Cantique de Jean Racine

History

Fauré entered the school of church music École Niedermeyer in Paris in 1854, when he was nine years old. There he received training in piano, theory, composition, and classical languages. Weekly choir singing was part of the curriculum for all students. Fauré's teacher in advanced piano was Camille Saint-Saëns, who encouraged him to compose. In 1861 Fauré participated in the first composition competition at the school. In 1863 he submitted a setting of Psalm 126, Super flumina Babylonis, for five vocal parts and orchestra. He received an award but no prize because he had not strictly adhered to all conditions. At age 19, in 1864–65, he composed Cantique de Jean Racine, scored for four vocal parts and piano or organ and that time he received the first prize in the 1865 contest.

Fauré's Cantique was first performed on 4 August 1866 in a version with strings and organ, the organ played by the composer, when the new organ of the Montivilliers Abbey Saint-Savour in Montivilliers was dedicated. César Franck, the dedicatee of the composition, conducted it, possibly the same version, in an orchestral concert on 15 May 1875. A version for a larger orchestra, with wind instruments but without organ, was possibly written by Fauré himself and first played on 28 January 1906, according to a program of the Société de concerts du Conservatoire. Neither of these orchestral versions were published.

Cantique was first published around 1875 or 1876, by Schoen in Paris, as part of the series Echo des Maîtrises. In recent times, the accompaniment has been arranged for strings and harp by John Rutter, to great acclaim.

Text and music

The French text, "Verbe égal au Très-Haut" (Word, one with the Highest), was written by Jean Racine and published in 1688 in Hymnes traduites du Bréviaire romain. It is a paraphrase of a pseudo-ambrosian hymn for Tuesday matins from the breviary, Consors paterni luminis. Fauré named his composition after Racine, not after the Latin original, possibly because he preferred the "elegant and rather florid" French text.

The music is in D-flat major, in commontime, marked Andante. The instrumental introduction contains three elements: a calm melody imitated by the voices, a similarly calm bass, and a flowing inner part in ceaseless triplets. The voices enter one after the other, beginning with the lowest, each presenting half a line of text, while the lower voices accompany in homophony. The second stanza is separated from the first by a short interlude similar to the introduction, while the third and final stanza follows immediately in the way of a reprise. The writing for the voices has been described as at the same time transparent and well balanced" ("zugleich durchlässig wie klanglich ausgewogen"). Models such as Mendelssohn and Gounod show, but also a personal style. Zachary Gates notes in a paper dedicated to the work: "The long sweeping melodies and strong melodic and harmonic appoggiaturas in Cantique are a testament to the Romantic side of the piece, but there is a definite contemporary tint to what he's writing, hidden in very minute and well-justified atonal note choices in the harmonic structure and melody. After ten years of training at the school focused on liturgy, Fauré was able to set "the inspiring text with a gorgeously restrained and respectful charm".

Cantique de Jean Racine already showed traits of his later Requiem, which Fauré composed in 1887, such as "dignity and refined simplicity" (Würde und die vollendete Einfachheit). Both works have often been performed together in concerts and recordings.

Selected recordings

Cantique de Jean Racine has been recorded often, frequently with his Requiem. Paavo Järvi conducted in 2011 both works, combined with the first recording of Super flumina Babylonis, leading the Orchestre de Paris and its choir. A recording of both pieces in their original scoring was released in 2014 with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Stephen Cleobury.