By: Margarita Restrepo, PhD

Jump to: Triptych ▪ Duruflé bio ▪ O’Regan bio

Maurice Duruflé: Requiem, Opus 9 (1947)

Duruflé began writing his Requiem, considered his most enduring work, in 1941, while France was under Nazi occupation. Although the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime commissioned the project, the commissioning program to support French artists originated during the prior democratic administration of the Third Republic. An apolitical composer, Duruflé accepted the commission for financial survival, even though he was not a supporter of the Vichy regime. He worked on the Requiem during the war years, and, after finishing it in 1947, dedicated it to the memory of his father, who had passed away five months after the 1944 liberation of Paris. The first performance was a national broadcast over French radio on November 2, 1947, All Souls Day, when the Catholic Church celebrates the dead who are undergoing purification in Purgatory.

Like other composers before him, Duruflé uses the Requiem to explore feelings of fear, judgment, and hope. In his own words, “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.”

Duruflé, a deeply devout Catholic and lifelong church organist, followed the structure of the Mass for the Dead, but took some liberties with it to express his artistic vision. He omitted most of the Dies Irae, a medieval multi-stanzaic poem that depicts the terror of the Last Judgment, except for the last verse, Pie Jesu, a gentle plea for mercy and eternal peace. After the Lux aeterna, which traditionally ends the Mass, he added the Libera me, a dramatic text about death, judgment, and deliverance; but balanced it with the soothing In Paradisum, asking the angels to lead the deceased safely home. Duruflé originally scored the work for orchestra and mixed chorus but later prepared a version for solo organ accompaniment to make it appropriate for church services. He then wrote a third version for chamber orchestra and organ to make it accessible for smaller ensembles like ours. Fittingly, it is the version we are performing this afternoon.

In the Requiem, Duruflé combines the archaic with the modern, producing what is often described as a luminous and haunting work. The archaic comes from his use of chant on all movements, except for the Pie Jesu. Chant—the monophonic and unaccompanied liturgical music of the Catholic Church probably since its origin—became very meaningful to Duruflé as a choirboy at the Rouen Cathedral. Although he uses chant in several works, it is the most essential in the Requiem. While the melodies are rooted in the Middle Ages, Duruflé’s musical language reflects Impressionism, the prevailing style in France. The harmony is based on lush, floating, unresolved chords and the orchestration on a fluid and radiant texture.

In the Introit, Requiem aeternam, the men introduce the chant, which—as is typical of chant—consists of archlike melodies that mostly move stepwise within a small range; while the women provide a wordless vocalization above it. The chant passes to the women, is then sung by a duet of sopranos and tenors, and finally builds to the full chorus by the end. Because rhythmic notation did not yet exist, Gregorian chant relied entirely on the natural, speech-like rhythm of its text. To honor this fluid phrasing, Duruflé frequently shifts time signatures throughout this and most movements. In the Kyrie, one of the most beautiful movements, Duruflé uses the chant from the Kyrie of the Mass for the Dead; and to make it shine, presents it in imitation. The Kyrie sections are sung by the full chorus, while the Christe—the middle section—is sung only by the women, giving it a particularly gentle sound. A completely different mood is expressed in the Offertory, Domine Jesu Christe, a dramatic text focusing on vivid imagery depicting hell. The chant is gently introduced by the organ and then taken by the altos, but the mood turns dark as the full chorus pleads for the departed to be freed from the jaws of the lion, from the depths of hell, and from the dark pit. Duruflé shifts tonal centers and uses dissonance to produce a more dramatic effect, while the chorus repeats the text several times in agitated homorhythm in forte, using descending melodies that drop to a dark register. The agitation subsides at the mention of Michael, the archangel, entrusted with guiding the souls from death into eternal light. Duruflé ends the movement with the women singing of the promise God made to Abraham of granting his “seed” eternal life. The Sanctus, based on the Sanctus chant from the Mass for the Dead, opens with a gentle, circling melody in the organ and orchestra as the women sing “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.” The movement builds to a climax as the men join to joyfully sing “hosanna in excelsis!” in long notes in fortississimo. After a pause, the opening circling melody in the organ and orchestra returns as the women sing Benedictus.

To bring contrast, Duruflé scored the Pie Jesu, the central movement of the Requiem, for solo mezzo-soprano. He structures it as a dialogue between the soloist and a cellist, in which the soloist gently sings, “Merciful Jesus, Lord, grant them everlasting rest.” For the Agnus Dei, Duruflé uses the chant from the Mass for the Dead. To remain consistent with the contemplative mood of the Requiem, it is mostly the women who introduce the chant melody, stating “lamb of God” four times. The statements of “grant them peace” are largely sung by the full chorus, but in this quiet movement, he gives the basses a major role: After a pause, they sing “grant them peace” in repeated ascending notes, expressing the urgency of the plea. The Communion, Lux aeterna, is a radiant and serene movement describing eternal light and eternal rest. The sopranos carry the chant, singing “eternal light,” while the lower parts vocalize wordlessly below it, so as not to compete with the beauty and economy of the chant. “Eternal rest” is highlighted by first being sung by a duet of sopranos and tenors and then by altos and basses in repeated notes at the octave.

