A forgotten, famous French requiem

From my collection of programme notes. 

When the French King Henri IV was assassinated in May 1610, there were probably no contingency plans for a royal funeral. Even if the number of previous attempts on his life (at least a dozen, it seems) had led anybody to consider the idea, putting anything in writing about "what to do in the event of the king's death" would have been somewhat career-limiting.

So when Francois Revaillac jumped on board the royal carriage and fatally stabbed the monarch in protest at his policy of religious toleration, someone at court would quite soon have turned his mind to such details as where the event should take place, who should attend, how much black silk needed to be ordered... and what the music should be.

At least the venue was easy to establish. The kings and queens of France had been laid to rest at the abbey church of St Denis since the 10th century, and the cortege would have wound its way north through the streets of Paris witnessed by the same crowds who had looked on in horror at Henri's murder.

But the choice of music may have caused some debate, as the pre-eminent composer at court, Eustache du Caurroy, had himself passed away in the previous year, and his ambitious colleagues or successors may have proposed their own work for the purpose. However, du Caurroy had left what would become his most durable legacy, a grand funeral mass for five voices, which was ideally suited for the occasion.

Eustache du Caurroy's funeral mass was duly performed at the ceremony in St Denis, which in itself would have given him great satisfaction. What he could not have guessed was that his work would be preserved and taken out again for the next royal funeral, and again for the next, and then become the official royal funeral mass for every monarch in France right up to the Revolution, when the unfortunate Louis XVl had any hopes of a dignified repeat of the tradition dashed by the blow of the guillotine.

Du Caurroy's mass is grand and solemn. It is reminiscent of other great funeral music of the Renaissance by composers like Victoria, Lobo or Morales, and scholars praise it for its masterful polyphony; yet nowadays it is hardly ever performed even in France, and du Caurroy's name is barely recognised by musicians deeply familiar with the music of Palestrina, Victoria, Byrd or so many other of his now more famous contemporaries.

So, why did it become so famous?

No doubt part of the reason lies in the quality of the music. It would easily have been recognised as a work worthy of any royal funeral, and, after all, it was written by a famous and influential court composer. It served the purpose. Yet it would quickly have become unfashionable. The year 1610 is also well known as the year in which Monteverdi published his Vespers, an important turning point in the transition of the Renaissance to the Baroque. For the kings of the 17th century, would a more up to date work not have suited better?

The answer may lie in the fact that Henri came to an untimely end and was succeeded by a nine year-old boy. With Henri's assassination and the political instability surrounding the succession, old differences at court and in the church were quickly forgotten as those in power sought to preserve their positions. Henri was immediately celebrated as a heroic peacemaker, a man of judgement and honour who had unified the country and ended the Wars of Religion. The Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to the Calvinist Huguenots and angered Catholics like Henri's assassin, was reasserted. And by the time Louis XIV was building his kingdom based on his own personal authority, it was easy for an official history of his family to celebrate Henri as “Henri le Bon”, by which title he came to be remembered affectionately by generations of French schoolchildren.

What was key to Henri's place in Louis XIV's history, though, was more than just his achievements or the circumstances of his death. Henri was the founder of his dynasty. He had inherited the throne by an indirect family line and was the first Bourbon king. There was every reason why the generations that came after should want him to be extolled as a successful and uncontroversial father figure.   It may therefore have been to emphasise the continuity of the Bourbon succession that the music performed at Henri’s funeral became part of his legend.

I conducted a rare performance of the work in 2015 at the church of the Holy Trinity, Long Melford, with Cambridge Renaissance Voices. We were joined by a group of period instrumentalists, as it was increasingly common in the early 17th century for voices to be accompanied by an organ or other instruments.

Du Caurroy's Requiem might have been one of the very last Renaissance compositions, but it was to become part of the staple diet of Baroque and even Classical France. As it was said. 'a king does not die in France'. Nor, for over 150 years, did Du Caurroy's music.

There are a couple of recordings of the music available. But to know more, see this video from the Centre Musique de Baroque de Versailles. (This is NOT me conducting!)