Column: From Heavenly Harmony
The Sound of Perpetual Light
by Ken Myers
One of the most popular works of twentieth-century sacred choral music is the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé (1902–1986). Completed in 1947 and still performed regularly in concert, Duruflé's Requiem is often linked with the earlier (and probably better known) Requiem by Gabriel Fauré, which dates to 1888. Both works are marked by a comforting, serene spirit, and both reflect the influence of French musical impressionism, which offers a harmonic vocabulary of mystery. But Duruflé's setting is distinguished by its pervasive use of Gregorian chant melodies.
In the opening Introit, after an introductory measure of shimmering (fluttering, like wings?) notes played by the organ (or by strings, in Duruflé's orchestral arrangement), the tenors and basses sing the opening notes of the Gregorian text and melody: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: "Give them eternal rest, O Lord." As the phrase ends, sopranos and altos enter, hovering in harmony above the male voices, echoing and thus affirming wordlessly the final notes of the chant. Then the men return to sing the second line: et lux perpetua luceat eis, Domine: "and let perpetual light shine upon them, O Lord."
The Gregorian melody in this second phrase is more elaborate, swelling upward near the end of the line before returning down to the original pitch; the highest note in the phrase is then echoed an octave higher by the women's voices when they re-enter. The effect is radiant, confident, and comforting, an effect that deepens and intensifies right to the final notes of the In Paridisum 35 minutes later.
For those familiar with the centuries-old plainchant in the Mass for the Dead, Duruflé's setting affirms its rootedness in the Church's perennial rituals, and simultaneously does a new thing in continuity with ancient things. His Requiem is a brilliant lesson in the dynamic shape of a living tradition.
Duruflé's Requiem (like his exquisite Four Motets on Gregorian Themes) is in part a product of his boyhood experience as a chorister at the Rouen cathedral. It was also influenced by the Gregorian revival of the early twentieth century, a movement advanced by Duruflé's organ teachers Charles Tournemire and Eugène Gigout. In 1903, Pope Pius X had declared that "the more closely a composition for the church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes." In making this claim, the Pope was reinforcing a movement that had already gathered great momentum without official sanction.
Power & Restraint
For centuries, the soundscape of the Church was dominated by the simple, serene form we know as plainchant, from the Latin, cantus planus, a flat, level, or even melody. Chanted text is more powerful than text merely read (remember Augustine's observation that he who sings well prays twice), but chant nevertheless preserves a posture of chaste restraint, reducing the temptation for singers to impose their own personalities on the text. Chant is simultaneously intimate (by virtue of its simplicity) and depersonalized (by discouraging self-expression). By means of a single, unaccompanied melodic line, following the organic rhythmic contours of the chanted text, "the priest praying or the deacon or other official intoning the lesson is a vehicle," writes chant scholar David Hiley, "an instrument whereby the words become audible, rather than an actor delivering a personal statement."
In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries‚ a group of composers working in and around the Cathedral of Notre Dame began to experiment with ways of augmenting plainchant. By this time, there was quite a body of liturgical material in the Western Church's repertoire, collected into an authoritative canon that we now know as Gregorian Chant (although Charlemagne and his court probably had more to do with the assembling and authorizing of this body of music than did Gregory the Great). These French composers began adding parallel lines of harmony and even secondary melodies that were heard in concert with the canonical chanted melody. The chant opened up and out; familiar melodies could now be heard in new dimensions.
The beginnings of polyphony—the organic interweaving of many voices as one musical expression—were an aesthetic event tantamount to the Renaissance discovery of perspective. The compelling Gregorian melodies continued to serve as the foundation for sacred music well into the seventeenth century. Even some Lutheran chorale melodies, so intricately expounded by J. S. Bach, are based on Gregorian predecessors.
Modern Rediscovery
Ken Myers is the host and producer of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Formerly an arts editor with National Public Radio, he also serves as music director at All Saints Anglican Church in Ivy, Virginia. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
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