Faust et Hélène

épisode lyrique d’après le second Faust de Goethe

The text prescribed for the Prix de Rome competition in the year Lili Boulanger won the Premier Grand Prix was a “lyric episode” by Eugène Adénis allegedly based on Part Two of Goethe’s Faust. In fact, it has scarcely anything to do with Goethe. It reduces the allegorical marriage of Goethe’s Faust and Helen to nothing more than a superficially brief encounter spookily ended by the intervention of the jealous ghost of her Trojan lover Paris. The most extraordinary quality of Lili Boulanger’s setting of Faust et Hélène - completed, according to the rules of the competition, in four weeks of isolation at the Palais de Compiègne in the summer of 1913 - is that it restores a deeper meaning to the theme.

Lili could have approached the Adénis text entirely on its own terms. Indeed, in the central love scene between Faust and Helen, she missed no opportunity to demonstrate that she had the skill and the inspiration to challenge even Massenet in seductive melody and voluptuous harmony. There is, however, another level to the score expressed in another, overtly Wagnerian operatic language. From the beginning, where a chromatically sinister leitmotif casts a dark shadow over a tonally uncertain orchestral introduction, a premonition of disaster runs through the work. That unsettling leitmotif rises frequently to the surface while the uncertain tonality associated with it, coinciding with the negative harmonic quality represented by Mephistopheles, not only offsets the radiant major keys of the love scene but also confirms their unreality.

The first recall of the introductory leitmotif, now representing Faust’s ill-fated desire for Helen, occurs on violins after he awakens from a blissful B major dream about her and enters his vocal line on his fervent appeal, “Viens à travers les temps, viens à travers les âges.” The ecstatic melodic curve of his “Hélène au front de lys,” immediately echoed by a solo violin, introduces another, contrasting leitmotif into the drama. This new Helen motif is heard again on oboe and flute over rippling harps as Mephistopheles uses his magic powers to summon her from the past and then on violins as, most reluctantly, she appears before them.

Faust’s strategy in winning Helen is to coax her out of her tonal neutrality by means of a lyrical line and caressing major harmonies - which proves to be a gradual process crowned eventually by a passionate duet in E major. It is interrupted, however, by a shrill storm and a chillingly sombre march in E flat minor of the ghosts of all those warriors who died for Helen of Troy. A dramatic trio, for Mephistopheles and the threatened lovers, is cut short by the spectral intervention of Paris and the disaster foreshadowed from the beginning. The sinister leitmotif is heard for the last time on Mephistopheles’s pronouncement of “Sur nous malheur.”

épisode lyrique d’après le second Faust de Goethe

The text prescribed for the Prix de Rome competition in the year Lili Boulanger won the Premier Grand Prix was a “lyric episode” by Eugène Adenis allegedly based on Part Two of Goethe’s Faust. In fact, it has scarcely anything to do with Goethe. It reduces the allegorical marriage of Goethe’s Faust and Helen of Troy to a brief encounter motivated by a counterfeit Faust’s desire to possess the most beautiful woman that ever existed. Adénis’s Helen is summoned by Mephistopheles on Faust’s insistence, warmed by his passion from emotional numbness to erotic ardour, and finally dragged away by the ghost of her Trojan lover, Paris.

One of the extraordinary qualities of Lili Boulanger’s setting of Faust et Hélène - completed, according to the rules of the competition, in four weeks of isolation at the Palais de Compiègne in the summer of 1913 - is that it restores some deeper meaning to the theme. She could have approached the Adénis text entirely on its own terms. Indeed, in the central love scene between Faust and Helen, she misses no opportunity to demonstrate that she has the skill and the inspiration to challenge even Massenet in seductive melody and voluptuous harmony. There is, however, another level to the score expressed in another, overtly Wagnerian operatic language. From the beginning, where a chromatically sinister leitmotif casts a dark shadow over a tonally uncertain orchestral introduction, a premonition of disaster runs through the work.

The fatalistic element in Lili’s setting is not prompted by Adénis’s poem and it is by no means always present in the actual texture of the music. The sinister leitmotif rises frequently to the surface during the course of the work, however, and the uncertain tonality associated with it, coinciding with the negative harmonic quality represented by Mephistopheles, effectively offsets the radiant major keys of the love scene. The first recall of the introductory leitmotif, now representing Faust’s ill-fated desire for Helen after his awakening from a blissful B major dream about her, occurs on violins as he tells Mephistopheles of his passion. It then enters his vocal line with his fervent appeal to her, “Viens à travers les temps, viens à travers les âges.” The ecstatic melodic curve of his “Hélène au front de lys,” immediately echoed by a solo violin, introduces another leitmotif into the drama.

