As we journey through Holy Week, the blog is taking a slightly different format with short reflections on Marcel Dupré’s Le chemin de la croix, a musical version of the Stations of the Cross. Instead of one reflection released on Wednesday, these episodes are to appear through the week from Palm Sunday until Good Friday.

Jésus tombe sous le poids de sa Croix

As the Lord bears the cross through Jerusalem towards the skull, the weight drags on Him. Musically, Dupré gives us descending couplets of notes at a lugubrious tempo. The musical shape of the movement follows a crescendo and diminuendo; arguably, the fall itself is depicted at the end, very quietly and in a contrasting registration to the majority of the piece, the meditation being more on the weight – the weight of the Cross; the weight of the shame. There are moments when the constancy of the laborious journey show flashes of weakness and confusion, musically, from the imposition of triplets over the constant duplets of heavy steps along this portentous route.

Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi: quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum