Music at Kenyatta University (Nairobi, Kenya). One of the most performed composers of his generation, his music has been received with enthusiastic acclaim throughout the world, the New York Times describing his music as “virtuosic and highly athletic.” Dr. Basler’s compositions have received performances at Carnegie Hall, the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod Center in Wales, the Kennedy Center, the National Theaters of Dominican Republic in Kenya, Lincoln Center, the Sydney Opera House, the Aspen Music Festival, the Czech Republic by the Moravian Philharmonic and in China by the Shanghai Philharmonic.
Requiem by Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Katie Scheetz, organ
Nini Rubiano, cello
Maxwell Owen, baritone
Eugenio Fabela, baritone
Clorese Porter, mezzo-soprano
John Rutledge, tenor
Terry Metzger, rehearsal pianist
Maurice Duruflé completed his Requiem in 1947, although he had accepted a commission for this work in 1941 by the collaborationist Vichy Regime in France. Eventually, per his self-criticism, he wrote three versions of the score. He also flexed in the movements selected for his Requiem mass, leaving out the Gradual (Requiem aeternam), Tract (Absolve, Domine), and the Sequence (Dies irae) adding a Pie Jesu, Libera me, and In Paradisum.
Although this is a twentieth century work, the composer based much of the material on Gregorian chant and the Gregorian Mass for the Dead. Duruflé had been in a choir school for Cathedral training between the ages of 10–16 and was strongly influenced for the rest of his life by plainsong traditions and modal harmonies. Duruflé uses the chant melodies in much the same manner medieval composers would use them to unify a mass setting as a Plainsong Cantus Firmus Mass. In a Plainsong Cantus Firmus style mass the composer uses the chant melody from each section of the Gregorian Mass as melodic material for the corresponding section of the polyphonic setting of the mass. The composer explained in his program notes:
Sarah Wilkinson, horn
Jacob Chapman, percussion
Brady Garrison, percussion
Terry Metzger, piano
Songs of Faith explores and celebrates the American Spirit. Written in the Fall of 1998, as a “sequel” to Basler’s Missa Kenya. Each of the five movements was written for a different conductor and choral ensemble. The work is in arch form, with a hymn tune setting surrounded by two Psalms and two Latin texts: Psalm 150, Ubi Caritas, Be Thou My Vision, Alleluia, and finally, Psalm 23. Cross references between the movements abound, whether harmonic, melodic or gestural. The piano and horn play very important roles in the work, serving as equal counterparts to the choral ensemble. Songs of Faith is dedicated to Bernie Fisher, in heartfelt gratitude for immense contributions he has made over the years of the choral world. Paul Basler
Paul Basler (b. 1963) is Professor of Music at the University of Florida where he teaches composition and horn. In the 1993 he was a Fulbright Senior Lecture in Music at Kenyatta University (Nairobi, Kenya). One of the most performed composers of his generation, his music has been received with enthusiastic acclaim throughout the world, the New York Times describing his music as “virtuosic and highly athletic.” Dr. Basler’s compositions have received performances at Carnegie Hall, the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod Center in Wales, the Kennedy Center, the National Theaters of Dominican Republic in Kenya, Lincoln Center, the Sydney Opera House, the Aspen Music Festival, the Czech Republic by the Moravian Philharmonic and in China by the Shanghai Philharmonic.
Requiem by Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Katie Scheetz, organ
Nini Rubiano, cello
Maxwell Owen, baritone
Eugenio Fabela, baritone
Clorese Porter, mezzo-soprano
John Rutledge, tenor
Terry Metzger, rehearsal pianist
Maurice Duruflé completed his Requiem in 1947, although he had accepted a commission for this work in 1941 by the collaborationist Vichy Regime in France. Eventually, per his self-criticism, he wrote three versions of the score. He also flexed in the movements selected for his Requiem mass, leaving out the Gradual (Requiem aeternam), Tract (Absolve, Domine), and the Sequence (Dies irae) adding a Pie Jesu, Libera me, and In Paradisum.
