RAVEL DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ POULENC GLORIA CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CHICAGO SYMPHONY CHORUS JESSICA RIVERA / BERNARD HAITINK DAPHNIS ET chloé Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chicago Symphony Chorus / Duain Wolfe, director Jessica Rivera, soprano / Bernard Haitink, conductor FRANCIS POULENC / Gloria 1 Gloria in excelsis Deo 3:05 2 Laudamus te 3:10 3 Domine Deus, Rex caelestis 3:55 4 Domine Fili unigenite 1:22 5 Domine Deus, Agnus Dei 6:08 6 Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris 6:12 Jessica Rivera, soprano MAURICE RAVEL / Daphnis et Chloé Première Partie 7 Introduction 2:38 8 Danse religieuse 4:35 9 Scène – Danse générale 3:18 10 Danse grotesque de Dorcon – Scène 2:03 11 Danse lègére et gracieuse de Daphnis 3:39 12 Scène – Danse de Lycéion – Scène (les pirates) 4:01 13 Scène – Danse lente et mystérieuse 4:37 Deuxième Partie 14 Introduction 2:52 15 Danse guerrière 4:50 16 Scène – Danse suppliante de Chloé 5:05 Troisème Partie 17 Lever du jour – Scène 5:49 18 Daphnis et Chloé miment l’aventure de Pan et de Syrinx 6:18 19 Danse générale 3:41 total 77:18 DAPHNIS et Chloé CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 2 FRANCIS POULENC / Gloria impresario; Michel Fokine, the choreographer; Léon Bakst, ballet, creates an extraordinary sonority, remarkable for its In August 1936, while Francis Poulenc, the irrepressible bad the designer; Pierre Monteux, the conductor; and Vaslav shimmering gradations of color. boy of French music, was vacationing in southwestern France, Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina, the leading dancers. Ravel The story is adapted from a tale by the fifth-century Greek he learned that fellow composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud had worked tirelessly with Fokine to translate the most famous author Longus. Daphnis and Chloe, abandoned as children been beheaded in a car crash. Haunted by the violence of of the Greek prose pastorals into a scenario for ballet—the and raised by shepherds, have fallen in love (Daphnis seduced Ferroud’s death, Poulenc began the first sacred work of his collaboration partly hampered, as the composer admitted, Chloe by playing for her on his panpipes). In the first part of career. Over the next twenty-five years, as Poulenc examined because Fokine didn’t know a word of French, and Ravel knew the ballet, Daphnis earns Chloe’s kiss; pirates land and abduct his own beliefs and confronted the Roman Catholicism of his only how to swear in Russian. Chloe. In part 2, Pan and his warriors rescue Chloe. Part 3 childhood, he developed a unique religious musical style, one At first, there was also a serious difference of opinion about reunites the lovers in a magnificent sweep of music that that confirms and, in turn, questions the significance of faith. the style of the piece. Ravel later said that his intent was to begins with the gradual awakening of nature, followed by one The Gloria, completed in 1960, is his last word on the subject. compose a vast musical fresco that was less concerned with of the most celebrated flute solos in music, as Daphnis and After Poulenc’s own death in 1963, the American composer archaism than with reproducing the Greece of his dreams, Chloe recreate the old story of Pan wooing the nymph Syrinx, Ned Rorem called Poulenc “a whole man always interlocking which he likened to that imagined by French artists at the end and concludes with the extraordinary final dance that took soul and flesh, sacred and profane.” That duality is the heart of the eighteenth century. Fokine, on the other hand, had in Ravel, perhaps the greatest perfectionist among composers, of the radiant and moving Gloria he composed shortly before mind the ancient dancing depicted in red and black on Attic a full year to polish. he died. In six movements, alternately introspective and vases. The result has something of the classical austerity Phillip Huscher is the program annotator breezy, Poulenc’s Gloria resembles no other work of sacred of Jacques-Louis David’s canvases as well as the stunning for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. music. The fanfare-like opening confirms how brilliantly clarity of Greek pottery. But it is both more sumptuous and Poulenc was able to make something fresh and effective of subtle than either. a style Stravinsky had worn out long ago. The lovely third and In rehearsal, Fokine and Nijinsky fought relentlessly over fifth movements, with their ethereal soprano solos, find him the choreography, and Diaghilev grew so tired of serving as at his most reflective and touching. Of the jauntier sections, intermediary that he finally threatened to cancel the project. such as the saucy Laudamus te, with its dance-hall rhythms As it was, he was forced to postpone the premiere twice, and off-kilter text settings, Poulenc