A Vivid and Dramatic Oratorio

Okay, I mentioned it in the last post, I'd better drop the other shoe and cover the whole of Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher ("Joan of Arc at the Stake") by Arthur Honegger.

The Trial scene, Joan Given Up to the Beasts is the first, but hardly the only, major choral/orchestral fresco in this vivid and dramatic work.  Although Honegger wrote some very experimental pieces at times, he never gave up his faith in the appeal of music to large audiences.  Jeanne d'Arc is plainly designed for such large-scale public performance.  Honegger, though, was far too good a musician to water down the product in these circumstances.

This "dramatic oratorio" (to quote Honegger's own description) uses numerous recurring themes which constantly interweave in new and varying combinations while at the same time evolving in their own shapes to suit their new surroundings.  Not only that, but the themes are often played simultaneously in counterpoint which is apparently as effortless and natural as it is skilful.  Very few composers in the Twentieth Century could manipulate counterpoint so effectively.  Honegger's orchestration is equally skilled, making effective use of the saxophone and of the electronic ondes martenot.  This instrument's strange whistling tone effectively illustrates the poem's pictorial possibilities from a dog's howling to an ass's braying.

Paul Claudel's poem calls for parody in certain places, and Honegger supplies it readily -- the aria of Porcus (the pig) in the trial scene is a lusty parody of 1930s jazz while the Game of Cards scene supplies a neo-Baroque parody of the sound of harpsichords by calling for metal rods laid across the strings of the two pianos.  The music too is a parody of the Baroque style.

The next big moment is the scene of the King's journey to Reims which collates folk songs and folk symbols from north and south into a lavish choral tapestry to symbolize the union of France which Joan had worked to bring about. 

There are two unique features of this work. The first is the fact that the two main characters -- Joan and her confessor, Friar Dominic, are spoken parts, not sung.  This happened simply because the work was commissioned by the actress/dancer Ida Rubinstein, who had very little singing ability.  The other unique feature is that Claudel composed the text so that the story unfolds at the moment of Joan's impending death, from a book read to her by Friar Dominic.  The two comment between the major scenes on what is happening.

Eventually, Dominic reaches the end of his reading and Joan finds herself back in the present.  Once again she hears her angelic voices calling to her.  In a moment of supreme emotional and musical power -- vividly illustrated by a rising glissando from the ondes martenot -- she shatters her earthly bonds, crying out, "Je viens, j'ai cassé, j'ai rompu!" ("I'm coming, I've burst them, I've broken them!").  From this immense climax the music gradually dwindles down to the gentlest of conclusions with a quiet cadence sounding from the flute that has played a key role throughout the work.

Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher was first performed in 1935.  In 1944 Claudel wrote a Prologue for it and Honegger set it to music, giving the work its final form.  It has remained intensely popular in France but has never had as great a welcome elsewhere.  The recording I'm listening to as I write this (conducted by Seiji Ozawa on DGG) is a live performance given during a festival in the Basilica of St-Denis in Paris, 1989.  This church is generally held to have set the standard for the Gothic style that swept across Europe after its construction, and thus is an appropriate setting for a work which is in effect a mighty cathedral created in sound instead of stone.