Richard Emms – Stour Singers

Mozart – Salzburg frustrations

During the reign of Archbishop Schrattenbach the Mozarts had enjoyed recognition, generosity and status (father Leopold was appointed Deputy Kapellmeister).

That all changed in 1772 when Schrattenbach’s successor, Archbishop Colloredo, took the reins. In order to make the church service more intelligible to the general congregation he removed any purely instrumental music, put a strict limit on the length of settings of the mass and instituted hymns to be sung in German. What with other reforms in Salzburg’s musical institutions, the Mozarts found their status compromised. Indeed, Leopold had been expecting promotion to the position of Kapellmeister, but Colloredo preferred Italian musicians.

Leopold found he had a new Kapellmeister, one Domenico Fischietti. They do not seem to have hit it off, and there was clear mutual dislike between Colloredo and the Mozarts.

In 1776 it was hoped Wolfgang would get the job of organist at Trinity Church. Their friend Michael Haydn (Josef’s younger brother) was appointed instead. The friendship ended suddenly amidst great acrimony.

Finally in 1777 Mozart wrote a petition to the Archbishop asking to be released from his employment. Archbishop Colloredo dismissed him, and his father too.

Sparrow Mass K. 220

Mozart composed his Spatzenmesse (Sparrow Mass) K220 when he was in his early 20s – some time between 1775 and 1777. The mass gained its nickname from certain twitterings in the orchestra during the two Hosannahs. It is a charming work, beginning to show some of the intensity of his mature style, but certainly giving no signs of the frustrations of his professional life.

Contretemps with Kuhnau

Kuhnau was J.S.Bach’s very distinguished predecessor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. He was enjoying a glittering career as composer, lawyer, novelist and general man of letters. When he was 41 he was unanimously appointed Kantor at the Thomaskirche, but that was when things started to go downhill.

A young Georg Telemann enrolled at the university, like Kuhnau, to study Law, but he, as did Kuhnau before him, became very active musically. He established a collegium musicum which was a rival to Kuhnau’s establishment and attracted Kuhnau’s musicians and some of his pupils. He even approached the mayor for permission to compose music for the Thomaskirche, utterly undermining Kuhnau. To rub in salt yet further, in 1703, when Kuhnau was suffering one of several periods of illness, the council asked Telemann to succeed him, should he die.

Kuhnau, in fact, lived for a further 21 years.

Magnificat – John Rutter

The UK premiere of John Rutter’s Magnificat was given in Coventry Cathedral, but this was a year after the world premiere, which was in the Carnegie Hall, New York. Indeed, most of Rutter’s larger choral works were written for American choirs.

It is an immediate, tuneful, sunny work, which has the added bonus of being performable by amateurs. Its directness is explained by Rutter himself: he says, ‘In countries such as Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico, feast days of the Virgin are joyous opportunities for people to take to the streets and celebrate with singing, dancing and processions. These images of outdoor celebration were, I think, somewhere in my mind as I wrote, though I was not fully conscious of the fact till afterwards.’* It should be added, that it is highly singable because Rutter happens to write very well for the voice.

His conscious model, however, was J.S.Bach’s Magnificat, specifically the earlier E flat version which has a set of so-called Lauds, or Songs of Praise, which were traditionally inserted amongst the Latin text (these included the popular German hymn, Martin Luther’s Vom Himmel hoch, and the plainsong Virga Jesse floruit). So similarly Rutter has interpolated a setting of the anonymous 15^th century English text Of a rose, and he uses the plainsong tune for the Sanctus, which, again, would not normally be part of the Magnificat. (There are other bits of plainsong lurking amongst the orchestra.) Rutter has also dipped into other ‘traditional’ formal ideas, such as in the Doxology, as it was in the beginning. Here he has employed the common practice of making this a repeat of the opening music (as did Bach (Magnificat), Handel (Dixit Dominus), Vivaldi (Gloria) – and many more).

Rutter has made this piece available in a version for full orchestra and also for a smaller ensemble. Stour Singers will be using the latter version, for the simple reason, the smaller orchestra will fit in the church.

If you would like to listen to John Rutter talking about the Magnificat on YouTube, please click on the following:

Requiem – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1925)

Fauré’s Requiem does not follow the traditional pattern of a mass for the dead. It was not triggered by the death of someone he knew, nor was it a commission. He said it was ‘composed for the pleasure of it’.

It was started when Fauré was 32, and it took him 16 years to finish. It is a wonderfully serene work, despite being composed during what might now be called a protracted ‘mid-life crisis’.

He had been appointed choirmaster at the famous Madeleine church in Paris and had become engaged to Marianne Viardot – he had been in love with her for 5 years. In October Marianne broke off the engagement because she felt, not love for him, ‘only affection mixed with fear’. It appears that behind his outwardly charming manner Fauré hid a darker side.

Fauré was devastated and immediately went away on long travels in Germany, England and Switzerland. He met Liszt twice, but it was Wagner and his operas which particularly fascinated him. Despite this obsession, strangely there is no trace of Wagner in his style of composition.

