Pelléas et Mélisande (Fauré)
Encyclopedia
Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80 is a suite derived from incidental music
by Gabriel Fauré
for Maurice Maeterlinck
's play
of the same name. He was the first of four leading composers to write music inspired by Maeterlinck's drama. Debussy
, Schoenberg
and Sibelius
followed in the first decade of the 20th century.
Fauré's music was written for the London production of Maeterlinck's play in 1898. To meet the tight deadline of the production, Fauré reused some earlier music from incomplete works, and enlisted the help of his pupil Charles Koechlin
, who orchestrated the music. Fauré later constructed a four-movement suite from the original theatre music, orchestrating the concert version himself.
for the play's first production in English, in which she starred with Johnston Forbes-Robertson
and John Martin-Harvey
. Mrs Campbell had invited Debussy
to compose the music, but he was busy working on his operatic version of Maeterlinck's play, and declined the invitation.
Fauré was in London in March and April 1898, and was introduced to Mrs Campbell by the musical benefactor Frank Schuster. Fauré accepted her invitation to compose the music for the production, despite the tight deadline – the play was to open in June of that year. He wrote to his wife, "I will have to grind away hard for Mélisande when I get back. I hardly have a month and a half to write all that music. True, some it is already in my thick head!"
As he often did, Fauré reused music written for incomplete or unsuccessful works. A sicilienne from his unfinished 1893 score for Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
was the most substantial piece retrieved for Pelléas et Mélisande. Pressed for time, and never greatly interested in orchestrating, Fauré enlisted the help of his pupil Charles Koechlin
, who accompanied him to London. The complete incidental music comprised 17 pieces of varying length and importance.
Fauré conducted the orchestra for the premiere, at the Prince of Wales's Theatre
on 21 June 1898. Mrs Campbell was enchanted by his music, in which, she wrote, "he had grasped with most tender inspiration the poetic purity that pervades and envelops M. Maeterlinck's lovely play". She asked him to compose further theatre music for her in the first decade of the 20th century, but to his regret his workload as director of the Paris Conservatoire made it impossible. Over the next 14 years, she revived the play, always using Fauré's score. In 1904, the music was used for a production of the original French version of the play, starring Sarah Bernhardt
.
There are two different versions of the original theatre score for Pelléas et Mélisande in existence. The first is Koechlin's autograph of the orchestral score, dating from May and June 1898, and incorporating several rough sketches by Fauré in short score. The second is the conducting score used by Fauré in London; this is also a manuscript in Koechlin's handwriting.
Fauré later reused the music for Mélisande's song in his song cycle
La chanson d'Ève
, adapting it to fit words by the Symbolist poet Charles van Lerberghe
. The Sicilienne became very popular as an independent piece, with arrangements for flute and piano (by Henri Büsser
among others), as well as other instruments. Extracts from Pelléas et Mélisande were used by George Balanchine
as the score for the Emeralds section of his 1967 ballet Jewels
.
After Fauré, three other leading composers completed works inspired by Maeterlinck's drama: Debussy
's opera (1902), Schoenberg
's early tone poem (1903) and Sibelius
's incidental music (1905).
The suite at first consisted of the Prélude, Fileuse (entr'acte to Act 3) and La mort de Mélisande (entr'acte to Act 4). In this form it was premiered at the Concerts Lamoureux in February 1901. Fauré was not happy with the performance, telling his wife that the conductor, Camille Chevillard
did not really understand the music. Fauré later added the Sicilienne. This version of the suite was published in 1909. The suite is sometimes performed with the addition of Mélisande's song "The King's three blind daughters", in Koechlin's orchestration.
Prélude (quasi adagio)
The Prélude is based on two themes; the first is tightly restricted, with no large melodic intervals between successive notes. The critic Gerald Larner suggests that this theme reflects Mélisande's introverted personality. The second theme is introduced by a romantic solo cello with woodwind, and may, in Larner's view represent Mélisande as first seen by her future husband, Golaud.
