Download Programme Notes - Sage Gateshead

saturday 28 january 2012
Northern sinfonia
Hall one, The Sage Gateshead
Programme Notes
VIVALDI L’ESTRO ARMONICO: CONCERTO FOR FOUR VIOLINS
IN E MINOR, OP.3
ALLEGRI MISERERE MEI, DEUS
PACHELBEL CANON
GIBBONS THE SILVER SWAN
INTERVAL
VIVALDI OSTRO PICTA, ARMATA SPINA
VIVALDI GLORIA
VIVALDI 1678-1741
L’ESTRO ARMONICO OP.3, NO.4:
CONCERTO FOR FOUR VIOLINS IN E
MINOR, RV 550
Andante – Allegro assai – Adagio – Allegro
CONCERTO GROSSO
This was an early form of concerto,
at its height in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, in which a small
group of musicians – referred to as a
concertino or concertante – play in
alternation, contrast and combination
with the larger body of the orchestra,
known as the ripieno.
RITORNELLO
Italian for ‘little return’, in which the
orchestra picks up the soloist’s previous
musical statement before ‘returning’ it.
His appointment as a master of music
at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà in 1703
opened up a world of opportunity to the
recently ordained Antonio Vivaldi.
The Pietà was an institution for orphaned
and homeless girls which, for many
of the youngsters, also acted as a
conservatory to develop their musical
education.
Vivaldi – or the Red Priest, as he was
nicknamed, in reference to the russet
colouring of his hair – found himself in
charge of a skilful and versatile group of
players and singers.
Although initially engaged to teach
violin, he was soon given responsibility
for orchestral and choral direction, the
composition of works for performance
at the Pietà, as well as buying and
maintaining the musical instruments.
Under Vivaldi’s supervision this ‘figlie
di coro’ section of the orphanage proficient in an unusually wide range
of instruments - was able to extend its
considerable reputation across Europe.
The girls played for the Venetian nobility
and for honoured foreign guests. One
impressed visitor to the Pietà, the
French scholar and historian Charles
de Brosses, wrote home in the late
1730s that the girls were “trained solely
to excel in music. What is more, they
sing like angels and play the violin, the
recorder, the organ, the oboe, the cello
and bassoon – in short, there is no
instrument, however unwieldy, that can
frighten them”.
As the young musicians’ reputation
grew so did Vivaldi’s proficiency in
composing for the instruments tailored
to the skills available to him, dramatically
demonstrating an appreciation of the
capabilities, and limits, of the individual
instruments as well as an ability to
engage them in dialogue, in imitation and
in contrast.
Here we are presented with the many
inventive strokes Vivaldi used to
transform the concerto grosso form, in
particular the rhythmic, sweeping drive
of the opening movements, the song-like
charm of the slow middle sections and
the energetic finales. Then there is the
recurring refrain, known as a ritornello,
for the full orchestra in the faster outer
movements – very much a Vivaldi
trademark.
The dynamics of sudden changes of pace
and expressiveness in the music were
also new. De Brosses was astonished
by “the art of increasing or diminishing
the sound, which I could term the art
of nuances and shading” which he
encountered for the first time in the
Venetian’s concertos.
CORELLI
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) was Italy’s
most influential violinist and composer of
the Baroque period. Born at Fusignano,
near Ravenna, as a composer he more
or less confined himself to solo and trio
sonatas and concerti grossi, but of these
he proved an enduring master.
ANDANTE
Flowing along.
RV550
The number preceded by these initials,
standing for Ryom Verzeichnis (Ryom
Catalogue), refers to the modern
cataloguing of the composer’s works by
the Danish musicologist Peter Ryom. His
‘Verzeichnis der Werke Antonio Vivaldis’,
which included recent discoveries, was
compiled in 1974 and revised in 1979.
lavished praise
Pope Clement XIV also made the
young Mozart a Knight of the Golden
Spur, an order of chivalry recognising
contributions to the glory of the Catholic
Church.
