Cesar Franck: Les Beatitudes - Satan´s aria and choir from Seventh Beatitude

Seventh Beatitude

("Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.")

The seventh is one of the most dramatic sections of the work. It opens with a bitter and vehemently declamatory air by Satan ("'Tis I whose baneful Spell"). The effect grows more and more passionate and furious as one after the other choruses of tyrants, pagan priests, and the multitude enter.

John Cheek, bass (Satan)
Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Helmuth Rilling

Cesar Franck completed his most ambitious work, the oratorio Les Beatitudes 1869-1879, though its premier came after his death in 1891. The work of an ardently religious man, this massive oratorio sets out to provide a musical expression for Christ's eternal message--according to Matthew 5, 3-12)--the Sermon on the Mount. Scored for considerable resources including six singers, choir, organ, and a large orchestra, Franck's musical vision rises to the level of his exalted subject matter. The aesthetic problem Franck faces seems parallel to that of Dvorak for his Stabat Mater: how to generate musical drama from relatively static adagios and texts of spiritual contemplation. The music divides into eight sections, inverting the second and third Beatitudes, but following the wording and order of the Bible. Christ (Gilles Cachemaille) is represented by a bass-baritone surrounded by an eight-bar leitmotif, who assures us that misery on earth shall beget a better future in Heaven. Near the end of each section, the Heavenly Chorus or Vox Christi informs the devout how they rise above misfortune. In the Sixth Beatitude, Franck creates a New Testament Bible scene, wherein Pagan Women, Jewish Women, three Pharisees, and the Angel of Death confer, and all are counseled by Jesus that the pure of heart shall see God. Satan appears in the course of the drama, only to realize the limits of his power. If the work has any spiritual forbears other than Beethoven, it could well be Liszt's Christus of 1872; even the key of F-sharp Major (for the vice of Jesus) is Liszt's favorite key for transcendence.

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