said they simply reminded largely because Ravel was having trouble completing the him of a favorite fifteenth-century fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli final dance. (When the music was delivered at last, Diaghilev’s in Florence’s Palazzo Medici Riccardi, in which the angels dancers were stymied by the finale’s asymmetrical 5/4 stick their tongues out at one another. meter—Ravel suggested chanting “Ser-gei-Dia-ghi-lev” to each measure to help them keep their place.) Ultimately, the Maurice Ravel / DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ rancor and tension of the Daphnis rehearsals led to a rift Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé is one of the most brilliant between Diaghilev and Fokine, who left the company at the products of Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes during end of the season. their glory years. It was conceived in 1909, before the troupe Daphnis et Chloé is the largest orchestral work Ravel would had set Paris ablaze with a series of new ballets unlike write; he called it a “choreographic symphony in three parts,” anything the worlds of music or dance had known, starting and in its scale and developmental detail it is as close as with Stravinsky’s Firebird in 1910 and climaxing with the he ever came to tackling symphonic form. It is perhaps the scandalous premiere of The Rite of Spring in May 1913. Ravel’s greatest example of Ravel’s remarkable ear for orchestral contribution, Daphnis et Chloé, was not introduced until sounds, and of the subtlety with which he shades and colors June 8, 1912, due to the composer’s difficulties finishing the his canvas. Few passages in music are as justifiably famous score, compounded by backstage squabbling once rehearsals as the opening of part 3, when the rising sun gently bathes began. the music in warmth and light. The use of a wordless chorus, The principal players in the creation of Daphnis et not only in that scene, but at several key moments in the Chloé were a distinguished group: Sergei Diaghilev, the DAPHNIS et Chloé CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 3 FRANCIS POULENC / Gloria juin 1912, car le compositeur avait eu du mal à achever la le plus grand exemple de son oreille remarquable pour En août 1936, alors que Francis Poulenc, l’infatigable partition, outre qu’il y eut des disputes en coulisses une fois les sonorités orchestrales, et de la subtilité avec laquelle enfant terrible de la musique française, était en vacances les répétitions commencées. il nuance et colorie sa toile. Peu de passages sont aussi dans le sud-ouest de la France, il apprit que son collègue Les principaux acteurs de la création de Daphnis et justement célèbres que le début de la troisième partie, compositeur Pierre-Octave Ferroud avait été décapité dans Chloé formaient une équipe prestigieuse : Serge Diaghilev, lorsque le soleil levant baigne délicatement la musique de un accident de voiture. Hanté par la violence de la mort de l’impresario, Michel Fokine, le chorégraphe, Léon Bakst, le chaleur et de lumière. L’utilisation d’un chœur sans paroles, Ferroud, Poulenc commença la première œuvre sacrée de décorateur, Pierre Monteux, le chef d’orchestre, et Vaslav non seulement dans cette scène, mais à plusieurs moments- sa carrière. Et, au cours des vingt-cinq années suivantes, Nijinski et Tamara Karsavina, les principaux danseurs. Ravel clefs du ballet, crée une sonorité extraordinaire, remarquable examinant sa propre foi et confronté au catholicisme de son travailla inlassablement avec Fokine pour traduire la plus pour ses gradations chatoyantes de couleur. enfance, Poulenc développa un style religieux unique, qui célèbre des pastorales en prose grecques en un scénario de L’histoire est adaptée d’une fable d’un auteur grec du Ve confirme et met en question tour à tour la signification de la ballet – la collaboration fut entravée, comme le reconnut le siècle, Longus. Daphnis et Chloé, abandonnés dans leur foi. Le Gloria, achevé en 1960, est son dernier mot sur le sujet. compositeur, par le fait que Fokine ne savait pas un mot de enfance et élevés par des bergers, sont tombés amoureux À la mort de Poulenc lui-même en 1963, le compositeur français, et que Ravel ne savait que jurer en russe. (Daphnis a séduit Chloé en jouant de la flûte de Pan). Dans américain Ned Rorem le décrivit comme « un homme entier Au départ, il y eut également de graves divergences sur le la première partie du ballet, Daphnis obtient un baiser de qui entrelace toujours l’âme et la chair, le sacré et le profane style de l’œuvre. Ravel dit par la suite que son intention était Chloé ; des pirates accostent et enlèvent Chloé. Dans la ». Cette dualité est au cœur du Gloria radieux et émouvant de composer une vaste fresque musicale qui se souciait deuxième partie, Pan et ses guerriers partent à la rescousse qu’il composa peu de temps avant sa mort.