Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword, by Jesse Eschbach
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- A Note to the Reader on Terminology
- Introduction
- Chapter One Duruflé's Childhood and Early Education
- Chapter Two Life at the Cathedral Choir School
- Chapter Three Lessons with Charles Tournemire
- Chapter Four Lessons with Louis Vierne
- Chapter Five The Conservatoire Student
- Chapter Six Duruflé's Distinctions
- Chapter Seven The Contested Successions at Notre-Dame and Sainte Clotilde
- Chapter Eight Duruflé's Performing Career
- Chapter Nine The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Ten The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Eleven Professor of Harmony at the Paris Conservatoire
- Chapter Twelve Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Thirteen Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Fourteen Duruflé's Compositions: Their Genesis and First Performances
- Chapter Fifteen Duruflé's Role in the Plainsong Revival
- Chapter Sixteen The Vichy Commissions
- Chapter Seventeen The Requiem
- Chapter Eighteen The Musical History of Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Nineteen The Organs at Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Twenty Duruflé as Organist and Teacher
- Chapter Twenty-One Duruflé and Organ Design
- Chapter Twenty-Two The Church in Transition
- Chapter Twenty-Three The North American Tours
- Chapter Twenty-Four The Man Duruflé
- Appendix A Maurice Duruflé
- Appendix B Discography
- Appendix C Stoplists of Organs Important to the Careers of Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Chapter Seventeen - The Requiem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword, by Jesse Eschbach
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- A Note to the Reader on Terminology
- Introduction
- Chapter One Duruflé's Childhood and Early Education
- Chapter Two Life at the Cathedral Choir School
- Chapter Three Lessons with Charles Tournemire
- Chapter Four Lessons with Louis Vierne
- Chapter Five The Conservatoire Student
- Chapter Six Duruflé's Distinctions
- Chapter Seven The Contested Successions at Notre-Dame and Sainte Clotilde
- Chapter Eight Duruflé's Performing Career
- Chapter Nine The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Ten The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Eleven Professor of Harmony at the Paris Conservatoire
- Chapter Twelve Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Thirteen Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Fourteen Duruflé's Compositions: Their Genesis and First Performances
- Chapter Fifteen Duruflé's Role in the Plainsong Revival
- Chapter Sixteen The Vichy Commissions
- Chapter Seventeen The Requiem
- Chapter Eighteen The Musical History of Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Nineteen The Organs at Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Twenty Duruflé as Organist and Teacher
- Chapter Twenty-One Duruflé and Organ Design
- Chapter Twenty-Two The Church in Transition
- Chapter Twenty-Three The North American Tours
- Chapter Twenty-Four The Man Duruflé
- Appendix A Maurice Duruflé
- Appendix B Discography
- Appendix C Stoplists of Organs Important to the Careers of Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Duruflé's greatest composition, the Requiem, Op. 9, completed in September 1947, enjoys a reputation as one of the undisputed masterpieces of the twentiethcentury choral repertoire. The single piece most responsible for establishing his fame worldwide, it continues to enjoy frequent performances in the West and the East alike. Reviewers have described it as softly luminous, sumptuous, suffused with a tender radiance, of a noble and restrained eloquence and a sweet and serene light, a work of scrupulous craft and exquisite sensibility, having beautiful unity and real grandeur.
For a long time Duruflé had been seduced by the beauty of the Gregorian chants from the Mass for the Dead. He said:
At first I formed the project of writing a Suite for organ on these themes, each of whose sections would have been able to be adapted to the different phrases of the liturgical office. After I had finished two of them (the Sanctus and the Communion), it seemed to me that it was difficult to separate the Latin words from the Gregorian text to which they are so intimately connected. It was thus that the Suite for organ was transformed into something that was more important and that called naturally for choirs and orchestra. This is how I came to write this work.
Composition
Duruflé composed the piece during the day on the Elke upright piano at his mother's home in Louviers, and in the evening would refine his work on the organ in the church.
Duruflé has been credited as the first to compose a requiem based upon the chants of the Gregorian Missa pro defunctis, but he was, in fact, not the first. In his nine-movement Missa pro defunctis for six voices (SSATTB), the Renaissance composer Tomas Luis da Vittoria incorporated the Gregorian cantus verbatim, assigning it to the second soprano part throughout. Vittoria's setting lacks parts that Duruflé included, namely, the Pie Jesu and the In paradisum. But insofar as it lacks the Dies irae, Vittoria's setting is similar to Duruflé's. Whether Duruflé knew of this work is a matter of conjecture. In any case, Duruflé's is the first such setting since the Renaissance.
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- Maurice DurufléThe Man and His Music, pp. 166 - 180Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007