Martini
The Italian musician (1706-1784) ran
a composition school in Bologna, and
Johann Christian Bach was one of his
students. He also owned a massive
library of musical literature, estimated by
Burney to include 17,000 volumes.
Vivaldi’s first published collection of
concertos pre-dates that which included
‘The Four Seasons’ by fourteen years.
Entitled ‘L’estro armonico’ – roughly
translated as ‘the harmonic whim’ or
‘inspiration’ – the dozen short works
shook the musical world when they
came out in 1711, even though that world
was more confined to cities of northern
Europe, and especially of Germany, than
to Vivaldi’s Venetian homeland. Even
so, it is believed manuscripts of the
concertos were in circulation among
enthusiasts across Europe several years
before they reached the printer.
These concertos introduced a passionate
intensity the form had lacked under the
more courtly and buttoned-up approach
of composers such as Corelli, who had
nevertheless been a great influence on
Vivaldi.
There are four each for solo violin, two
and four violins, and they particularly
fascinated the young Johann Sebastian
Bach.
A sense of dramatic events to come
pervades the orchestra’s Andante
opening bars of the fourth concerto, RV
550, with the violin soloists harmonising
with that mood in succession.
This solemn gravity is immediately
dispersed by the Allegro assai, which
drives forward at a hectic pace.
There is the briefest of moments for
contemplation in the following Adagio
before the Allegro bursts in for a robust
finale.
© Richard C Yates
ALLEGRI 1582-1652
MISERERE MEI, DEUS
A certain teenager by the name of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, on tour in
Italy with his father, must have been
shaking in his shoes as he waited to be
hauled before the Pope to answer for an
outrageous crime.
Days earlier, back home in Salzburg,
the fourteen-year-old’s horrified mother
feared for her talented boy’s soul after
husband Leopold wrote: “You have
often heard of the famous ‘Miserere’ in
Rome, which is so greatly prized that
the performers are forbidden on pain of
excommunication to take away a single
part of it, copy it or to give it to anyone.
“But we have it already. Wolfgang has
written it down.”
For many years Gregorio Allegri’s
‘Miserere mei, Deus’, a setting of Psalm
51, had been jealously guarded by the
Vatican and sung in the Sistine Chapel
only twice a year during Holy Week. In
reality three copies existed in 1770, the
year of the Mozarts’ visit: one in the
keeping of the King of Portugal, another
held by Italian composer and music
theorist Padre Giovanni Martini, and the
third locked away in Vienna’s imperial
library.
Even so, the papal authorities weren’t
going to discourage the widespread
popular belief that excommunication
from the Catholic Church was the
penalty for anyone bold or foolish
enough to spirit away this transcendent
music to anywhere beyond the chapel’s
walls.
It certainly took some nerve for Wolfgang
to do what he did. Accompanied by his
father, he attended the Wednesday Holy
Week service and, after hearing the
‘Miserere’, returned to their lodgings and
wrote down the music from memory.
He then decided some final touches
were needed. We don’t know whether
Wolfgang was advised to ‘keep it under
your hat’ – but that’s exactly what he
did on returning for the Good Friday
rendition, sneakily extracting his rolledup manuscript from his headgear and
jotting down a few amendments.
Word of his brazen stunt soon got out,
and the youngster was summoned to
appear before Pope Clement XIV. In the
event, to the surprise of many – and very
much to the relief of the Mozart family –
Wolfgang was commended rather than
condemned. The pontiff lavished praise
on his musical genius and congratulated
him on his audacious enterprise.
That August, Leopold travelled with his
son to Bologna for some tuition from
Padre Martini and it was there that they
were introduced to the English music
historian Charles Burney. From this
point on, the ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ broke
free from its Vatican confines. Burney
obtained a copy – either of the one
in Martini’s possession or Wolfgang’s
transcription – and published it in
London in 1771. The Vatican ban was
subsequently lifted.
