Concerts “Triomphe(s) de Napoléon” > the “Dirge” composed for Napoleon’s funeral on St Helena in 1821 played for the first time in 200 years
On 5 October 2021, probably for the first time in 200 years, the music that accompanied the Emperor’s coffin to his tomb on 9 May 1821 was resurrected. It had been arranged for brass and percussion by Peter Hicks and was performed by musicians from the French Military ‘Garde Républicaine’ band in the Cathedral of Saint-Louis des Invalides, Paris.
The ‘Dirge’ by Charles McCarthy, specially composed for Napoleon’s funeral on St Helena in May 1821, was the highlight of a programme of music associated with the life and death of the Emperor, conceived and directed by Peter Hicks (musician and choirmaster, manager of international affairs at the Fondation Napoléon), presented and narrated by Thierry Lentz (Director of the Fondation Napoléon) on 5 and 6 October 2021.
The two concerts, entitled “Triomphe(s) de Napoléon” [“Napoleon’s Triumph(s)”], were co-produced by the Fondation Napoléon and the Musée de l’Armée [the French Army Museum], inaugurating the concert series entitled “Bicentenaire de la mort de Napoléon” [Bicentenary of Napoleon’s death] at the Musée de l’Armée.
The ‘Dirge’ by Charles McCarthy was specially composed for Napoleon’s funeral on St Helena in May 1821. A score for this composition was mentioned by Arnold Chaplin in a note in his St. Helena’s Who’s Who (1919) as ‘possibly the only one in existence’, belonging to a certain ‘Miss Owen’. The score was rediscovered a hundred years later, in November 2019, by Charles-Eloi Vial (curator of the manuscript department of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) in the Rohan Chabot archive at the Fondation Josée and René de Chambrun in Paris.
The hand-written document, which bears the inscription “Dirge composed expressly for the Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon by Ch. McCarthy of the late St Helena Band, May 1821”, is on display until 31 October 2021 at the exhibition “Napoleon is no more“, at the Musée de l’Armée, a Fondation Napoléon / Musée de l’Armée coproduction.
Listen to a recording of the “Dirge” composed for Napoleon’s funeral in 1821 by Charles McCarthy (video)
Discover the full programme of the two concerts “Triomphe(s) de Napoléon”.
with
Véronique Chevallier, soprano
Benoit Porcherot, tenor
Académie symphonique de Paris (director Jérôme Treille), orchestra
Les Voix Impériales, choir
Andrew Dewar, organ
Peter Hicks, direction
Thierry Lentz, narrator
(with musicians from the French Military ‘Garde Républicaine’ band, for the concert on 5 October)
At the end of the concert was performed an “encore”: the famous “Chant du Départ” (video) – with triangle solo, Thierry Lentz