This new Helen motif is heard again on oboe and flute over rippling harps as Mephistopheles uses his magic powers to summon her to them and then on violins as, most reluctantly, she appears before them. Faust’s strategy in winning her over is to coax her out of her tonal neutrality by means of a lyrical line and caressing major harmonies - which proves to be a gradual process crowned eventually by a passionate duet in E major. It is interrupted, however, by a shrill storm and a chillingly sombre march in E flat minor of the ghosts of all those warriors who died for Helen in the past. A dramatic trio for the separated lovers and an implacable Mephistopheles is cut short by the intervention of Paris and the disaster predicted from the beginning. The sinister leitmotif is heard for the last time on Mephistopheles’s pronouncement of “Sur nous malheur.”

épisode lyrique d’après le second Faust de Goethe

The most remarkable aspect of Lili Boulanger’s cantata Faust et Hélène is neither its highly accomplished technique nor its expressive fluency in the accepted musical language of the day, admirable though it is in both those respects. Its inspiration is in the way in which it so convincingly transcends the cheap and rather nasty text prescribed for the Prix de Rome competition in 1913 - a “lyric episode” by Eugène Adenis allegedly based on Part Two of Goethe’s Faust but scarcely worthy of the concentrated attention of the five student competitors who had to live with it for four weeks in strictly supervised isolation at the Palais de Compiègne. Adenis reduces the allegorical marriage of Goethe’s Faust and Helen of Troy to nothing more than a superficially brief encounter spookily ended by the intervention of the jealous ghost of her Trojan lover Paris.

Lili Boulanger’s setting of Faust et Hélène redeems the text by restoring something of the deeper meaning proper to the theme before Adenis distorted it. Any ordinary composer would have opened his or her setting with music appropriate to the erotic dream stimulated in Faust by Mephistopheles and his attendant spirits at the beginning of the poem. As she demonstrates when she comes to it in her setting, Lili has the imagination and the means to create the authentic frisson in this episode, just as later, in the central love scene between Faust and Helen, she proves to have the resources to challenge even Massenet in seductive melody and voluptuous diatonic harmony.

Lili does not open her setting in the predictable way, however. She reserves the blissful B major material associated with Faust’s dream of Helen of Troy until after a dark, tonally uncertain orchestral introduction where she first presents the chromatically sinister leitmotif that is to run through the work as a premonition of ultimate disaster and give it an added dimension of meaning. This fatalistic element in Lili’s setting, expressed in an overtly Wagnerian language, is not prompted by Adénis’s poem and it is by no means always present in the actual texture of the music. The sinister leitmotif rises frequently to the surface during the course of the work, however, and the uncertain tonality associated with it, coinciding with the negative harmonic quality represented by Mephistopheles, effectively offsets the radiant major keys of the love scene.

The first recall of the introductory leitmotif, now representing Faust’s ill-fated desire for Helen after his awakening from his blissful B major dream about her, occurs on violins as he tells Mephistopheles of his passion. It then enters his vocal line with his fervent appeal to her, “Viens à travers les temps, viens à travers les âges.” The ecstatic melodic curve of his “Hélène au front de lys,” immediately echoed by a solo violin, introduces another leitmotif into the drama. This new Helen motif is heard again on oboe and flute over rippling harps as Mephistopheles uses his magic powers to summon her to them and then on violins as, most reluctantly, she appears before them.

Faust’s strategy in winning her over is to coax her out of her tonal neutrality by means of a lyrical line and caressing major harmonies - which proves to be a gradual process crowned eventually by a passionate duet in E major. It is interrupted, however, by a shrill storm and a chillingly sombre march in E flat minor of the ghosts of all those warriors who died for Helen in the past. A dramatic trio for the separated lovers and an implacable Mephistopheles is cut short by the intervention of Paris and the disaster predicted from the beginning. The sinister leitmotif is heard for the last time on Mephistopheles’s pronouncement of “Sur nous malheur.”

Few Prix de Rome pieces have had such success in the real world as Faust et Hélène in the first few years after Lili Boulanger so sensationally won the competition with it. Far from being discarded as an academic exercise, it was not only given several public performances but was also snapped up for publication by Tito Ricordi, who promptly reserved the right to all Lili’s future compositions in return for an annual stipend - which would have been a sound investment but for the composer’s death less than five years later.

Gerald Larner©