After first hearing the ‘Miserere’, Leopold
Mozart acutely observed that “the
manner of performance contributes
more to its effect than the composition
itself”. The elaborate ornamentations
to the piece – never written down but
passed on over the years from choir
members to their successors – were
what made it so prized and jealously
protected by the Vatican. Although
Wolfgang’s ‘bootleg’ manuscript of a live
performance must have included these
artistic extras, they were not reproduced
various composers
Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt made
theirs in the early 1830s, and the Roman
priest Pietro Alfieri published an edition
in 1840 which purported to be the
closest to Sistine Chapel performance
practice.
Tenebrae
In Latin, ‘shadows’ or ‘darkness’.
in Burney’s published version. Other
transcriptions by various composers
followed with their own embellishments,
and the fame of ‘Miserere mei, Deus’
spread across Europe.
In the 1960s Worcester Cathedral
organist and choirmaster Sir Ivor Atkins
edited a version of the ‘Miserere’ in
English that took into account Burney’s
and Mendelssohn’s transcriptions, and
which made the work a popular classic.
Allegri’s serene setting of Psalm 51
richly deserves its legendary reputation.
It was composed in the 1630s for two
choirs set apart – one of five and one of
four voices. The five-voice choir sing the
basic original chant while the smaller
ensemble add their ornamented form of
commentary – including the celebrated
part for soprano voice which soars spinetinglingly to a ‘top C’. The choirs take it
in turn to sing the nineteen verses, with
both joining together at the end.
It was originally intended for the final
ceremony in the first lesson of the
Tenebrae service. In Rome the practice
was that twenty-seven candles would be
extinguished one by one, symbolising the
darkening of the light of Christ. At the
final candle the Pope would kneel before
the altar while the ‘Miserere’ was sung.
© Richard C Yates
ALLEGRI MISERERE MEI, DEUS
ALLEGRI MISERERE MEI, DEUS
Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam
misericordiam tuam.
Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele
iniquitatem meam.
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea: et a peccato meo
munda me.
Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco: et
peccatum meum contra me est semper.
Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificeris
in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris.
Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in
peccatis concepit me mater mea.
Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti: incerta et occulta
sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi.
Asperges me hysopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et
super nivem dealbabor.
Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam: et
exsultabunt ossa humiliata.
Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis: et omnes
iniquitates meas dele.
Cor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spiritum rectum
innova in visceribus meis.
Ne proiicias me a facie tua: et spiritum sanctum tuum
ne auferas a me.
Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui: et spiritu principali
confirma me.
Docebo iniquos vias tuas: et impii ad te convertentur.
Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae:
et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam.
Domine, labia mea aperies: et os meum annuntiabit
laudem tuam.
Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique:
holocaustis non delectaberis.
Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus: cor contritum,
et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.
Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua Sion: ut
aedificentur muri Ierusalem.
Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiae, oblationes, et
holocausta: tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.
Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness
According to the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine
offences.
Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse
me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults: and my sin is ever before
me.
Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy
sight: that Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and
clear when Thou art judged.
Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: and in sin hath my
mother conceived me.
But lo, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shalt
make me to understand wisdom secretly.
Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:
Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness: that the
bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.
Turn Thy face from my sins: and put out all my misdeeds.
Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit
within me.
Cast me not away from Thy presence: and take not Thy
Holy Spirit from me.
O give me the comfort of Thy help again: and stablish me
with Thy free Spirit.
Then shall I teach Thy ways unto the wicked: and sinners
shall be converted unto Thee.
Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou that art
the God of my health: and my tongue shall sing of Thy
righteousness.
Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord: and my mouth shall
show Thy praise.
For Thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee:
but Thou delightest not in burnt offerings.
The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and
contrite heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise.
O be favourable and gracious unto Sion: build Thou the
walls of Jerusalem.
Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifice of
righteousness, with the burnt offerings and oblations:
then shall they offer young calves upon Thine altar.
PACHELBEL 1653-1706
CANON IN D
basso ostinato
In which a bass instrument repeats a
musical phrase.
Johann Pachelbel, born and buried in
Nuremberg, was a highly regarded
organist and a prolific composer who
was a great influence upon his younger
German contemporary Johann Sebastian
Bach. He was also for a time tutor to
Bach’s elder brother, Johann Christoph.
Pachelbel was deputy organist at St
Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna from 167376 and held other such posts in Eisenach,
Erfurt and Stuttgart.
His church music, much of it written for
the Lutheran ritual, is at long last winning
the attention of scholars and is due for a
revival, but Pachelbel’s reputation with
the music-lover at large firmly rests with
the sublime ‘Canon in D’ – sometimes
performed with a Gigue – originally for
three violins and basso ostinato.
It presents no fewer than twenty-eight
variations with the violins playing the
canon – a contrapuntal form in which
the same melody is played by the
instrumental voices, but with each
beginning slightly after the preceding one
– in two-bar sections.
The ‘Canon in D’ became a popular hit in
1980 after its theme was used by Robert
Redford in ‘Ordinary People’, his first film
as a director and which starred Donald
Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore. It is
also played a lot at weddings.
© Richard C Yates
GIBBONS 1583-1625
THE SILVER SWAN
madrigal
From the old Italian ‘matricale’, meaning
‘pastoral in the mother-tongue’, these
were first sung in Italy towards the end
of the thirteenth century and arrived
in England through Italian musicians
appointed to the court of Elizabeth I.
Madrigal texts draw upon amorous,
satirical or allegorical subjects.
The myth that mute swans only sing
in the moment before their death
inspired Orlando Gibbons to compose
this, possibly the most famous English
madrigal.
He sang in the Choir of King’s College,
Cambridge between 1596-98, and was
appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel
Royal by James I where he served as
organist until his death through apoplexy
at the age of 41.
One of the greatest and most versatile
of the early English composers, he wrote
several madrigals, many keyboard works,
as many as thirty fantasias for viols and a
number of verse anthems.
‘The Silver Swan’ appeared in 1612 in his
only published collection, ‘The First Set of
Madrigals and Mottets, apt for Viols and
Voyces’.
© Richard C Yates
GIBBONS THE SILVER SWAN
The silver swan, who, living, had no note,
When Death approached, unlocked her
silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy
shore,
Thus sang her first and last, and sang no
more:
“Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close
mine eyes!
More geese than swans now live, more
fools than wise.”
motet
A short choral work, usually in Latin, for
church performance. In many ways it
is the sacred equivalent of the secular
madrigal and usually – though not in
this case – performed without musical
accompaniment.
recitative
Declamatory speech-like singing used in
opera or oratorio where it helps to move
the story along.
VIVALDI 1678-1741
OSTRO PICTA, ARMATA SPINA, RV 642
Allegro – Recitativo – Allegro
Antonio Vivaldi wrote this motet-like
piece with the intention of it being
heard in advance of a performance
of his ‘Gloria’ RV 589. This musical
appetizer – ‘Introduzione al Gloria’, as
he termed it – takes the form of two
arias either side of a recitative section,
for soprano, strings and continuo,
together serving as a prelude to the
main work’s liturgical text.
This vivacious music, thought to date
from about 1715, also hints at the
Venetians’ new appetite for opera,
which Vivaldi was swift to satisfy.
The content is devout enough –
contrasting the transient beauty of
the wild rose against the everlasting
glory of the Virgin Mary – but its joyful
expression is very much of this world.
© Richard C Yates
VIVALDI OSTRO PICTA, ARMATA SPINA
VIVALDI OSTRO PICTA, ARMATA SPINA
Allegro
Ostro picta armata spina
summo manet quae superba
floruit pulchra vaga rosa.