Fileuse (andantino quasi allegretto)
La Fileuse is an orchestral representation of a spinning song. The Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux notes that although Debussy omits it in his operatic version, Mélisande is shown at her spinning wheel in Maeterlinck's play. A gentle oboe melody is accompanied by the strings, who maintain a theme imitative of spinning.
Sicilienne (allegro molto moderato)
The movement although in traditionally sad key of G minor, represents, in Larner's view, "the one moment of happiness shared by Pelléas and Mélisande". Nectoux writes that although the piece was reused from an earlier work, very few people would guess that it was not composed for Pelléas and Mélisande, so appropriate is it to its purpose. This is the movement of the suite that differs least from Koechlin's London score; Fauré made only minor textual amendments to it.
Mort de Mélisande (molto adagio)
The last movement, in D minor, is inescapably tragic, with a theme of lamentation for clarinets and flutes. There are echoes of Mélisande's song throughout the movement. The opening theme returns fortissimo on the strings "before a last echo of the song and a sadly modal approach on solo flute to the final chord" (Larner).
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
by Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
for Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
's play
Pelléas and Mélisande
Pelléas and Mélisande is a Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters. It was first performed in 1893....
of the same name. He was the first of four leading composers to write music inspired by Maeterlinck's drama. Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
and Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
followed in the first decade of the 20th century.
Fauré's music was written for the London production of Maeterlinck's play in 1898. To meet the tight deadline of the production, Fauré reused some earlier music from incomplete works, and enlisted the help of his pupil Charles Koechlin
Charles Koechlin
Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin was a French composer, teacher and writer on music. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars , travelling, stereoscopic...
, who orchestrated the music. Fauré later constructed a four-movement suite from the original theatre music, orchestrating the concert version himself.
History
The score was commissioned in 1898 by Mrs Patrick CampbellMrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell was a British stage actress.-Early life and marriages:Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, to John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini...
for the play's first production in English, in which she starred with Johnston Forbes-Robertson
Johnston Forbes-Robertson
Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson was an English actor and theatre manager. He was considered the finest Hamlet of the nineteenth century and one of the finest actors of his time, despite his dislike of the job and his lifelong belief that he was temperamentally unsuited to acting.-Early life:Born in...
and John Martin-Harvey
John Martin-Harvey
John Martin Harvey , known after his knighthood in 1921 as Sir John Martin-Harvey, was a romantic actor of the English theatre....
. Mrs Campbell had invited Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
to compose the music, but he was busy working on his operatic version of Maeterlinck's play, and declined the invitation.
As he often did, Fauré reused music written for incomplete or unsuccessful works. A sicilienne from his unfinished 1893 score for Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme is a five-act comédie-ballet—a play intermingled with music, dance and singing—by Molière, first presented on 14 October 1670 before the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord by Molière's troupe of actors...
was the most substantial piece retrieved for Pelléas et Mélisande. Pressed for time, and never greatly interested in orchestrating, Fauré enlisted the help of his pupil Charles Koechlin
Charles Koechlin
Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin was a French composer, teacher and writer on music. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars , travelling, stereoscopic...
, who accompanied him to London. The complete incidental music comprised 17 pieces of varying length and importance.
Fauré conducted the orchestra for the premiere, at the Prince of Wales's Theatre
Scala Theatre
The Scala Theatre was a theatre in London, sited on Charlotte Street, off Tottenham Court Road, in the London Borough of Camden. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire...
on 21 June 1898. Mrs Campbell was enchanted by his music, in which, she wrote, "he had grasped with most tender inspiration the poetic purity that pervades and envelops M. Maeterlinck's lovely play". She asked him to compose further theatre music for her in the first decade of the 20th century, but to his regret his workload as director of the Paris Conservatoire made it impossible. Over the next 14 years, she revived the play, always using Fauré's score. In 1904, the music was used for a production of the original French version of the play, starring Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
.
There are two different versions of the original theatre score for Pelléas et Mélisande in existence. The first is Koechlin's autograph of the orchestral score, dating from May and June 1898, and incorporating several rough sketches by Fauré in short score. The second is the conducting score used by Fauré in London; this is also a manuscript in Koechlin's handwriting.
