Henri Sauguet - Symphony No.1 "Expiatoire"

Henri SAUGUET (1901-1989)

Symphony No.1 "Expiatoire" (1947)

Moscow Symphony Orchestra

Antonio de Almeida

Recorded at the Mosfilm Studio in Moscow, Russia in October, 1994.

Sauguet's Symphony No. 1, in expiation, the Symphonie expiatoire, was first performed in 1947. The composer wrote his own account of the work:

 I had been very moved and distressed by the disaster, the bombing, the deaths in battle, deaths on the road, in houses, the piles of ruins, and I was ashamed to belong to the human race that behaved in such a bestial manner. It came to my mind to devote my time to the composition of a hymn in memory of the innocent victims, of those who had died without bearing arms. Little by little this hymn took on the manner of a symphony. Up to then I had never attempted this kind of work. It seemed to me that my style of writing ruled it out. Nevertheless it was indeed a symphony that was calling me. A great feeling came to me when, as a soldier in the countryside at Auch, I pretended combat with my machine-gun in my hands. Crawling through the grass, concealed by thickets, surrounded by the fragrant and delicate flowers of the field, with a splendid sky above me, bird-song accompanying my movements, I was impressed by the impassiveness of nature who, whatever one does against her, develops her natural life and offers her rich treasures. Nature seemed at once to defy me and to plead with me. I had sketched at this time some bars intended for a quartet. I had kept them and it is these that I used for the beginning of this symphony, that, to give it the right feeling and a reason for its composition, I decided to call an Expiatory Symphony, writing in introduction "Pardon us, Lord, for the use we have made of the life that you have given us". The music that I wanted came forth naturally. At first I wrote the second movement that as of its own accord became elegiac and lyrical, with great outbursts of melody.

 

When I wrote the music for La Chartreuse de Parme, I had composed an overture to represent the soul of Fabrice. I had abandoned this plan, since my opera was too long to have added a symphonic overture. I took up this overture again for the first movement of my Symphonie expiatoire, with its breathless, pulsating five-time, as of fate. A moto perpetuo, it begins the work as I wanted, implacable and stubborn. For the third movement I had the idea of setting against each other different styles of march, a French march, representing the departure for war of the soldiers of 1939, who seemed to be setting out on a happy outing, rapid and brilliant, but I saw them go with anguish and sadness; a German march such as I could hear every day on our avenues, war-like, heavy, with jingles and drums, broken by brutal rhythms, implacable; a Russian march in the style of Prokofiev, acid, with Slav rhythms and characteristic melancholy. I stopped at these three elements that I made conflict together by what I considered a clever use of counterpoint, and if from time to time one theme seemed to dominate another, there could be neither conqueror nor conquered but a painful confusion that I achieved in a tragic and moving coda. It occurred to me that its title, symphony in expiation, called for a fourth movement. I had composed some pages, when I had the feeling that I was writing music that was sad, tender and dramatic. I thought that the dead, whom I pitied, were soothing the living, those of us who had escaped from this misfortune to console us and bless us. It is in this way that my first symphony ends, written on the subject of the disaster of France and the memories that I kept in my heart of the war of 1914-1918. In doing this, I wanted to expiate the crime of having been a man alive during these appalling times that we had just been through without having been able to do anything to prevent such brutal human idiocy.