Although this is a twentieth century work, the composer based much of the material on Gregorian chant and the Gregorian Mass for the Dead. Duruflé had been in a choir school for Cathedral training between the ages of 10–16 and was strongly influenced for the rest of his life by plainsong traditions and modal harmonies. Duruflé uses the chant melodies in much the same manner medieval composers would use them to unify a mass setting as a Plainsong Cantus Firmus Mass. In a Plainsong Cantus Firmus style mass the composer uses the chant melody from each section of the Gregorian Mass as melodic material for the corresponding section of the polyphonic setting of the mass. The composer explained in his program notes:
This Requiem is entirely composed on the Gregorian themes of the Mass for the Dead. Sometimes the musical text was completely respected, the orchestral part intervening only to support or comment on it; sometimes I was simply inspired by it or left it completely. In general, I have sought above all to enter into the characteristic style of the Gregorian themes.” Characteristics of Gregorian style include holiness, lyricism, free flowing meter (hence many of the metric changes found in the Requiem) and serenity. “The strong beats had to lose their dominant character in order to take on the same intensity as the weak beats in such a way that the rhythmic Gregorian accent or the tonic Latin accent could be placed freely on any beat of our modern tempo.” |
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. “Requiem Maurice Duruflé.” Accessed May 7, 20214.
https://www.indianapolissymphony.org/backstage/program-notes/durufle-requiem/.
https://www.indianapolissymphony.org/backstage/program-notes/durufle-requiem/.
Maurice Duruflé (1902–1986) was born in Louviers, France. Between 1910 and 1918 he attended Rouen Cathedral Choir School. Rouen produced Marcel Dupré (1886–1971) and is also the home of the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ at St Ouen installed by the builder between 1888 and 1890. Duruflé could hardly have failed to have been influenced by that instrument and those who played it; his attraction to the organ and his love of Gregorian chant were established when the composer was a chorister. In 1919 he moved to Paris in order to study the organ with Charles Tournemire, whose deputy he later became at Ste Clothilde, and Louis Vierne, who was then organist at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. That study was in preparation for his admission to the Paris Conservatoire, which he entered in the following year, where he studied organ with Eugène Gigout, who was by then in his seventy-sixth year. There is no doubt that his exposure to the genius of both Tournemire and Vierne in their respective organ lofts had a formative influence; Duruflé was to retain his admiration for these two masters for the rest of his life.
Duruflé gained the premier prix in organ in 1922 and went on to win premiers prix in harmony in 1924 (Jean Gallon's class), fugue in the same year (Caussade's class), accompaniment in 1926 (Estyle's class) and composition in 1928. Duruflé's composition teacher was Paul Dukas who, like Tournemire and Vierne, was to exert a lifelong influence over Duruflé's creative output.
In 1930 Maurice Duruflé was appointed organist of St Étienne-du-Mont, a post he shared with his wife Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier from 1953 and one which he was to hold until 1975, when he suffered a bad car accident which was to prevent him from composing for the rest of his life. In the same year, 1930, Duruflé won the first prize offered by 'Les Amis de l'Orgue' for his Prélude, Adagio et Choral varié sur le thème du "Veni Creator", Op 4, having won the first prizes offered by the same society for organ performance and improvisation; the score is inscribed 'in affectionate homage to my master Louis Vierne.' In this work some of the characteristics of Duruflé's music are manifest. The work is strongly influenced not only by the Gregorian plainsong theme which is heard at the outset of the work, but also by the shapes of the plainsong phrases; the composer had a fascination with plainsong which is best described by Duruflé himself, but here in connection with what is perhaps his best-known work, the Requiem of 1947:
Duruflé gained the premier prix in organ in 1922 and went on to win premiers prix in harmony in 1924 (Jean Gallon's class), fugue in the same year (Caussade's class), accompaniment in 1926 (Estyle's class) and composition in 1928. Duruflé's composition teacher was Paul Dukas who, like Tournemire and Vierne, was to exert a lifelong influence over Duruflé's creative output.
In 1930 Maurice Duruflé was appointed organist of St Étienne-du-Mont, a post he shared with his wife Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier from 1953 and one which he was to hold until 1975, when he suffered a bad car accident which was to prevent him from composing for the rest of his life. In the same year, 1930, Duruflé won the first prize offered by 'Les Amis de l'Orgue' for his Prélude, Adagio et Choral varié sur le thème du "Veni Creator", Op 4, having won the first prizes offered by the same society for organ performance and improvisation; the score is inscribed 'in affectionate homage to my master Louis Vierne.' In this work some of the characteristics of Duruflé's music are manifest. The work is strongly influenced not only by the Gregorian plainsong theme which is heard at the outset of the work, but also by the shapes of the plainsong phrases; the composer had a fascination with plainsong which is best described by Duruflé himself, but here in connection with what is perhaps his best-known work, the Requiem of 1947:
As a general rule, I have above all tried to feel deeply the particular style of the Gregorian themes: and I have done my best to reconcile as far as possible the Gregorian rhythmic patterns, as fixed by the Benedictines of Solesmes, with the demands of the modern bar-structure. |
Duruflé shared with Fauré (sometimes called ‘le grégorianisant voluptueux’ — the voluptuous gregorianist) a love of the shapes and colour of plainsong.
