Salve Regina

Francis Poulenc composed two settings of the Salve Regina (the Latin hymn to the Virgin Mary), each a snapshot of a different world. While the second—the finale to the composer’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites—is a piece of theatre, spirituality performed to spectacular, widescreen effect, his earlier 1941 motet is spirituality lived: a liturgical setting of prayerful directness, the work of a devout Catholic writing during the German occupation of France. Scored for four unaccompanied voices, the texture is translucent; every harmonic ripple in inner voices clearly heard. The mood is lulling, time-signatures shift imperceptibly, cushioning harmonies that blur and smear the divide between major and minor. Moving as one, the voices supplicate in waves of rising and falling intensity. A short coda—the refrain “dulcis Virgo Maria”—repeats its text insistently “in the style of a lament”. Does it find comfort? Perhaps. But the final chord refuses to choose; instead of ending in either major or minor, it ends on a bare fifth. In 1941, who could be certain how things might end?