[#288] January 27, 2025
1952/2016 | Wind Orchestra | Grade 6 | 10’-15’ | Suite
Rites, by Belgian composer Jean Absil, is our Composition of the Week.
Rites, written in 1952 (sometimes referred to as Les Rites) is a suite in three movements, dedicated to the Belgian Guides Wind Orchestra, who premiered the work at the Belgian radio INR, on December 7, 1952.
Rites was reedited in 2016. The edition conserves the original instrumentation, notably the use of alto-horns and the baritone horn but marked optional in the score.
Rites has duration of about 15 minutes. Its three movements are:
1. Pour saluer l'aurore (Salutation of the Dawn)
2. Pour conjurer les Esprits (Speech of the Spirits)
3. Pour fêter le Soleil (Celebration of the Sun)
“Pour saluer l'aurore” (Greeting of the dawn) describes the awakening of nature with a hymn to the morning light. From a mysterious atmosphere, a hymn to light grows and breaks through, as nature awakens. This “dawn music” increases in intensity, to burst with full force in an orchestral tutti.
In the second movement, “Pour conjurer les Esprits” (To Conjure the Spirits), the spirits burst in, sowing panic until tempers eventually return to calm.
The third part “Pour fêter le Soleil” (To Celebrate the Sun) describes a grandiose homage to the sunlight during a lustful and rhythmic bacchanal, in which the initially evoked themes alternate in this fiery dance. It is the feast of light. The dance is full of intensity, color, and rhythm. The dawn theme of the first part is now repeated several times, blending with those of the dance, arriving at an apotheotic final tutti.
Rites is a classic of the European repertoire for wind orchestra. It carries within itself the heritage of an aesthetic strongly established on the continent, dating back to the time of the French Revolution, with the “Garde Republicaine”, where the taste for a rich and complete orchestration, from the use of complete instrumental families, such as the saxhorns, has been has been the common feature for many of Absil's compatriot composers, such as Strens, Poot, Brenda, Schoemaker or his own master, Paul Gilson.
Absil brings together in a single synthesis the French School, Stravinsky, Bartók - whom he greatly admired, and whose example he followed in studying the traditional music of Romania and other countries - as well as polytonal, atonal and symphonic music.
All these influences are palpable in Rites.
Jean Absil studied organ and harmony at the Brussels Conservatoire from 1913, but upon graduating, decided to concentrate on composition instead.
In 1922 Absil won the Belgian Prix de Rome and in 1934 the Prix Rubens, which allowed him to travel to Paris. Here, he met fellow contemporary composers Ibert, Milhaud, and Honegger. Absil gained international prominence with the premiere of his first piano concerto (op. 30), composed for the 1938 Queen Elizabeth Competition for Piano (Ysaye).
From 1930 onwards, Absil taught harmony at the Brussels Conservatoire, becoming a professor of counterpoint there six years later. Amongst his Conservatoire pupils was Paul Danblon.
He also taught at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth and the Etterbeek Music School. During this period also, he was, with Charles Leirens, the first editor of the Revue Internationale de Musique (1936–1952). From 1955 he served as a member of Belgium's Royal Academy.
Initially, Absil was influenced by the late Romantic school, particularly Wagner and Richard Strauss. Around the time he made his trip to Paris in 1934, he began to adopt a more modern style. This included the use of polyphony and polymodal structures, influenced by contemporary composers such as Milhaud and Schoenberg.
Unusually prolific from his 20s to his late 70s, Absil concentrated especially on writing piano works; he was himself a skilled pianist. His last finished composition was the Piano Concerto no. 3, op. 162.
Non-piano music of Absil's includes one opera, Les Voix de la Mer (whose overture he transcribed for band), and a cycle of five symphonies, the first of which (op. 1) he composed at 27, when he was a pupil of Paul Gilson.
Jean Absil won the Prix Agniez in 1921.
Other works for winds include:
· Rhapsodie Flamande Op. 4 (1928)
· Rhapsodie Brésilienne Op.81 (1953)
· Roumaniana op. 92 (1956)
· Danses Bulgares, Op. 103 (1959)
· Fantaisie – Capriccio, Op. 152
· Rhapsodie No.5 Op. 102
· Suite Bucolique
Transcriptions of his own works for wind orchestra
· Croquis Sportifs, Op. 85 (1954)
· Les Voix de la mer, Op. 75 (Opera, 1951), overture.
· Nymphes et Faunes, Op. 130
· Suite Pastorale Op. 37