In 1936 Duruflé won the Blumenthal Foundation Prize for his Trois Danses for orchestra, Op 6, and he was further honoured by the Department of the Seine who awarded him their Grand Prix Musical in 1956. In 1961 he received the Vatican citation of Commander in the Order of St Gregory for the contribution he had made to sacred music. In addition to publishing articles on church music, and his post as Titulaire at St Étienne-du-Mont, Duruflé had deputized for Louis Vierne between 1929 and 1931 at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. He also deputized for Marcel Dupré’s class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1942 where, in the following year, he was appointed professor of harmony, a post he held until 1969.
M and Mme Duruflé were almost killed in May 1975 in a car accident near Valence, whilst driving home. A car hit them head-on and both suffered extensive injuries. Mme Duruflé regained her phenomenal powers as a keyboard executant, although M Duruflé was only partially to recover and the accident sadly ended his professional career. On June 16, 1986, Maurice Duruflé died at the age of eighty-four, having been in the hospital for several months. As a tribute to his life and work, the composer's Requiem, Op 9, was performed at a memorial service on October 11th in the same year.
As a performer, Duruflé toured extensively, visiting North Africa, Russia and North America, writing about his experiences in an article entitled 'USA—USSR,' which was published in the French journal L'orgue. He also championed the music of his teachers, publishing Trois Improvisations by Louis Vierne in 1954 and Cinq Improvisations by Tournemire in 1958, having reconstructed the works from gramophone recordings made in the 1930s. Amongst his own recordings is a performance of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, a work of which he had given the premiere of in 1938, having advised the composer on the details of the organ part. Duruflé made a number of other recordings, including several in America, as well as recordings of his own music with his wife in Soissons Cathedral and at St Étienne-du-Mont in Paris.
Composition was a difficult task for Duruflé and his music was constantly revised. Even after a substantial length of time had elapsed subsequent to the composition of a work, Duruflé seems to have been unable to resist a critical reappraisal of his work. There can be few composers who have devoted so much of their life to such a small number of compositions. By the same virtue there can be few composers who have produced such high-quality workmanship in their creative output, and whose complete work contains so much interest and variety.
In 1936 Duruflé won the Blumenthal Foundation Prize for his Trois Danses for orchestra, Op 6, and he was further honoured by the Department of the Seine who awarded him their Grand Prix Musical in 1956. In 1961 he received the Vatican citation of Commander in the Order of St Gregory for the contribution he had made to sacred music. In addition to publishing articles on church music, and his post as Titulaire at St Étienne-du-Mont, Duruflé had deputized for Louis Vierne between 1929 and 1931 at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. He also deputized for Marcel Dupré’s class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1942 where, in the following year, he was appointed professor of harmony, a post he held until 1969.
M and Mme Duruflé were almost killed in May 1975 in a car accident near Valence, whilst driving home. A car hit them head-on and both suffered extensive injuries. Mme Duruflé regained her phenomenal powers as a keyboard executant, although M Duruflé was only partially to recover and the accident sadly ended his professional career. On June 16, 1986, Maurice Duruflé died at the age of eighty-four, having been in the hospital for several months. As a tribute to his life and work, the composer's Requiem, Op 9, was performed at a memorial service on October 11th in the same year.
As a performer, Duruflé toured extensively, visiting North Africa, Russia and North America, writing about his experiences in an article entitled 'USA—USSR,' which was published in the French journal L'orgue. He also championed the music of his teachers, publishing Trois Improvisations by Louis Vierne in 1954 and Cinq Improvisations by Tournemire in 1958, having reconstructed the works from gramophone recordings made in the 1930s. Amongst his own recordings is a performance of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, a work of which he had given the premiere of in 1938, having advised the composer on the details of the organ part. Duruflé made a number of other recordings, including several in America, as well as recordings of his own music with his wife in Soissons Cathedral and at St Étienne-du-Mont in Paris.
