Schubert: Magnificat
Beethoven: Choral Fantasy
Haydn: Harmoniemesse
The works for chorus and orchestra on tonight's program--created
over the years from 1802 to 1815--are fruits of a remarkable period of
culmination and transition in the field of musical composition in the city
of Vienna. In the late 1790s, even as the Habsburg empire was
disintegrating under the strain of reactionary policies within and
Napoleonic armies without, the Viennese classical style, as exemplified by
the mature concert and chamber works of Haydn and Mozart, was taking over
the concert rooms of Europe. Ludwig van Beethoven, who settled in Vienna in
1792 (partly in order to study with Haydn), assimilated the high classical
style and consolidated his mastery of its forms in a number of works which
were highly successful both in terms of artistry and appeal. Later, in the
decade before Haydn's death in 1809, Beethoven infused expanded classical
forms with a public, oratorical manner, drawn in part from patriotic music
of the French Revolution, to produce the heroic style of his middle period
works.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) grew up toward the end of this great transition,
but he did not come too late to receive his own thorough grounding in the
Viennese classical style. The son of a schoolmaster, Schubert received early
musical instruction from members of his family, then in his ninth year he
began outside studies. After 1808, when he was accepted as a choirboy in
Vienna's imperial court chapel, he began studies at the Imperial and Royal
City College, where he played violin in the student orchestra. After a time,
his studies in musical composition at the college came to be supervised
by the imperial Kapellmeister Antonio Salieri, friend of Haydn, rival of
Mozart, and sometime teacher of Beethoven over the years 1799-1809. After
an initial period of study under Salieri focused on counterpoint exercises
and setting of Italian texts, Schubert began to produce an astonishing variety
of works which reflected both his mastery of his teacher's lessons and his
exposure to "hands-on" musical performance in the chapel choir and the student
orchestra. While he continued his studies with Salieri until late 1816,
he left the court chapel when his voice changed in 1812 and left the imperial
college at the end of 1813 to prepare to take on teaching duties at his
father's elementary school. The demands of teaching notwithstanding, by
the time Schubert composed his Magnificat in September 1815, he had written
his first three symphonies, two masses, a Stabat mater, over a dozen string
quartets, and hundreds of songs, including one of his most famous settings
of verses by Goethe, "Gretchen am Spinnrade."
The Magnificat was one of the hundreds of Schubert's works which
came to light only many years after his death--it was not published until
the first Schubert Gesamtausgabe issued a score in 1888. Though no record
survives of an early performance of the Magnificat, Schubert's
instrumentation (oboes, bassoons, trumpets, tympani, strings, and organ)
suggests that he may have intended it for a festive occasion, perhaps one at
the parish church of the Vienna suburb of Lichtenthal, where Schubert's
first Mass was performed in 1814 under choirmaster Michael Holzer, the young
composer's first teacher in composition. The Magnificat falls into three
sections: two fast movements ("Magnificat anima mea" and "Gloria Patri")
frame a central Andante ("Deposuit potentes"). While the outer sections are
related in character and by thematic materials, there is a progressive
deployment of vocal forces as the movements unfold-full chorus in the first,
four soloists in the second, and chorus with soloists in the third. The
running string figurations and "walking" bass line of the opening Allegro
maestoso suggest that Schubert's singing in the court chapel may have
exposed him to notable earlier settings of the Magnificat text--the beginning
of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Magnificat is one example which comes to
mind. Later in the movement, sopranos, basses, tenors, and altos in
succession sing a rising melody ("Quia respexit"); the contrapuntal
elaboration and harmonic modulationof this theme lead to a return to the
opening "Magnificat" music. Although the central Andante ("Deposuit") has
four vocal soloists, the unusually high soprano part is most prominent and
is often featured in dialogue with the solo oboe in the orchestra (Schubert
may have tailored the soprano part for his friend Therese Grob, also a
singer at the Lichtenthal parish, who was known to have a splendid high D).
The return of fast music for the "Gloria Patri" harkens back to the texture
of the first movement, but the second subject on this occasion is a
descending figure mirroring the earlier "Quia respexit." Though hardly a
masterpiece, the spontaneous lyricism and youthful energy of this Magnificat
promises the mature Schubert. And for an 18-year-old it is a prodigious
effort!
