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26 FAURÉ
Pelléas et Mélisande
is probably Fauré’s finest orchestral work. What is heard here
is the version in four movements for symphony orchestra that he made from the
incidental music he had written for the London production of Maeterlinck’s play,
produced by the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell. Since he had only a few weeks to
fulfil the commission, Fauré entrusted the orchestration for chamber forces to his
pupil Charles Koechlin. The production, premiered at the Prince of Wales Theatre
on 21 June 1898 with Mrs Campbell and LordWharton in the leading roles, enjoyed
great success and was subsequently revived several times by the actress in both
English and French – sometimes with Sarah Bernhardt as Pelléas (1904-05)! Fauré
returned to the principal movements of the original version –
Prélude
,
Fileuse
,
Sicilienne
, and
Molto Adagio
(
Mort de Mélisande
) – and rescored them for standard
symphony orchestra.The scorewas published in 1901with a dedication toPrincesse
Edmond de Polignac, a patron and friend of the composer.
Commentators have sometimes expressed surprise at the presence of a
Fileuse
(a spinning girl) in Fauré’s
Pelléas
, but this is to forget the first scene of Act Three
in the play (cut by Debussy in his opera), where Mélisande spins at her distaff
while conversing with Pelléas and Yniold. The
Fileuse
is linked by key to the other
movements of the orchestral suite: it is in Gmajor, the key of the
Prélude
, while the
Sicilienne
is in G minor and the concluding
Molto Adagio
(representing the death of
Mélisande) is in D minor. Moreover, there are subtle thematic relationships with
other pieces in the score: its first theme presents a variant of the opening bars
of the
Prélude
(Mélisande’s theme), while the second theme prefigures the
Molto
Adagio
and the theme of
Mélisande’s Song
, a vocal number in Dminor featured in the
incidentalmusicbut omitted fromthe suite; the songwaspublishedposthumously,
with piano accompaniment, in 1937.