Allegro
Crimson-dyed and armed with thorns,
Greater than all in pride and beauty,
Bloomed the wild rose.
Jam declinans vespertina
pallet, languet, velut herba
nec odora, nec Formosa.
But now at day’s decline
She pales and languishes, like any weed,
Bereft of scent and beauty.
Ostro picta armata spina, etc.
Crimson-dyed and armed with thorns, etc.
Recitativo
Sic transit vana,
et brevis originem suam
traxit ex alto,
non fluxa, sed aeterna,
et quae sanctorum est
gloria divina
semper crescit eundo.
Virgo in Maria electa
omnipotentis Filii
typus humilitatis
dum hodie visitatur
humilis, pura, et pia
mage exaltatur.
Recitativo
So passes the vain
and short-lived glory of this world:
but having its source
in Heaven,
where the holy ones are,
not fleeting but eternal,
the divine glory diminishes not.
The Virgin Mary, chosen one
of the almighty Son,
pattern of humility,
because of this day’s visitation will, in her humility and
purity and holiness,
be exalted.
Allegro
Linguis favete,
omnes silete
voces prophanae,
et tantum resonet
Pax in terra,
et in Coelo Gloria.
Jam fausti diei
tam magnae rei
currat festivitas,
laeta solemnitas,
atque memoria.
Allegro
Let all tongues be silent,
and be silent
all profane voices;
let only this resound,
‘Peace on earth
and glory in Heaven.’
Now let this happy day,
this great event,
pass with rejoicing,
solemn celebration,
and remembrance.
Linguis favete, etc.
Let all tongues be silent, etc.
VIVALDI 1678-1741
GLORIA IN D MAJOR, RV 589
Allegro: Gloria in excelsis Deo (Chorus)
Andante: Et in terra pax (Chorus)
Allegro: Laudamus te (Soprano & Mezzo Soprano)
Adagio: Gratias agimus tibi (Chorus)
Allegro: Propter magnam gloriam (Chorus)
Largo: Domine Deus (Soprano)
Allegro: Domine, Fili unigenite (Chorus)
Adagio: Domine Deus, Agnus Dei (Mezzo Soprano & Chorus)
Adagio: Qui tollis peccata mundi (Chorus)
Allegro: Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris (Mezzo Soprano)
Allegro: Quoniam tu solus sanctus (Chorus)
Allegro: Cum Sancto Spiritu (Chorus)
Ordinary
The rule, or book, setting out the
unvarying parts of the Roman Catholic
service, especially those forming a Mass
to be sung.
fugue
A highly complex musical form in which
two or more imitating ‘voices’, vocal or
instrumental, are constructed around
a single theme before they begin to
overlap and transform the music through
elaboration.
version
Turin-born Alfredo Casella (1883-1947),
who pioneered the revival of interest
in Baroque music in Italy, made cuts
to three sections of the ‘Gloria’ and
vamped up the orchestration.
Antonio Vivaldi was very lucky to
have such a proficient group of young
musicians under his charge at the Pietà
orphanage. This gave him plenty of scope
to experiment with new influences and
extend his musical horizons, while at
the same time being comfortable in the
knowledge that his talented girls could
meet most of the challenges.
Settings of the Latin Mass by composers
had become more extensive towards the
end of the seventeenth century, and by
Vivaldi’s time the sections of the Ordinary
were taking on individual characteristics
as far as scoring, tonality, tempo and mood
were concerned.
In this same period the first operas were
beginning to gain popularity. Audiences
were becoming more attuned to
hearing expressive music that was very
different from the formal plainchant and
unaccompanied polyphony they were
accustomed to in church. Vivaldi had
his finger on this pulse and was soon to
become one of opera’s pioneering figures.
The ‘Gloria’, catalogued RV 589 – the later
of two he composed in the key of D major
around 1715 – reflects this new vitality as
well as presenting the composer with a
golden opportunity to indulge in some fugal
exercises.
