“Pelléas et Mélisande”, Op. 80
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Runtime: Approx. 20 minutes
Maurice Maeterlinck’s melancholy play about forbidden love and self-determinism has tantalized many composers. Claude Debussy famously selected the play for his only opera, and Arnold Schoenberg, Jean Sibelius, and Alexandre Desplat also turned to the tale as inspiration. But the first composer to set Maeterlinck’s story to music was Gabriel Fauré, who composed incidental music for the play’s London production in 1898.
Written at the height of the Symbolist movement, the play follows the titular characters as they find themselves in a classic forbidden love story which ends, as these stories so often do, in lethal tragedy. It opens on Mélisande alone in the woods; she has just escaped a difficult marriage that has traumatized her so much that she barely remembers her past. Goulad, grandson of King Arkel, comes upon her and convinces her to return to his home with him where she is quickly, and without her consultation, wed to him. Mélisande is greatly liked by both Arkel and Goulad’s son, Ynold, but she feels caged in the dreary castle and isolated in her marriage. When she meets Goulad’s brother, Pelléas, the two form an easy friendship and begin to spend time together. One day, they meet by a fountain where Mélisande, fiddling with her wedding ring, accidentally drops it into the water.
Goulad, furious over the lost ring and growing suspicious of their relationship, enlists Ynold to spy on the pair. Ynold eventually catches them embracing and tells Goulad who, in a fit of rage, kills Pelléas and severely wounds Mélisande. Distraught, Mélisande once again begins to lose her memories. She eventually dies in childbirth, but by the time of her death she has forgotten both her final meeting with Pelléas and the circumstances of his death.
Set in a decaying and melancholy castle surrounded by thick forest, the play is characteristic of Maeterlinck’s aesthetic, which historian Edmund Wilson described as inhabiting “a twilit world,” his characters “less often dramatic personalities than disembodied broodings and longings.” The premiere performance used minimal lighting and placed a gauze filter across the stage, lending the set a hazy, unearthly quality. This choice provided a visual rendering of Maeterlinck’s thesis that humans live essentially in the dark about their true desires; they do not understand the world or themselves and are ultimately subject to an unchangeable fate.
Fauré’s incidental music possesses the same dreamy, mysterious quality that defines the story, while also offering a lushness to the romance at its heart. The opening movement depicts Mélisande in the woods, string melodies floating along unhurriedly as she sits by the stream. At first, Fauré’s harmonies are enigmatic, perhaps an echo of Mélisande’s contented amnesia. They soon build, and the music becomes more definitive as Goulad grows nearer. Towards the end of the movement, a horn call signals his appearance as the two meet.
The second movement, “Fileuse” (The Spinner), offers a portrait of Mélisande’s new life at the castle as she sits at her spinning wheel. The music is propelled along with a rhythmic ostinato depicting the wheel, while a glassy melody, first played by the oboe, floats above.
The third movement, “Sicilienne,” was originally written for a different work and repurposed by the composer, but the music fits so perfectly in its new home that no one would guess it was composed for a different story. Here, Fauré uses it to set the titular couple’s tryst with lush, romantic melodies; however, a shadow is cast with the use of the traditionally sorrowful key of G-minor that hints at the tragedy to come.
The Suite’s final movement, “La mort de Mélisande” (The Death of Mélisande), concludes the story with lamenting melodies in the winds that loom over a constant striding rhythm, implying the sombre processing of a funeral march. The timpani beats steady steps forward as the music draws to a mournful end. The movement was eventually played at Fauré’s own funeral.
Bassoon Concerto in C Major, RV 475
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Runtime: Approx. 10 minutes
“Concerto” is perhaps one of the most significant and instantly recognizable terms in classical music. Conjuring images of the instrumental superstar stationed in front of an orchestra, fingers flying, performing incredible musical feats, the practice has become ubiquitous to the modern concert experience. The concerto has gone through many metamorphoses over the centuries, but the way the term is defined today—a soloist or group of soloists accompanied by an orchestra or similar ensemble—originated in the Baroque era (c. 1600-1750). Classical and Romantic-era composers expanded greatly on the form, but the basic architecture has remained the same.
The composer who had perhaps the greatest hand in shaping the modern concerto was Antonio Vivaldi. In particular, Vivaldi wrote his concerti in three movements, fast-slow-fast, and set his works apart with the use of “ritornello” (Italian for “small return”), a technique where the soloist is interrupted at various intervals by the orchestra restating familiar material. If these practices sound familiar, they should. Most Classical and Romantic era concerto structure is built on these techniques.
Most listeners will be familiar with Vivaldi’s best known violin concerti, “The Four Seasons,” but he produced over 500 concerti in his career, 37 of which are written for the bassoon. This fact is remarkable on its own; wind instruments have generally received far less attention from composers in the solo capacity. In Vivaldi’s day, large, established orchestras were uncommon, so composers wrote for the musicians they had access to. Vivaldi spent thirty years as the music teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls, and much of his music was composed for his pupils. Music education of the day was taken extremely seriously, and it can be surmised from the demands of his works that the girls under his tutelage were extraordinarily talented. A gifted violinist himself, Vivaldi was known even during his lifetime for imbuing his works with unabashed virtuosity; few other composers offer the performer quite as much opportunity to show off.
This bassoon concerto is no exception. Showcasing both the unique characteristics of the instrument and the capabilities of the performer, the work vibrantly demonstrates the bassoon’s incredible range, from its gruff low register to its playful humor, and its gift for lyricism.
“Le Tombeau de Couperin” (“The Grave of Couperin”)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Runtime: Approx. 21 minutes
French Impressionist composer Maurice Ravel began work on his beloved “Le Tombeau de Couperin” in 1914. As with many of Ravel’s orchestral works, it began as a piece for solo piano and was later orchestrated by the composer. The work – one of his most famous – pays homage to the composer François Couperin (1668-1733), and to the tradition of French Baroque music in general, bridging 200 years of French musical tradition and artfully connecting the prior two works on this program. Listeners will recognize both the distinctive turn-of-the-century French aesthetic of Fauré and the ornate Baroque sensibilities of Vivaldi reflected in Ravel’s masterpiece.
The title, translated to “The Grave of Couperin,” bears Ravel’s trademark ambiguity. Both apt and misleading, the term “tombeau,” while translating to “grave” or “tomb” in modern French, was a 17th-century term used to describe a piece written in memoriam, and it’s this version of the word that Ravel seems to be using, changing the meaning to something more like “Ode to Couperin.” In discussing the work, Ravel stated that his intention was to pay homage more broadly to the tradition of the French Baroque keyboard suite, using Couperin as a figurehead for the style.
Ravel’s ode is crafted in the form of a traditional Baroque dance suite. Structured in six movements, these suites encompass an array of contrasting traditional and social dances each with a prescribed style, meter, and tempo.
Prélude: A brief introduction
Fugue: An intricate development of a theme by imitation in multiple voices. Simply put, it’s a bit like a round, except that there is a primary round happening in two or more voices, and then a secondary round (a different melody) being played simultaneously, and they all fit together to create harmony.
Forlane: Friulian dance, a fast Slavic folk dance in duple meter.
Rigaudon: A lively French Baroque dance in duple meter.
Menuet: Also written “minuet,” this well-known triple meter dance has also found its place in the Classical symphony.
Toccata: Meaning “touch,” a Toccata is a flashy, virtuoso piece of music, most often seen for keyboard instruments.
- Valerie Sly, 2025