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Program
Notes
On Saturday evening, September 16th
we will offer selections from a body of repertoire that is not often heard in
today’s concert halls. (One might call it the hidden Haydn and the missing
Mozart!) It is music of great charm and beauty – quite intimately conceived, in
contrast to the more extroverted and theatrical quality of the later operatic
and vocal music of both composers.
In the early part of his career,
Mozart composed a great variety of music for the Church, both in Salzburg where
he worked, and for the chapels and churches of other cities. Much of this music
is now only rarely heard. One such little-known piece is Misericordias Domini,
an offertory that was composed for use in a Munich church in 1775. In it Mozart
displays his absolute mastery of counterpoint. The key of the work (d minor)
and the mood of most sections remind one very much of the Kyrie from the Requiem
mass composed some sixteen years later. A lyrical passage for the strings,
during which the choir sings a long reciting tone, provides a gentle contrast.
Quirino Gasparini (1721-1778) was a
noted Italian composer of the 18th century who, for the last eighteen years of
his life, was maestro di cappella at Turin cathedral. He was highly
regarded in his day, both for his operatic works and for his fine sacred music.
Leopold Mozart and his son Wolfgang admired his music and apparently had a very
good relationship with him, visiting him in Turin on at least one occasion in
1771. In fact, the piece we will perform on our program, Adoramus Te Christe,
was for decades believed to be composed by Wolfgang Mozart, since it turns up in
a manuscript belonging to him. As was his practice, the younger Mozart copied
out pieces by composers he admired in order to study them.
Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806),
the younger brother of Joseph Haydn, was an extremely fine composer who lived
and worked mostly in the city of Salzburg, serving as court organist and
Kappellmeister for both Archbishop Schrattenbach (a music lover and enthusiastic
patron of the arts) and the more austere and miserly Archbishop Count Hieronymus
Colloredo (with whom Mozart had a chilly relationship). A prolific composer in
many genres, Michael Haydn was arguably more famous and admired in his day than
his revered older brother, who worked in relative anonymity at the Esterhazy
court until universal acclaim came to him in the latter part of his life.
Michael Haydn is today known principally for the beauty and quality of his
church music. Many of his motets display an unbroken link with the stile
antico practice as handed down by Johann Fux and Padre Martini. The motet
Christus Factus Est is a fine example of this style.
Franz Joseph Haydn’s Salve Regina
in g, his second setting of this text, was composed in 1771. Originally the
work was written for four solo voices (“Quattro voci ma soli”), solo organ, and
strings. The character of the solo organ part, which is quite prominent,
suggests that Haydn may have played the part himself in the first performance.
We do not know for what occasion the work was written: possibly for a service at
the Schlosskapelle in Eisenstadt, possibly however for the nearby church of the
Barmherzigen Brüder, with whom Haydn was in friendly contact. He composed the
Missa Sancti Johannes de Deo (the so-called “Little Organ mass”) for this
same church in the middle 1770’s, and this work, too, has an elaborate solo
organ part in the Benedictus.
In 1796, at the age of sixty two,
Joseph Haydn began work on a set of German-language partsongs – his first foray
into this genre. This was a project close to Haydn’s heart, as it was his and
his alone. Haydn’s friend and biographer Greisinger reported that “The songs
were lovingly composed in carefree hours, without a commission”. The poems come
from a single collection, the two volume Lyrische Blumenlese compiled by
Karl Ramler, and containing verses by Austrian poets that were meant to emulate
the style of the Roman poet Anacreon.
Die Harmonie in der Ehe - In
this song of praise to matrimonial concord, the poet lists the husband’s
pleasures – each of which, he says in the same breath, the wife likes also.
Haydn makes a little dramatic dialogue of the poem, having the men of the chorus
represent the husband and the women the wife.
Der Greis - Haydn must have
been astonished and pleased to find a poem that fit his own biography. At
sixty-four, he felt his age and lamented his failing memory and intellect,
noting his inability to concentrate easily. Haydn identified with the piece so
closely that he had its opening measure (“Gone is all my strength”) printed on
his greeting card.
Abendlied zu Gott - This poem
of trust, faith, and humility before God is originally in five stanzas, only the
first of which Haydn set to music. In the piety of the musical setting one is
reminded of Haydn’s beloved oratorio “The Creation” (1801), in which each chorus
expresses its admiration and love of God the creator.
Die Beredsamkeit – Water,
taken for granted today as a healthy drink, was long considered an unpleasant
and potentially dangerous fluid in the 18th century. European writings for two
millennia have cautioned of the dangers of water, which was often polluted, and
the virtues of wine, which was tasty and wholesome. The poem speaks of the
ability of wine to inspire the inner muse, making one eloquent, while water
makes one “stumm” (mute).
Much of the church music that Mozart
composed during the 1770’s conforms to the performing traditions that were
widely observed in Salzburg. The reforms of church music imposed by Archbishop
Colloredo are described by Mozart in an oft-cited letter to Padre Martini of 4th
September 1776 (‘a mass, with the whole Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the
epistle sonata, the offertory or motet, the Sanctus and the Agnus, must last no
more than three-quarters of an hour’). These constraints explain the brevity
and style of the charming Missa Brevis in F (1774) which features a
minimum of word repetition, simple chordal declamation as well as unbroken
settings of the Gloria and Credo without elaborate final fugues. The scoring of
the mass is for a “church trio” of two violins and bass (and organ). It was
common practice in Austrian churches to reinforce the alto, tenor, and bass
vocal lines by doubling each with a sackbut (a precursor of the modern trombone
but softer in timbre). We have dispensed with these for our performance, and
the result is a chamber music texture of great transparency.
Paul Flight/H.C. Robbins-Landon/Gordon Paine
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