The Libera me belongs to the Absolution of the Dead, a brief service that takes place beside the coffin immediately after the Mass, when the priest burns incense and sprinkles holy water on the coffin. Of all the movements, this is the most dramatic, as it describes the fear of the Last Judgment. The movement opens with the organ imitating the trumpet that announces the end of the world. The basses follow the ominous organ entrance singing, “Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal.” The remaining voices join one at a time as the speed increases for a tutti for “judge the world by fire.” After the tutti, the basses’ melody expresses, “I am forced to tremble and I fear.” The drama increases in a sudden explosion as “that day, a day of wrath, disaster and sorrow” is sung by the full chorus in fortissississimo. After a pause, the sopranos introduce a calmer mood singing “eternal rest,” followed by the chorus asking for deliverance from eternal death. The concluding movement, In Paradisum, sung as the casket is carried out of the church toward the cemetery, focuses on a peaceful vision of heaven. “May the angels lead you into Paradise” is first sung by the sopranos using the soaring and angelic melody of the chant. The full chorus follows, singing in mostly repeated pitches in homorhythm: “May you have eternal rest.” The dynamic marking is pianississimo, and the tempo gradually slows down to a final dissonant chord suspended in time, suggesting a sense of weightlessness, as if the soul is transitioning into a state of eternal light and rest.

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Tarik O’Regan: Triptych (2005)

O’Regan did not write Triptych as a single unit but as two separate commissions. The first, Threnody, came in 2004. After finishing the second, And There Was a Great Calm, in 2005, O’Regan realized that the two compositions would pair perfectly, for both consisted of poetic fragments dealing with death and eternity. To better match them, he re-orchestrated the 2005 piece from high voices and lower strings to full strings and a full chorus. He then titled the three-movement piece Triptych, a term that refers to an altarpiece that has a central panel and two side panels that fold over the centerpiece.

Threnody was commissioned by the Choir of London to be performed at the choir’s inaugural concert on December 18, 2004, at Christ Church in the East End of London. The composition was funded by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, which was established in 1956 by the English composer, using performing rights income to support fellow composers and musicians. Although the term “threnody” means a sad text or musical piece mourning a death, O’Regan does not mourn a specific individual but focuses on the universal concept of death, to be sung on the choir's subsequent humanitarian concert tour to Israel and the West Bank. As O’Regan indicates, “I wanted the text to speak more universally, to people from all backgrounds. And I wanted it to be fun to sing. It was a professional bunch of Brits that would go out and work with local performers and children together.” To reflect shared values, he chose poetic fragments from Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions: William Penn (1644–1718), an English writer and theologian, who founded the Province of Pennsylvania; William Blake (1757–1827), an English poet and painter; Muhammad Rajab Al-Bayoumi (1923–2011), an Egyptian poet introduced to him by his Algerian mother; and Psalm 133, from the Hebrew Bible.

Scored for full chorus accompanied by strings, Threnody is an energetic piece. As O'Regan explains, “Threnody was the first complete thing I wrote after I’d moved to New York from Oxford. I wanted something to reflect the dynamism of a vibrant American city after coming from a rather genteel British city, and I wanted to write something that was fast. This is a generalization, but a huge amount of contemporary … choral music is slow. It does not move fast. I tried to combat that.” O’Regan opens with Penn’s text describing how death “takes off the mask” and strips away the worldly differences that make humans strangers to one another. Using “majestic” for tempo, he uses overlapping phrases of long notes in syncopation, while the voices pass the text from one to the other until all unite to sing “strangers” in a long fortissimo. After a short instrumental interlude, he sets Al-Bayoumi’s text, saying death should not make us “tremble,” for it takes us “away from the sons of men.” O’Regan shifts to prestissimo, triple meter, and an agitated rhythm in disjointed homorhythmic melodies over a busy F pedal to portray fear. Another instrumental interlude separates Al-Bayoumi’s text from Blake’s, who focuses on infinity and eternity. The women sing “ah” in imitation. As the tenors enter, the sopranos sing the text in a chain of falling suspensions that is then imitated by the other voices. What follows is a return to the textual and musical material from the beginning of the piece. We hear Penn’s text, then Al-Bayoumi’s, to finally close the movement with the first verse of Psalm 133, set by O’Regan with the full chorus in homorhythm singing, “How good and how pleasant it is for people to dwell together in unity.”

As We Remember Them and From Heaven Distilled a Clemency were written to mourn fallen war casualties. The commission came from the Portsmouth Grammar School with funding from the Performing Right Society, a foundation that supports new music and talent development. Scored for high voices and lower strings, the two pieces were premiered on November 11, 2005, at the Annual Remembrance Day concert in Portsmouth, UK, an occasion of special significance in the city, home to two-thirds of the Royal Navy surface fleet and aircraft carriers. The Portsmouth Grammar School Chamber Choir and the London Mozart Players performed And There Was a Great Calm at Saint Thomas of Canterbury Cathedral in Portsmouth.

