Walter Braunfels: Jeanne d'Arc

Walter Braunfels’ music died twice: first, when the Nazis declared it “degenerate art”; and again when post-war Germany had little use for the various schools of tonal music. This was the period when arbiters of taste considered any form of romantic music – which meant practically the whole pre-war aesthetic – to be tainted. We now reach the 10th volume in Capriccio’s Braunfels Edition, which features one of his most popular operas. What makes Jeanne d’Arc such an uncommonly effective music drama is not only the frequently sumptuous, post-romantic musical language, but also the libretto, which was assembled by Braunfels himself. The central thread of Joan of Arc’s story is known well enough: her vision, her contribution to the liberation of Orléans and the coronation of the Dauphin, and her subsequent arrest, trial, and burning at the stake. Braunfels somehow managed to put together a libretto from the original 15th-century French and Latin documentation of Joan of Arc’s trial, a snippet from George Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan, and his own writing, which together make this story and its characters – in many ways so far removed from a modern audience’s sensibilities and experience – relatable to listeners today.