Giacomo Meyerbeer "Les Huguenots" Act IV, no. 23B, beginning of "Benediction of the Swords" - Deutsche Oper Berlin
Dr Takt is our man behind the score. He is very familiar with the work and reveals to us its special moments. This time:
Giacomo Meyerbeer "Les Huguenots" Act IV, no. 23B, beginning of "Benediction of the Swords"
This is the fifth episode in our series of videos with Dr Takt
Les Huguenots
Grand Opéra by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Conductor: Alexander Vedernikov
Director: David Alden
With Liv Redpath, Seth Carico, Philipp Jekal, Olesya Golovneva, Irene Roberts, Anton Rositskiy, Andrew Harris et al.
2, 9 February; 1, 8 March 2020
With the "Benediction of the Swords", the leaders of the French Catholic Party seek to use religion to justify the massacre of the French Protestants on St. Bartholomew's Day. Underscoring the scene is a nervously progressing, dotted rhythm. Meyerbeer overlays this with a melody beginning with long A flat and B notes, to then revert back to the keynote of the dotted rhythm. It is interesting how this builds up tension. The tenor switches from A flat to B, while the other male voices continue to sing A flat. The dissonance of A flat and B is heard in a heavy beat at the beginning of the rhythm, and only later does it transition into the third of G and B as a suspended note. It is not such a suspended note that is unusual, but rather the manner in which it is introduced. A melodic contour is not "moving downward" toward a bottom part, but is rising up to a cohesive fundamental. The result is a striking moment of sound as a cipher for the suspenseful scene.
