The story of the play Pelléas et Mélisande is as hazy as the staging of its original director, who draped a gauze veil across the stage. A girl, Mélisande, is found crying at a forest stream by Golaud, who soon marries her. Yet when they return to the family castle, she falls in love with Pelléas, his half-brother. As the title suggests, the story dwells on their affair and the favorite French, late-Romantic themes of water, love, and the natural cycle.
Fauré's concert suite is taken from incidental music composed for an English-language translation of the play produced in London five years after the play's Paris premiere. The Prélude portrays Mélisande's radiant beauty, briefly foreshadows the story's tragedy, and then with horn calls suggests the approach of Golaud to the maiden. Fileuse ("The Spinner") jumps ahead to Act III, introducing a scene where Mélisande, Golaud, and Golaud's son, Yniold, are conversing. The accompanying instruments keep a perpetual thread spinning.
The Sicilienne features a gorgeous melody and has also been published separately for cello and piano. The final scene La mort de Mélisande ("The death of Mélisande") depicts the death of the girl after they are discovered and Pelléas has already been killed and Mélisande has given premature birth to a daughter. Predictably, it has a funereal character and some kindred touches with the composer's beloved Requiem.
© 2008 Tyler S. Clark
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