Jules Massenet: Méditation from Thaïs
Composer Jules Massenet
By the end of his long career, Jules Massenet was known somewhat pejoratively among trendy Parisian musical intelligentsia as “la fille de Gounod” – Gounod’s daughter – and this characterization, while undoubtedly unfair, isn’t entirely unreasonable either. Massenet had been Gounod’s student at the Paris Conservatory, and, like his teacher, won the prestigious Rome Prize at 21. Both men were primarily composers of grand opera, and both were popular and prosperous for many years. Both also shared a finely-honed sensibility that struck audiences of the day as, somehow, characteristically feminine, and indeed both were especially popular among female audiences throughout their careers.
Massenet wrote no fewer than 33 operas over the course of four and a half decades, and perhaps inevitably certain formulas crept into his work. Musically, Massenet incorporated a bit of Wagner – lengthy recitatives, less formal closure between the operas’ arias and ensemble numbers – into a French operatic style perfected by Gounod. Thematically, Massenet returned time and again to the character of the reformed courtesan, the beautiful prostitute who finds religion, perhaps becomes a nun, and dedicates her life to God. Massenet himself was not particularly religious (“I don’t believe in all that creeping-Jesus stuff,” he wrote to the composer Vincent D’Indy, “but the public likes it, and we must agree with the public.”), but he wasn’t foolish enough to throw away the recipe for the popular success he so enjoyed.
Thaïs was written in 1874 and is perhaps the finest of Massenet’s reformed-courtesan operas. Set in fourth-century Alexandria, it tells the story of Thaïs, the kingdom’s haughtiest, proudest courtesan, and Athanael, an ardent young monk. Athanael sets out to convert the worldly title character and eventually does, but along the way develops carnal feelings for the beautiful Thaïs with predictably tragic results: this being an opera, everyone dies in the end.
The Meditation is taken from the opera’s second act, and immediately precedes the first appearance of the converted Thaïs in the rough habit of a repentant pilgrim. One of the most dramatic violin solos in all operatic literature, its soaring melodies, and pulsating emotion have made it a favorite of violinists and a hugely popular standalone piece ever since. It is, in a word, gorgeous, and perfectly captures what Debussy called its composer’s “power of pleasing, which, strictly speaking, is a gift.”
Hayden Green, SPYO Concertmaster; violin
Spartanburg Philharmonic’s February 2021 concert titled Soulful Serenade features a solo by a talented young musician Hayden Greene. Hayden is in his second year as the concertmaster of the Spartanburg Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and won the 2021 spring concerto competition. Hayden now joins the string section of Spartanburg Philharmonic in performing the hauntingly beautiful Méditation, an enormous honor and one the young violinist is extremely excited for.
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Chris Vaneman is the Director of the Petrie School of Music and Associate Professor of Flute at Converse College. Chris frequently leads the Spartanburg Philharmonic pre-concert lecture series “Classical Conversations,” and occasionally performs as a substitute flutist in the orchestra.