MAURICE RAVEL (1875 – 1937)
PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRINCESS
COMPOSED: 1899
DURATION: c. 8 minutes
One of the most unusual and amusing things to note about Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte is that, while incredibly popular, this piece was atypical for Ravel’s style.
Commissioned in 1899 of a 24-year-old Ravel, the Pavane was originally written as a piece for piano, later reworked and orchestrated the piece in 1910 to great acclaim. In 1922, he would even make Duo-Art piano-roll recording of the piece.
A traditional pavane is a courtly dance that originated in 16th-century Italy. The dance would begin slowly, allowing for courtly lords and ladies to show off their elegant clothes before diving into a livelier dance. Ravel’s pavane evokes this dance to create a fantasy scene of the courtly ceremony, displaying coolness and a restrained melancholy. However, Pavane pour une infante défunte is not a tragedy or a funeral song. Instead, the song was written as “an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court.”
Pavane pour une infante défunte perfectly displays Ravel’s gift for creating balance and harmony in orchestration between strings, woodwinds, and brass. The contrast between simple melodies and glittering, almost impressionist textures, and a mysterious and timeless texture.
JOHN RUTTER (1945-)
REQUIEM
COMPOSED: 1985
DURATION: c. 35 minutes
John Rutter is a composer of primarily choral works, including Christmas carols, anthems, and extended works such as the Gloria, the Requiem, and the Magnificat. Rutter’s style is influenced by 20th century English and French choral compositions as well as American songwriting. His compositions are most popular in the United States and the UK, with the London Evening Standard writing, “For the infectiousness of his melodic invention and consummate craftsmanship, Rutter has few peers.”
Following in the style of composers such as Brahms and Fauré, John Rutter’s Requiem is not strictly a setting of the Requiem Mass as laid down in Catholic liturgy. The Requiem is a musical setting of sections of the Missa pro Defunctis, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Psalms. These seven sections contain prayers on behalf of all humanity, psalms, personal prayers to Christ, and in the central Sanctus an affirmation of divine glory.
The Requiem was completed in 1985 and is “in memoriam L. F. R.,” dedicating this work to Rutter’s late father. In his own words:
“The Requiem was written in 1985 and dedicated to the memory of my father, who had died the previous year. In writing it, I was influenced and inspired by the example of Faure. I doubt whether any specific musical resemblances can be traced, but I am sure that Faure’s Requiem crystallized my thoughts about the kind of Requiem I wanted to write: intimate rather than grandiose, contemplative and lyric rather than dramatic, and ultimately moving towards light rather than darkness – the “lux aeterna” of the closing text.”