After its first performances, the ‘Gloria’
was lost for more than two hundred years.
The manuscript was rediscovered in the
late 1920s, stuffed into a forgotten pile
of Vivaldi scores, and was first revived by
the Italian composer Alfredo Casella – in
a version he freely admitted to be an
‘elaboration’. This was performed during
a week-long Vivaldi celebration in Siena
in September 1939, but it was only in
1957 that the fully restored original was
published and performed.
Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria in D’, RV 589 opens with a
rousing instrumental Allegro which gives
prominence to trumpet figures amid the
energetic strings and winds before the
chorus enter with their joyful proclamation.
A very different mood prevails in the
extensive and sombre ‘Et in terra pax’ for
the chorus. ‘Peace on earth’ seems a very
bleak prospect. As Casella commented
while working on his version: “Contrary to
what the words might lead one to expect, it
is a piece suffused with profound sadness”.
Our spirits are restored in the ‘Laudamus
te’ as the soprano and mezzo soprano
soloists revel in a charming duet
accompanied by violin, viola and continuo
that would not be out of place in the opera
house.
Some decorum is restored in the short
‘Gratias agimus tibi’ for the chorus, which
serves as a prelude to ‘Propter magnam
gloriam’ in which Vivaldi indulges his
passionate interest in the fugue.
The mezzo soprano and the chorus engage
in responses in the ‘Domine Deus’, a lyrical
aria in the style of a siciliana – a sedate,
swaying dance much used in Baroque
music to depict melancholy moods, usually
in a pastoral setting. Here Vivaldi offers the
option of violin or oboe to accompany the
soloist’s song.
Vivaldi adopts the fashionable French
style of rhythm to propel the ‘Domine, Fili
unigenite’ forward.
The mood is more measured in the
‘Domine Deus, Agnus Dei’ for the mezzo
soprano and chorus, a dialogue reflecting
the call-and-response pattern within the
Catholic service. Casella said this section
reminded him of the finale to Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony.
The voices of the chorus are in step
with each other in the sombre ‘Qui tollis
peccata mundi’ before the ‘Qui sedes ad
dexteram Patris’ follows, an aria for the
mezzo soprano, delivering her prayer for
the sins of the world to be taken away.
The chorus is now able to rejoice in the
‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus’ as a simplified
version of the opening orchestral
movement of the ‘Gloria’ sweeps in.
The music is triumphant in the joyful
closing movement, ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’,
and the trumpet returns for some spirited
flourishes. The splendour is enhanced
by another showcase for Vivaldi’s fugal
expertise.
© Richard C Yates
VIVALDI GLORIA
VIVALDI GLORIA
Gloria in excelsis Deo
Et in terra pax hominibus
Bonae voluntatis
Laudamus te, benedicimus te,
Adoramus te, glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi
Propter magnam gloriam tuam.
Domine Deus, Rex coelestis,
Deus Pater omnipotens.
Domine Fili unigenite, Jesu Christe.
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris.
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
Miserere nobis.
Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe
deprecationem nostram.
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris,
Miserere nobis.
Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus
Dominus. Tu solus altissimus, Jesu
Christe.
Cum Sancto Spiritu, in gloria Dei Patris.
Amen.
Glory be to God on high
And on earth peace,
Goodwill towards men.
We praise Thee, we bless Thee
We worship Thee, we glorify Thee.
We give thanks to Thee for Thy
great Glory.
O Lord God, heavenly King,
God the Father Almighty.
O Lord the only begotten Son,
Jesus Christ.
O Lord God, Lamb of God,
Son of the Father.
Thou that takest away the sins of the
world, have mercy on us.
Thou that takest away the sins of the
World, receive our prayer.
Thou that sittest at the right hand of the
Father, have mercy on us.
For Thou art holy, Thou only art the Lord,
Thou only, O Jesus Christ, art Most High.
With the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God
the Father.
Amen.