Fauré later reused the music for Mélisande's song in his song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
La chanson d'Ève
La chanson d'Ève
La chanson d'Ève, Op. 95, is a song cycle by Gabriel Fauré, of ten mélodies for voice and piano. Composed during 1906–10, it is based on the collection of poetry of the same name by Charles van Lerberghe. It is Fauré's longest song cycle.-Composition:...
, adapting it to fit words by the Symbolist poet Charles van Lerberghe
Charles van Lerberghe
Charles van Lerberghe was a Flemish symbolist poet writing in French.His poetry was set by Gabriel Fauré in the song cycles La chanson d'Ève and Le jardin clos....
. The Sicilienne became very popular as an independent piece, with arrangements for flute and piano (by Henri Büsser
Henri Büsser
Henri Büsser was a French classical composer, organist, and conductor.- Biography :Paul-Henri Büsser was born in Toulouse, of partly Teutonic ancestry. He entered the Conservatoire in Paris in 1889; there he studied organ with César Franck and composition with Ernest Guiraud...
among others), as well as other instruments. Extracts from Pelléas et Mélisande were used by George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
as the score for the Emeralds section of his 1967 ballet Jewels
Jewels (ballet)
Jewels is an award-winning ballet in three parts created for New York City Ballet by co-founder and founding choreographer George Balanchine. It premièred on Thursday,...
.
After Fauré, three other leading composers completed works inspired by Maeterlinck's drama: Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's opera (1902), Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's early tone poem (1903) and Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
's incidental music (1905).
Suite
After the run of the play in London, Fauré drew on the music for a short orchestral suite, which he orchestrated himself, using Koechlin's London score as a starting point. The original orchestration for the London production consisted of two flutes, one oboe, two clarinets, one bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, harp and string quartet. Fauré reorchestrated for larger forces, including a normal string complement and second oboe, second bassoon and third and fourth horns. He also rewrote several passages, notably the climaxes in the first, third and fourth movements.The suite at first consisted of the Prélude, Fileuse (entr'acte to Act 3) and La mort de Mélisande (entr'acte to Act 4). In this form it was premiered at the Concerts Lamoureux in February 1901. Fauré was not happy with the performance, telling his wife that the conductor, Camille Chevillard
Camille Chevillard
Camille Chevillard was a French composer and conductor.He was born in Paris, France. He led the Lamoureux Orchestra in the premieres of Debussy's Nocturnes and La mer . He was the son-in-law of conductor Charles Lamoureux...
did not really understand the music. Fauré later added the Sicilienne. This version of the suite was published in 1909. The suite is sometimes performed with the addition of Mélisande's song "The King's three blind daughters", in Koechlin's orchestration.
Prélude (quasi adagio)
The Prélude is based on two themes; the first is tightly restricted, with no large melodic intervals between successive notes. The critic Gerald Larner suggests that this theme reflects Mélisande's introverted personality. The second theme is introduced by a romantic solo cello with woodwind, and may, in Larner's view represent Mélisande as first seen by her future husband, Golaud.
Fileuse (andantino quasi allegretto)
La Fileuse is an orchestral representation of a spinning song. The Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux notes that although Debussy omits it in his operatic version, Mélisande is shown at her spinning wheel in Maeterlinck's play. A gentle oboe melody is accompanied by the strings, who maintain a theme imitative of spinning.
Sicilienne (allegro molto moderato)
The movement although in traditionally sad key of G minor, represents, in Larner's view, "the one moment of happiness shared by Pelléas and Mélisande". Nectoux writes that although the piece was reused from an earlier work, very few people would guess that it was not composed for Pelléas and Mélisande, so appropriate is it to its purpose. This is the movement of the suite that differs least from Koechlin's London score; Fauré made only minor textual amendments to it.
Mort de Mélisande (molto adagio)
The last movement, in D minor, is inescapably tragic, with a theme of lamentation for clarinets and flutes. There are echoes of Mélisande's song throughout the movement. The opening theme returns fortissimo on the strings "before a last echo of the song and a sadly modal approach on solo flute to the final chord" (Larner).