The life and career of Luigi Cherubini are closely intertwined with the French Revolution and its aftermath: an Italian by birth, he spent most of his adult life in Paris. The son of a professional musician, Cherubini began his musical studies with his father. By age 13 he had composed several religious works; at 20 he was awarded a scholarship to study in Bologna and Milan. Four years later, he went to London to free himself of what he considered the limitations and excesses of the Italian musical style. From London he traveled to Paris where he was presented to Marie Antoinette and where he received a commission to write an opera. He moved to France in 1786, the same year the royal finances were declared insolvent. The success of his opera earned him an appointment as the director of the Théâtre de Monsieur in the Tuileries in 1789 under the patronage of the king’s brother, the future Louis XVIII. On January 21, 1793 Louis XVI was executed.
     Despite his royalist connections, Cherubini remained in Paris throughout most of the Revolution and his operas enjoyed relative success. Music during the Revolution was a mobilizing force with clear political objectives. Opera was viewed as a royalist vestige unless it conveyed a heroism consistent with revolutionary ideals. Cherubini’s music was sufficiently “heroic” to allow him to remain active. (Ironically, the composer of La Marseillaise was arrested for his royalist ties and narrowly escaped the guillotine.) In 1794 Cherubini joined the staff of the National Institute of Music (which became the Conservatoire), a government appointment he kept for the rest of his life.
     The rise of Napoleon marked a downturn in Cherubini’s career: Napoleon disliked Cherubini’s music and Cherubini disliked Napoleon. During a visit to Vienna in 1805 Cherubini met Beethoven, who considered him one of the greatest dramatic composers of the time. Cherubini considered Beethoven “brusque.” By 1807, Cherubini had essentially stopped writing. Aside from his duties at the Conservatoire, he occupied himself with painting and the study of botany. Then, in 1809, he produced his first sacred work since his early years; others followed.
     In 1815, Napoleon was exiled and the Bourbons returned to power. Cherubini’s former patron was now Louis XVIII. The bodies of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were located and brought, with great pomp, to the royal crypt at the Abbey St. Denis on the anniversary of Louis’ execution; Cherubini was commissioned to write a requiem mass. Two years later, on January 21, 1817, Cherubini’s Requiem in C minor was performed at a memorial service in the crypt.
     In the previous half century, Requiems had become as much a concert genre as a liturgical one. Perhaps in reaction to this trend and to his past as an opera composer, Cherubini scored his Requiem entirely for chorus. The texture and color normally assigned to the vocal soloists were taken up by the orchestra—from the first startling stroke of the tam tam at the beginning of the “Dies irae” to the word painting and solo-quality vocal lines and the increasingly hushed plea for eternal peace at the end. Despite its royal purpose, the work conveys an equality among the performers as well as the “heroic” spirit that allowed Cherubini to continue producing his operas during the Revolution.
     It was an overwhelming success. Beethoven stated that “If I were to write a Requiem, Cherubini’s would be my only model” and requested that it be performed at his funeral. Schuman felt it was “without equal in the world.” Berlioz observed that “the decrescendo in the ‘Agnus Dei’ surpasses everything that has ever been written of the kind.” He also noted that the work had a “monopoly” on memorial services in France. The only substantial criticism came from the Archbishop of Paris who in 1834 objected to Cherubini’s use of female voices. In response, he wrote the Requiem in D minor for orchestra and male chorus and instructed that it be played at his funeral. To the end, Cherubini showed a canny ability to persevere in the face of political pressure!
     The remainder of tonight’s program shifts from revolutionary France to twentieth-century England. Although a generation apart in age, both Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten have each been called the greatest English composer since Purcell.
     The younger of the two, Britten began composing as a child; while still a teenager, his work began to attract critical attention. In 1934 he composed A Boy is Born for the BBC Singers and the Te Deum in C, dedicated to the choir of St. Mark's Church, London and its organist and choir director Maurice Vinden. An ancient hymn of praise, the Te Deum is a matins prayer; in accordance with Anglican practice and The Book of Common Prayer, Britten’s composition uses the Tudor English text. The music is nuanced to use the drama of the words to its fullest advantage. Thus, the first part, in praise of God, is stately and somewhat formal. The second, in praise of Christ, features an intimate treble solo echoed by the chorus and gently flows into the third part, a prayer for mercy that fades away with a plea for salvation. Throughout, rapidly shifting juxtapositions of rhythm, harmony, and dynamics, imitation and repetition, characterization and texture all draw the listener into a simultaneously solid, ethereal, and uniquely Britten tapestry of sound. Originally scored for organ, Britten prepared an orchestral version the following year.
     Three weeks after completing the original version of the Te Deum, Britten began a companion Jubilate Deo, also dedicated to the St. Mark’s choir. He never completed it. When, in 1961, Prince Philip asked Britten to write something for St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, he returned to his early plan to compose a companion Jubilate for the Te Deum in C. It was the only piece he composed for the chapel.
     Tonight marks the New York State premiere of the orchestral version of Britten’s Te Deum in C, the second Britten premiere for the Society. In 1978, in celebration of Britten’s life and work, the Society presented the U.S. premiere of Phaedra.
     Among Britten’s professors at the Royal College of Music was Ralph Vaughan Williams. He did not approve of his student’s “technical virtuosity for its own sake,” which was in contrast to the apparent simplicity and clarity of his own music. England’s folk music heritage was an important early influence for Vaughan Williams. But it was by no means the only one. As one critic observed about his work, "one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new."
     Five Mystical Songs is an early work. Vaughan Williams began it in 1906 and completed it in 1911. Like much of his vocal music, it draws its text from English literature, in this case, four poems by the metaphysical poet, hymnist, and country priest George Herbert (1593–1633). Tradition holds that Herbert, from his deathbed, gave the manuscript of The Temple to a friend with instructions that it be published if he thought the poems might “turn to the advantage of any poor, dejected soul.” Although the first and last songs are clearly religious, the middle songs, on first glance, may concern earthly love. To Herbert, however, God and love were one and the same and Vaughan Williams, whose wife described him as "an atheist . . . [who] later drifted into a cheerful agnosticism" composed to this ambiguity. Thus, the tender love song, “I Got Me Flowers” is actually part of the poem “Easter.”
     Vaughan Williams’ songs enjoy a variety of treatments. “Easter” is scored for baritone and chorus. “I Got Me Flowers” features a baritone and a wordless commentary by the chorus. In “Love Bade Me Welcome” the baritone is again answered wordlessly by the chorus, this time with the ancient plainchant “O sacrum convivium” (O sacred banquet). “The Call” is sung by the baritone alone and “Antiphon,” a triumphant hymn of praise, features just the chorus. Together, they showcase Vaughan Williams’ genius for using the human voice in all its splendid diversity. (Flos Campi, which the Oratorio Society will perform next spring, uses the vocal line as an orchestral instrument.)
     Five Mystical Songs premiered on September 4, 1911 at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester with Vaughan Williams conducting. Nearly a century later, it is still as fresh and mystical.
Marie Gangemi