As We Remember Them centers on loss and remembrance, using two poetic fragments. The first poem was published in the Memorial Service section of The Gates of Repentance, the reform Jewish High Holy Days prayer book. The original poem, “We Remember Them,” was written by Rabbis Sylvan Kames and Jack Riemer, but it was adapted by Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn (1910–1995), the first Jewish chaplain assigned to the United States Marine Corps during World War II. The second fragment is by John Milton (1608–1674), who was regarded as one of the greatest poets in English literature. To express a contemplative text, O’Regan wrote an introspective piece in moderate tempo and piano dynamics. After haunting long-held chords in the strings, the soprano solo opens with a soaring melody for the mourning prayer—“in the rising of the sun and in its going down”—to which the women reply, “We remember them.” This call and response pattern continues with the men joining to cite the many moments—the chill of winter, the rebirth of spring, the warmth of summer, the beauty of autumn—when we mourn those who have left us. O’Regan brings the movement to a climax with the full chorus singing, “So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are part of us.” The poignant long-held chords in the strings return to introduce Milton’s fragment about “silence in heaven,” sung by the solo soprano using the soaring melody of the opening.

Like Threnody, From Heaven Distilled a Clemency also sets four texts that focus on life after death: a fragment of Zoroastrianism—a monotheistic religion from ancient Persia—written in the 9th century; a text by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–1273), born in present-day Afghanistan and a follower of Sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam; a fragment by William Wordsworth (1770–1850), an English Romantic poet; and a text written by English novelist Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) to mark the 1918 armistice that ended World War I. Resembling Threnody, this is another energetic piece, with a tempo marking of prestissimo. As O’Regan indicates, “Most remembrance pieces are sad and very, very slow all the way through. I didn’t want that. So, I started with slow music but then made it more vibrant, quite dancy.” O’Regan opens with the F-pedal tone that concluded As We Remember Them and under it places the pulsating, energetic rhythm that he used in Threnody but in quadruple meter instead of triple. He highlights the Zoroastrian text, “Each shall arise,” by having the full chorus state it twice in long notes in homorhythm, with the melody ascending to show the rising of the spirit after death. Repetition and homorhythm are also used for Rumi’s text emphasizing the futility of fear. Wordsworth’s fragment, “Our birth is but a sleep,” is sung by the women, while the men vocalize wordlessly below it. The strings use syncopation, a favorite device of O’Regan who grew up listening to 70s British rock. He describes the section, saying, “There’s almost a pop or rock energy and tunefulness. The bass line in The Who and Led Zeppelin were incredibly syncopated, even if the tune was quite simple. I’m attracted to that interplay.” Rumi’s text returns with its thematic material but with an increased percussive accompaniment. A long instrumental interlude resembling the haunting long-held chords of the previous movement introduces Hardy’s text. The tempo slows down and the accompaniment is stripped to its minimum to highlight the eerie calmness that fell across the battlefield when the fighting stopped. Only the soprano solo sings, so as not to disturb the “silence in the sky.” O’Regan closes the movement by bringing back the opening material used for the Zoroastrian and Rumi texts, with the full chorus singing Rumi’s “I shall die once again to rise an angel blest.”
 

Composer Biographies

Maurice Duruflé (1902–1986)

Born in Louviers, in the Normandy region of northern France, Duruflé started his musical education at age 10 at the Rouen Cathedral Choir School, in the biggest metropolitan area near his hometown. At 17, he moved to Paris to continue his musical studies at the Paris Conservatory, one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions in the world, where he majored in organ performance. After graduation, he became the organist at Saint-étienne-du-Mont, a church near the Panthéon known as the shrine of St. Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, while also touring extensively as a virtuoso organist throughout Europe and the United States. A head-on collision at age 73 ended his career, as he broke both legs and suffered other extensive injuries. Although he underwent years of surgery and therapy, Duruflé never fully recovered and spent the remainder of his life confined to his Paris apartment. His wife, also an organist, took over his job at Saint-étienne-du-Mont. An introverted perfectionist, Duruflé was not a prolific composer, leaving a catalog of just fourteen published works, mostly sacred, for the organ and chorus. He passed away eleven years after the accident, from declining health due to lingering complications.

Tarik O’Regan (b. 1978)

A native of London, O’Regan comes from a diverse background. His mother is of Algerian descent but grew up in Morocco, while his father is of Irish heritage but was born in Sri Lanka, the son of a diplomat. O’Regan began playing the drums in elementary school before beginning private composition lessons. He majored in composition at Oxford and Cambridge, and in 2004, traveled to the United States for a Fullbright Fellowship at Columbia University. A prolific composer, he has written works for stage, orchestra, chamber ensembles, choruses, solo instrumental, and solo voice. He describes himself as “drawn to subjects at the intersection of history, literature, memory, and public life.” O’Regan has received two Ivor Novello Awards—prestigious British music awards—and two Grammy nominations. He was also one of twelve composers commissioned by King Charles III to write music for his coronation service. Now a citizen of the United States, O’Regan lives in San Francisco.