Cantique de Jean Racine Op.11

Written in 1865, more than twenty years before the earliest version of the famous Requiem, Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine is a student work - but no ordinary student work, since it was with this score that he won first prize in composition at the Ecole Niedermeyer and earned his professional credentials. While there might be echoes of Gounod in the piece, there are clear anticipations of the mature Fauré too, like the broken-chord accompaniment that runs throughout, the shapely melodic line and the alluring harmonies. Racine’s text – one of the verse translations he made from hymns in the Roman breviary for a ladies’ seminary at Saint Cyr in the 1650s – cannot have been easy to set. The young composer did it with all apparent ease, however, and with appropriately discreet fervour.

Written in 1865, more than twenty years before the earliest version of the Requiem, the Cantique de Jean Racine is a student work - but no ordinary student work, since it was with this score that Fauré won first prize in composition at the Ecole Niedermeyer and earned his professional credentials. While there might be echoes of Gounod in the piece, there are clear anticipations of the mature Fauré too, like the broken-chord accompaniment that runs throughout, the seductive melodic line and the carressing harmonies. Racine’s text - one of the verse translations he made from hymns in the Roman breviary for a ladies’ seminary at Saint Cyr in the 1650s - cannot have been easy to set. The young composer did it with all apparent ease, however, and with appropriately discreet fervour.