Le chasseur maudit

Sunday morning. Bells chime, summoning the faithful. Count Hackenburg, though, has other ideas, and defiantly sets out on his horse, flouting the Sabbath’s prohibition of hunting. Crops are trampled under the horse’s hooves and peasants in the Count’s path suffer his whip. Suddenly, the horse comes to a halt and a menacing voice is heard: “Accursed hunter, be eternally pursued by Hell!” As the Count is engulfed by flames, demons appear around him, goading him as he is borne through the air, condemned to ride on in eternity as punishment for his blasphemy. César Franck’s 1882 tone poem Le chasseur maudit (The Accursed Huntsman) vividly depicts the events in German poet Gottfried August Bürger’s ballad The Wild Hunter. One of the few public successes of Franck’s career, it closely reflects the poem’s four tableaux. First come horn calls and church bells, followed by the galloping of the Count’s horse as he rides out. The curse is then menacingly intoned on tuba and low clarinet before the final, irresistible wild ride.