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.

Simon le Cyréneen aide Jésus à porter sa Croix

The Gospel texts do not give us much information about Simon from Cyrene, except that he was compelled by the soldiers to carry the cross for part of the way. Dupré does not seem to reflect so much on the soldiers or the compulsion, but on the help given. Two registrations carry the whole movement, a flute with more-or-less perpetual motion and a lot of chromaticism, and a stronger reed. The reed part is more structural and played with in a couple of ways: first that it often sounds the same pitch classes two octaves apart (by coupling a positif reed to the pedals) and second that these octave doublings come in canon as well as later in rhythmic unison. I hear these as the stronger arms of the passing stranger, assisting the weakened Christ to bear the load.

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