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 Fifteen - Duruflé's Role in the Plainsong Revival
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
It has often been observed that plainsong played a decisive role in Duruflé's formation and in his compositions, but it has not been pointed out that Duruflé actually played a role in its revival. While the centrality of plainsong emerged in his very first opus number, the unpublished Fantaisie sur des thèmes grégoriens (1927) for piano, and even earlier in a student work based on a Gregorian Credo (1926), plainsong was, for him, much more than one musical element among the many available to him. It was, rather, so much the pith of his existence that he raised the church's plainsong to an exalted place in the secular harmonies of modern French music, advancing the plainsong revival to its ultimate stage. Duruflé was not only a composer, in other words, but a reformer.
The church's effort to rid itself of banal secular influences and reappropriate the music proper to its worship began deep in the early years of the nineteenth century, and even earlier. After the French Revolution the musical practice of the church found itself in dire straits, and reformers took years to locate, research, revive, and experiment with the practice of plainsong so that it could effectively counter the republican tunes, the secular airs, and the trivial pomp that had become so popular in its wake. All of this was, in Duruflé's view, a “true revolution.”
In the earliest decades of the revival, plainsong represented the church's alternative to the more popular forms of music that had entered worship after the Revolution. In most instances plainsong was an intrusion, an unwanted change in the familiar and the acceptable, and took upon itself the air of sacrality that put it in stark contrast with the more secular fare of the usual Sunday morning. It was perhaps no accident that this development took place in the same years that secularism and anticlericalism were rampant across France. Plainsong thus represented a church that was at defiant odds with the state.
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- Maurice DurufléThe Man and His Music, pp. 143 - 155Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007