Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite

Fauré was the first major composer to have been inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande, the others being Debussy, Schoenberg and Sibelius. Commissioned in 1898 by the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell to provide incidental music for the first British staging of the play, at London’s Prince of Wales Theatre, Fauré subsequently revised and reorchestrated three movements from his original score for performance in Paris in 1901, later adding the “Sicilienne” to form a concert suite. The suite opens with a wonderfully atmospheric “Prélude” whose static harmonies evoke an ambience of mystery associated with the dark forest from which Mélisande appears for the first time. In “Fileuse”, delicate undulating semiquaver patterns in the muted strings depict Mélisande working at her spinning wheel. Similarly gentle in its effect is the haunting “Sicilienne” with prominent roles allotted to solo flute and harp. The final movement, depicting the death of Mélisande, is deeply affecting, beginning with darkly scored flutes and clarinets and building up to an exceptionally poignant climax.