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) conceived his Fantasie for piano, chorus,
and orchestra, op. 80, at the moment he decided he needed a "brilliant
closing piece" (in the words of his student Carl Czerny) for the Akademie
(public concert) of 22 December 1808, which included the first performances
of both his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and the first public performance
of the Fourth Piano Concerto. In retrospect, we may conclude that Beethoven
underestimated the "brilliance" and impact of these three works when he
began to compose the Choral Fantasy, but we can thank this error in judgment
for the piece we hear tonight. The work represents a steady crescendo
of performing forces, opening with an extended fantasia for solo piano,
continuing with a theme and variations for piano and orchestra, and concluding
with a setting of the theme for solo voices, solo piano, chorus, and orchestra.
Working in great haste, Beethoven found the theme for his variations in
a song ("Gegenliebe") he composed in 1794 or 1795; because he envisioned
the Choral Fantasy as a hymn to the art of Music, he asked the poet Christoph
Kuffner to provide new verses for the choral finale:
When music's enchantment reigns
And the poet's words take flight
Then marvellous forms arise
And night and storm turn to light.
Beethoven put the work together on such short notice that at the premiere he had to improvise the introductory piano solo because he had not yet written it down.
Many have noted the similarity between the theme of the Choral
Fantasy's variations and the theme for the "Ode to Joy," also the subject of
variations, in the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Perhaps
the connection is more than a coincidence, because in 1793, not long before
writing his song "Gegenliebe," the young Beethoven announced to a friend his
intention to set to music Schiller's poem "An die Freude," which ultimately
became the text for the choral finale of his last symphony. While the
Choral Fantasy may seem to pale beside the finale of the Ninth, it is
fascinating as a kind of laboratory for Beethoven's thinking about how to
build large musical structures around simple tunes. Also, we cannot ignore
the fact that, during the years before anyone could hear the Ninth Symphony,
the Choral Fantasy became phenominally popular and was published both in its
original version and in arrangements for chamber ensemble and for piano
four-hands.
The final work on tonight's program was the first to be composed: the
1802 Harmoniemesse by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). The term Harmonie in German
signifies a band--an orchestra of wind instruments--and Haydn's last mass
is so named because of its large wind complement: flute, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, two French horns, and two trumpets, in addition
to tympani, strings, and organ. This instrumentation is most directly
due to the decision of Prince Nicolaus II of Esterhazy, whom Haydn served
as Kapellmeister, to retain more wind players for his chapel, but their
availability was an opportunity of which Haydn, near the end of his career,
was especially well poised to take advantage.
Haydn had served the Esterhazy family since 1761, when Prince Paul Anton appointed him as an assistant Kapellmeister for his court at Eisenstadt. In 1766, Haydn was appointed Ober-Kapellmeister, in which post he served Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy for twenty-five years. During that time, Haydn perfected his art in the near-isolation of the provincial court, writing symphonies, chamber music, operas, keyboard works, and over a hundred compositions for the Prince's favorite instrument, the baryton. It was only after Haydn's contract was revised in 1779 to allow him to compose for outside commissions that he began to achieve international fame. In 1785-86, he composed his Symphonies No. 82-87 for a series of concerts in Paris; they were met with such acclaim that he wrote his Symphonies No. 90-92 on a second Parisian commission in 1788-89. In 1790, upon the death of Prince Nikolaus, Haydn was allowed to move to Vienna while retaining his title as Esterhazy Kapellmeister, on full salary but without any real duties or obligations. Learning of Haydn's availability, the impresario J.P. Salomon engaged the composer for two stays in London, 1791-92 and 1794-95. For concerts on these two visits, Haydn composed his twelve "London" Symphonies, No. 93-104.
