Marche funèbre

Scoring: 2 Ob, 2 Clt, Fg, CFg, 2 Cor, 2 Tr, 3 Trb, Perc, 2 Vl, Va, Vc, Cb

Cherubini’s "Marche funèbre" is in the tradition of the funeral music of the French Revolution. The work was composed in 1820 on the occasion of the solemn funeral services for Charles Ferdinand of Bourbon, the Duke of Berry, who was the victim of an assassination when leaving the Paris Opera. In the piece the regular, penetrating beat of the tam tams and the drum roll which follows, the dark-sounding colors and the painful dissonances leave their mark on the funeral march, which suggests that for a performance this work could be combined with either of Cherubini’s settings of the Requiem text