In Memory of a King: Luigi Cherubini's S Minor Requiem in Context

Luigi Cherubini's Requiem in C minor (1816) was a ceremonial work commissioned by the restored French monarchy (1815--1830) for the commemoration of the beheading of King Louis XVI. Cherubini's setting quickly became the requiem of choice performed at funerals and commemorations of French public figures throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. Its stature as a composition of first-rate craftsmanship also took it to music festivals and concert halls all over Europe. Felix Mendelssohn, for instance, recognized Cherubini's setting as one of the most performed requiems of his age, second only to Mozart's Requiem. Beethoven remarked that if he were to write a requiem, Cherubini's setting would be a model. A close examination of the work's genesis, performance, and reception history in its historical, political and musical contexts brings to the fore two major questions that this dissertation addresses. First, Cherubini's setting represents an important milestone in the history of the requiem as a Romantic genre. The nineteenth-century witnessed the transformation of the requiem from a liturgical piece to a large-scale concert piece. As requiems found their place in the concert hall, musical elements outside of the church style also found expression in this genre now bridging sacred and secular realms. One trend that is less recognized, although it is highlighted in the case of Cherubini's C Minor Requiem, is the politicization of the genre. This dissertation argues that Cherubini's setting is one of the first symphonic requiems to take on political significance, to be followed by a long list of compositions in the genre such as settings by Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, and Brahms. Second, the performance history of the work highlights conservative vis-a-vis modernizing tendencies during the Restoration. Cherubini has been regarded as a conservative and pedantic composer, largely due to Berlioz's journalistic jibes, as well as Cherubini's affiliation with the monarchy and the Conservatoire. Likewise, the Restoration has traditionally been viewed by historians as a setback to the modernizing and secularizing trajectory begun by the French Revolution, and thus has long been somewhat eclipsed in the study of nineteenth-century history. A close reading of the Requiem's musical setting and the details of the ceremonial occasion at which it was premiered unsettles the assumed conservatism of both the composer and the time period. Techniques referencing the past, such as counterpoint and canon, are juxtaposed with more progressive elements, including novel instrumentations and the Romantic organicist approach to thematic development. In a similar vein, details of the ceremonial decorations reported in contemporary press and artworks share the amalgamation of the ancient and the modern. The C Minor Requiem highlights the broader conflicted attitudes and sentiments on the supposedly painful past and hopeful and progressive new orders during the Restoration.