Composition was a difficult task for Duruflé and his music was constantly revised. Even after a substantial length of time had elapsed subsequent to the composition of a work, Duruflé seems to have been unable to resist a critical reappraisal of his work. There can be few composers who have devoted so much of their life to such a small number of compositions. By the same virtue there can be few composers who have produced such high-quality workmanship in their creative output, and whose complete work contains so much interest and variety.
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. “Durufle, Maurice.” Accessed May 7, 20214.
https://www.aso.org/artists/detail/maurice-durufle.
https://www.aso.org/artists/detail/maurice-durufle.
Translation
Introit- Chorus
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
A hymn to you is fitting, O God in Zion,
and a vow made to you
in Jerusalem;
hear my prayer,
all flesh comes to you.
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
Kyrie- Chorus
Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy,
Lord have mercy.
Domine Jesu Christe- Chorus and Baritone
Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,
free the souls of all the faithful
departed from the punishments of hell
and from the deep abyss.
Deliver them from the lion’s mouth
so that Tartarus does not swallow them,
and that they do not fall into darkness.
But holy Michael,
describes them
as being in the holy light,
which long ago to Abraham
and his offspring you promised.
Offerings and prayers to you, Lord,
praise we offer.
Hear them for the sake of those souls
which today
we remember,
grant, Lord,
that they may pass from death to life,
which long ago to Abraham
and his offspring you promised.
Sanctus- Chorus
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Heaven and earth
are full of your glory,
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord,
Hosanna in the highest.
Pie Jesu- Mezzo soprano and cello
Gracious Lord Jesus,
grant them eternal rest.
Agnus Dei- Chorus
Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world,
grant them eternal rest.
Lux Aeterna- Chorus
May eternal light shine on them, Lord,
with your saints forever,
because you are gracious.
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
Libera me- Chorus and Baritone
Deliver me, Lord,
from eternal death
on that tremendous day
when the heavens
and the earth are disturbed,
when you will come to judge
the world through fire.
I am forced to tremble and I fear,
when the destruction comes
and the impending wrath,
when the heavens
and the earth are disturbed.
That day, the day of wrath,
of calamity, of misery,
day immense
and most bitter.
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
In Paradisum- Chorus
Into Paradise
may the angels lead you,
may the martyrs welcome you in your coming
and guide you into the holy city
Jerusalem.
A chorus of angels will greet you,
and with Lazarus, once a beggar,
may you have eternal rest.
Introit- Chorus
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
A hymn to you is fitting, O God in Zion,
and a vow made to you
in Jerusalem;
hear my prayer,
all flesh comes to you.
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
Kyrie- Chorus
Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy,
Lord have mercy.
Domine Jesu Christe- Chorus and Baritone
Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,
free the souls of all the faithful
departed from the punishments of hell
and from the deep abyss.
Deliver them from the lion’s mouth
so that Tartarus does not swallow them,
and that they do not fall into darkness.
But holy Michael,
describes them
as being in the holy light,
which long ago to Abraham
and his offspring you promised.
Offerings and prayers to you, Lord,
praise we offer.
Hear them for the sake of those souls
which today
we remember,
grant, Lord,
that they may pass from death to life,
which long ago to Abraham
and his offspring you promised.
Sanctus- Chorus
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Heaven and earth
are full of your glory,
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord,
Hosanna in the highest.
Pie Jesu- Mezzo soprano and cello
Gracious Lord Jesus,
grant them eternal rest.
Agnus Dei- Chorus
Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world,
grant them eternal rest.
Lux Aeterna- Chorus
May eternal light shine on them, Lord,
with your saints forever,
because you are gracious.
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
Libera me- Chorus and Baritone
Deliver me, Lord,
from eternal death
on that tremendous day
when the heavens
and the earth are disturbed,
when you will come to judge
the world through fire.
I am forced to tremble and I fear,
when the destruction comes
and the impending wrath,
when the heavens
and the earth are disturbed.
That day, the day of wrath,
of calamity, of misery,
day immense
and most bitter.
Eternal rest
grant them, O Lord,
and let eternal light shine upon them.
In Paradisum- Chorus
Into Paradise
may the angels lead you,
may the martyrs welcome you in your coming
and guide you into the holy city
Jerusalem.
A chorus of angels will greet you,
and with Lazarus, once a beggar,
may you have eternal rest.