Les Beatitudes
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CD Details
Edition: Music CDCD Release Date: 2003-04-01
Music Label: Brilliant Classics
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Prologue
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude I: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the King
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude II. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the eart
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude III. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comfo
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude IV. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteo
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude V. Blessed are the mercyful, for they shall obtain mercy
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude VI. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude VII. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be calle
- Les béatitudes, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra, M. 53: Beatitude VIII. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousn
Music reviews of Les Beatitudes
Music Review: Piety without sentimentality - and some glorious music
Rating: 5 Stars
This massive, densely orchestrated work seems to me to be primarily influenced by the large-scale choral works of Berlioz, especially the "Grande Messe des Morts" and "La Damnation de Faust". The manner in which Franck juxtaposes surging lyrical, chorales against more jagged passages, such as the one in the opening Beatitude in which the terrestrial choir extol the delights of materialism only to be swept away by heavenly voices in unison, is distinctly reminiscent of Berlioz's manner and style. The other composer who kept coming to mind as I listened to Franck's manipulation of ostinato motifs and repeated orchestral figures on the strings was, oddly - or perhaps not, given their shared Catholic piety and devotion- Bruckner.
This is primarily a reflective work but its scale gives the music a massive, monumental quality, especially when Franck builds chromatically to grand climaxes. The choral polychromatic writing is often very beautiful; Rilling has both a very fine choir and an excellent team of soloists amongst whom you might recognise some famous names. This is "Victorian" choral scoring at its best and often proleptic of Elgar in the way the choir and soloists in concert first toss a noble theme back and forth before joining forces to bring a deeply satisfying resolution, as in the Second Beatitude. Cachemaille, by this stage having moved up to the baritone tessitura employs his smooth plaintive timbre to embody Christ's words very aptly and Keith Lewis reminds us why he was a Berlioz specialist with the combined sweetness and thrust of his plangent tenor - while singing in very good French.
The opening of the third Beatitude is at times very reminiscent of "Denn alles Fleisch" from Brahms' Requiem in its stern, inexorable pace and melodic leaps before the quasi-operatic trio "Adieu pour jamais". Despite its reputation for uniformity of tone, it seems to me that this work repeatedly introduces an almost Faustian element of constant attrition between Good and Evil; this tension keeps the music on the move and thus maintains the listener's interest.
The famous fourth movement forms the heart of the work. Franck's pupil Chausson extolled its "sublimity". It traces over 12 minutes (not 10, as the tack listing incorrectly states) the soul's yearning for divine justice in a tenor solo of mounting ecstasy and supplication until the voice of Christ intones a gentle reassurance.
The fifth is perhaps the least successful movement, somewhat lacking in musical inspiration or drama, but over the next three Beatitudes the work gradually builds and elaborates a titanic, almost Mahlerian struggle between Satan and the forces of hatred and revenge pitted against the Church Triumphant. (Once again timings in the listing have gone awry; the eighth Beatitude is a full nine minutes longer than the 12:39 we are advised.) John Cheek is marvellously saturnine and maleficent as Satan. The whole concludes with a massive Hosannah by the combined forces of the redeemed and the celestial host.
You will need basic French to follow the simple libretto (no translation) but the moral burden itself is essentially a simple but powerful one: the need to abandon greed and self-seeking and aspire to higher, better, kindlier things. Naïve 19C piety - or is there an eternal message there appropriate to the failings of our own age?
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