Program Notes: Duruflé and Noble
Maurice Durufle: Requiem
Clifton J. Noble, Jr.: A Song for St. Cecilia's Day
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986), organist at Saint-Étienne-du Mont, was renowned as a virtuoso organist. He was a fastidious composer, whose small but significant oeuvre has become firmly established in concert repertoire. Requiem was originally a commission for an organ mass, but upon the death of his father, Duruflé chose to complete it as a Requiem Mass. Although completed in 1947, only within the last two decades has the work begun to take its rightful place among the major choral masterworks.
Duruflé wrote in unpublished program notes for a 1980 concert... "This Requiem is composed entirely on the Gregorian themes of the Mass for the Dead. Sometimes the musical text has been respected in full, the orchestra intervening only to sustain or to comment on it; sometimes I was simply inspired by it or sometimes removed myself from it altogether... This Requiem is not an ethereal work which sings of detachment from earthly worries. It reflects, in the immutable form of the Christian prayer, the agony of man faced with the mystery of his ultimate end. It is often dramatic, or filled with resignation, or hope, or terror, just as the words of the Scripture themselves which are used in the liturgy. It tends to translate human feelings before their terrifying, unexplainable or consoling destiny. It represents the idea of peace, of Faith, and of Hope.
The subtle rhythms and fluid lines of Gregorian chant permeate the whole work, but they are personalized by the colors, harmonies, and rhythms of a deeply religious 20th-century musician. The work is conceived as a whole with very few moments of repose; there is always a sense of movement, of continuing for eternity. This is achieved through carefully structured layers of rhythms, through harmonic ambiguity caused by simultaneously mixing Gregorian modal rhythms with traditional major-minor tonality, and by nuances of color and harmony created by adding unresolved tones to primary chords. Like the requiems of Brahms and Fauré, Duruflé chose to adhere closely to the central themes of the requiem mass: peace, light, hope, and rest. Consequently, he omits all but the final verses of the dramatic and terrifying sequence Dies Irae and includes only the Pie Jesu. Although most of the Dies Irae is a stern call for repentance, the final verses, "Pie Jesu Domine," are a gentle prayer for eternal rest. Duruflé's setting evokes the awareness of the fallible human soul and has an earthly, humble attitude similar to that of the Sanctus.
He also adds two movements to the traditional Requiem Mass; Libera me, which is a responsory sung during the Burial Rite, and In Paradisum, which would be sung while the coffin is being carried to the grave after the Requiem Mass and after the Rite of Absolution, (Libera Me.) In Paradisum is a prayer of ascent into paradise, which is portrayed through the use of young voices and a tone cluster slowly built from the bass up in the opening three measures. The purity, peacefulness, and unending nature of the final chords are a masterful summary of this Requiem seeking peace and eternal rest. The unresolved tones eloquently depict the flight of the soul to paradise, the ultimate answer of Faith to all the questions.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day- Although St. Cecelia is said to have been martyred in the first half of the 3rd century, her association specifically with music started in the 16th century. When the Academy of Music was founded at Rome (1584) she was made patroness of the institute, whereupon her veneration as patroness of church music in general became still more universal; today Cecilian societies (musical associations) exist everywhere. With the performance of formal odes set to music, the feast-day of St. Cecilia (Nov. 22) commemorates the patron saint of music. During the Restoration and eighteenth century, these odes enlisted the services of the best musicians and poets, as well as the lesser. Dryden's Alexander's Feast (1697) and Song for St. Cecilia's Day are two poems written for St. Cecilia's Day. The theme conventionally combines a tribute to the power of music and a final tribute to the saint.
Clifton J. Noble, Jr. was born in 1961, and began to play piano and guitar under his father's guidance at age 5. Original compositions followed shortly, and the urge to write music of all kinds has never left him. Noble earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree, Magna Cum Laude, from Amherst College in 1983 and a Master of Arts Degree from Smith College in 1988.
Noble is currently staff accompanist at Smith College in Northhampton, MA and Smith choral forces have performed his compositions and arrangements throughout the United States and Europe. His works have also been performed by the Mt. Holyoke and Radcliffe Choral Societies and University of MA Choral Societies, the Williams College Chorus, the Assabet Valley Mastersingers, the Needham Children's Chorus, and by ensembles at the University of Michigan and Indiana University. His instrumental works have been performed by the Boston Chamber Music Society, the Longmeadow Chamber Music Society, the Holyoke Civic Symphony Orchestra, the Florentine Camerata and flutist Carol Wincenc. His music is published by Warner Chappell, Treble Clef Music Press, and Artisttec, Inc..
Noble resides in Westfield, MA with wife Kara and daughter Samantha. He writes classical music reviews and features for the Springfield, MA Union News and Sunday Republican newspapers.
An active jazz pianist, Noble has recorded two CDs with clarinetist Bob Sparkman, "Good Talks" and "Still Talkin'." "Vermont Songbook," by the Richard Mayer Quartet, records Noble and Sparkman's fruitful musical conversations with drummer Richard Mayer and bassist Genevieve Rose. A newduo CD, "Chattin' With Fats," is planned for the fall of 2002.
NOTES FROM THE COMPOSER- written for the Premier performance in May 1998.
"Conductor Robert Eaton issued an interesting challenge when he commissioned a celebratory piece scored for the rather dark, solemn ensemble that Mozart chose to set his Requiem. Thank heaven the clarinet had been invented (though Mozart employed its ancestor the bassett horn in the Requiem), for with neither flutes nor oboes to gild the heights of the woodwind sonority and three trombones adding their weight to the bassoons end of the spectrum, the composer is left with a very singular orchestral sonority with which to work.
The text that immediately came to mind was John Dryden's "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day," with its magical closing image of music "untuning" the sky. For me, the poem is unparalleled in its cosmic praise of music, and begs to be set more than once in a composer's life. This first time, I resolved to present "heavenly harmony" in relatively conventional diatonic dress. In the manner of the Baroque suites that began to appear in the world of Dryden's late years (though without pause) the interior scenes of the poem are cast as individual dances. The final stanza's "Grand Chorus" coalesces into just that, and not accidentally, incorporates the work's only unaccompanied singing.
The piece is, at least consciously, reference-free, except in one obvious place -- where Dryden invokes "that last and dreadful hour" when "the trumpet shall be heard on high." Few composers have captured the fearsome majesty of that hour better than Giuseppe Verdi, so my hat is tipped to his massive contribution to the Requiem repertoire."
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day
by John Dryden (1639-1701)
From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began:
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
'Arise, ye more than dead!'
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries 'Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!'
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion
For the fair disdainful dame.
But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees unrooted left their place
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher;
When to her Organ vocal breath was given
An Angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking Earth for Heaven.
Grand Chorus
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.