Cyprès et Lauriers, Op. 156 by Camille Saint-Saëns
Performed Sunday, September 17th, 2023 | First United Methodist Church
Organ: Dr. Zahari Metchkov
Conductor: Thomas Wilson
Audio/Video: Michael Lascuola
Program Notes: Judy Biondini
Cyprès et Lauriers, Op. 156 was written in 1919 celebrating the Allied victory in World War I and dedicated to the then President of France, Raymond Poincaré.
The opening "cyprès" is an organ lament, summoning a melancholy cypress tree. After the orchestra's entrance, there is a playful exchange between the organ and orchestra that makes generous use of brass and percussion sections. Among the widespread use of musical illustrations in this music is the cypress tree’s representation of life after death. Symbolic of both victory and death, the closing "lauriers" reflects the tradition of weaving bay laurel leaves into wreaths worn as crowns by the winners of athletic events and military victories. Such wreaths are frequently laid at commemorative ceremonies on occasions such as Remembrance Day.
Musicologist Jane F. Fulcher wrote in 2005 in the Oxford University Press that leading French composers between the World Wars were aware of and engaged with the prominent political ideologies of the period, considering themselves intellectuals interacting with intellectuals in different fields. She further showed how those composers advanced their ideals through artistic language, rejecting the cultural constraints of postwar institutions and translating their cultural values into form and style.
Abram J. Ryan's "A Land without Ruins" may help explain the meaning of this music to us: “A land without ruins is a land without memories - a land without memories is a land without history. A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see; but twine a few sad cypress leaves around the brow of any land, and be that land barren, beautiless and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow, and it wins the sympathy of the heart and of history. Crowns of roses fade - crowns of thorns endure. Calvaries and crucifixions take deepest hold of humanity - the triumphs of might are transient - they pass and are forgotten - the sufferings of right are graven deepest on the chronicle of nations.”
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