With the accession of Prince Nikolaus II and the removal of the Esterhazy court to Vienna, Haydn was asked to return to service as Kapellmeister, with responsibilities for church music alone. In fact, his main duty from 1796 to 1802 was the composition of a new mass each summer to celebrate the name day on 8 September of Princess Maria Hermenegild. The results were the six great masses of Haydn's last period of composition, all remembered by nicknames: the Heiligmesse (B-flat major), the Paukenmesse (C major), the Nelsonmesse (D minor), the Theresienmesse (B-flat major), the Schšpfungsmesse (B-flat major), and the Harmoniemesse (B-flat major). Though Haydn had already written eight masses before 1783, these six last masses are a great leap forward. Jens Peter Larsen has written: "Here, as in the London symphonies, it is no longer a question of development or progress within the group. All problems of structure and technique are left behind. The individual character of each mass as a whole and of its separate parts and the wonderfully rich and inexhaustible invention are qualities that by now can be taken for granted. The ingredients of this remarkable synthesis include the symphonic mastery of the orchestral writing, the free and varied handling of the chorus (to some extent reminiscent of Handel's choral style, which had impressed Haydn in London), and the consummate classical simplicity...."
The Harmoniemesse, the longest of the six late masses, contains more "rich and inexhaustible invention" than can be adequately described in this program book, but a few details are certainly worth mentioning. Nothing in the beautiful 16-bar orchestral introduction, whose overall dynamic level is soft, leads us to expect the thunderous entrance of the full chorus ("Kyrie eleison") on a diminished seventh chord rather than the tonic triad of B-flat major. James Webster has written that this outburst "is as astonishing as it is inexplicable; it resonates long afterwards, both in our inner ear and in its consequences for the music." Structurally speaking, this first statement from the choir functions as a powerful upbeat to the real start of the movement's exposition, the bass solo's entrance on the word "Kyrie."
The first theme of the Gloria is sung by the solo soprano, but thereafter its grand opening section unfolds with the forces of full chorus and orchestra. The principal theme of the slower middle section of the Gloria ("Gratias agimus") is sung by the solo voices in succession, starting with the alto. A remarkable instrumental feature of this section is the quick descending quaduplet which follows each singer's completion of the first phrase of the melody; this quadruplet expands into a continuous figure running through the string and wind sections when the choir enters to declaim the words "Qui tollis peccata mundi." The Gloria is capped by another section for massed chorus and orchestra, culminating in a stunning fugato with subject ("in gloria Dei Patris") and countersubject ("Amen") in contrary motion.
The opening section of the Credo is distinguished by the vigorous instrumental writing which contrasts with the less complicated rhythms of the choral statements. The tender lyricism of the ensuing "Et incarnatus est" is riven by the chorus's searing chromatic chords beginning with the word "Crucifixus." In the "Et resurrexit," trumpets, horns, and tympani introduce the words "judicare vivos," one of Haydn's evocations of the trumpet of the Last Judgment. This grand gesture contrasts sharply with the hushed choral declamation of the word "mortuorum," almost a stunned silence, which precedes the brilliant fugue ("Et vitam venturi") which concludes the Credo.
In the Sanctus, the violins comment upon the chromatically inflected choral harmonies with a figure which rises suddenly and falls gently. The suddenly jaunty close of this section features the full wind section in antiphony to the choir's "Hosanna." The sonata movement which is the Benedictus opens with a surprisingly sprightly tune over another "walking" bass line; when the full choir sings the tune pianissimo, it creates a sense of what David Wyn Jones has called "nervous awe." This section is capped by the same "Hosanna" chorus which concluded the Sanctus. The quartet of soloists sings the quietly lyrical Agnus Dei in G major; its pause on the dominant chord of D major prepares a transition to the final section--"Dona nobis pacem," for full chorus and orchestra--which is startling in the context of harmonic practice in the Classical Era. The D-major dominant never resolves to the tonic of G; rather, the full wind section loudly repeats the pitch D in the manner of a victorious military fanfare. This unison becomes an interval which includes the pitch F-natural, then the kettledrum pounds the pitch B-flat to usher in the full chorus in B-flat major. This joyful chorus, written in a time of war, radiates faith in the achievement of ultimate peace. In its final phrase, the choir sings the word "pacem" on a B-flat major arpeggio which traverses the full register of each voice, from top to bottom.
Notes copyright 1999 John Shepard
Riverside Choral Society
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