Eventually returning to Paris aged 38, he married and settled down to the tedium of organising services at the Madeleine, and teaching piano and harmony – what he called his ‘mercenary work’. But his ambition was to flourish as a composer. Sadly the daily grind ensured he only had time to compose during the summer holidays, and he despaired of ever reaching the public. Being so grossly thwarted in his real calling, perhaps it was not surprising that privately he suffered from what he called ‘spleen’, which took the form of depression and anger, perhaps violence. Things did not improve until he was 45, when he did start at last to gain some recognition. He finished work on the Requiem 3 years later, in 1893 (although he would go on to reorchestrate it in 1900).

Considering the turbulence of his spirit during its composition, the serenity of the Requiem is quite extraordinary.

Bach Cantata No.191 Gloria

Much of Bach’s prodigious output consists of re-workings of previous compositions.

This is true of Cantata 191. It is described by Bach as a Christmas Cantata, and it is entirely a reworking of parts of the Gloria from his Mass in B minor. For the first movement he has used the chorus Gloria in excelsis – et in terra pax from the Mass unchanged, and the following duet is the Domine Deus from the Mass sung to the words ‘Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui sancto’. The cantata concludes with the chorus Sicut erat in principio.The music for this is the chorus Cum sancto spiritu which concludes the Gloria in the Mass. The words Sicut erat don’t fit the original, so he has modified the beginning so that they do.

So we get a small insight into the way Bach worked. There are many more examples of reworkings to hand, since all the Mass in B minor apart from the Kyrie and the Gloria consists of reworkings of previous cantatas.

St.Thomas’s new Kantor

When Kuhnau died in June 1722 the Leipzig authorities needed to find a new Kantor for the Thomaschule. This was a prestigious post and there were six applicants. The obvious front-runner was Georg Philip Telemann,

who was very highly regarded and already had connections with St. Thomas’s. He showed definite signs of accepting the post, but the Hamburg Senate tried to block his acceptance. Telemann argued that if they wanted him to remain in Hamburg they should raise his salary. This they duly did, and he duly stayed.

So Leipzig looked to their
2^nd choice, Christoph Graupner, who was Kappelmeister in Darmstadt and one of Kuhnau’s distinguished pupils. Graupner was keen to accept, until Darmstadt offered to increase his salary and improve his status – an offer he could not refuse.

This left them with the 3^rd choice.

Councillor Platz observed, ‘As the best man cannot be got, we must make do with the mediocre’ – namely one J.S.Bach!

One of the duties of the position was that they should teach the boys Latin. All of the applicants refused to accept this, but the upshot was that Bach, as successful applicant, had to employ a Latin teacher and pay him out of his own salary.

Johann Kuhnau (1660 – 1722)

Johann Kuhnau (1660 – 1722) was Bach’s predecessor as Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, something of a renaissance man, and at the time considered to be the equal of Handel and Telemann, – certainly superior to J.S.Bach. He published an important body of keyboard music (including the first keyboard sonata published by a German composer); but his cantatas were not published and are mostly lost – just a few have been found amongst Bach’s huge collection of cantatas. Uns ist ein Kind geboren is one such. It was indeed assumed in the 19^th century to be by Bach himself – Cantata 142, but Bach scholars have long been questioning this.

He was born Johann Kuhn in 1660. His parents were Czech, but being protestants, they had fled to the mountains on the border of Germany to avoid the scourge of the Counter-Reformation.

At the age of 10 Johann went to Dresden to be educated, since he was an exceptionally clever child; he also had a fine voice. Dresden was the home of the court of the Elector of Saxony, Johann Georg II. In 1667, the Elector was offered the presidency of the Fruitbearing Society, which he accepted. The Fruitbearing Society’s main aim was to establish German as the official court language throughout the Holy Roman Empire (rather than French). The Elector also strove to make Dresden a major cultural centre & to this end brought distinguished artists, writers and musicians into his court. His activities as a patron left considerable debts for his descendants to deal with, but it was an environment greatly conducive to the education of young Johann Kuhn. In Dresden he received an education that included French and Italian, the languages of the court; and he sang, learned the organ and composed music much appreciated by the court Kantor, Vincenzo Albrici.

But in 1680 plague came to Dresden. Johann went home, but was soon back at school, this time in Zittau. He was head chorister in the choir of the Johanniskirche. Shortly after this, both the organist and Kantor of the church died, so at the age of 20 Johann Kuhn was asked to act in their stead for a year as organist, choir director and composer.

Two years later Johann became a Law student at Leipzig University. But he impressed the City Council with his musical talent and he became very active as a performer (presumably as a singer and organist?) and as a composer. Rather fashionably, he had at this time italianised his name to Cuno, but it was not long before that turned back into the German-sounding Kuhnau. At the age of 24 he was appointed organist at the Thomaskirche.

Alongside his musical employment, he studied law. By the time he was 29 he had married, was practising law, and was still organist at the Thomaskirche. During the next 10 years over and above his fame as an organist, he became proficient in Maths, Greek and Hebrew, translated French and Italian books into German, wrote a satiric novel, published his substantial and significant body of keyboard music and composed music for the church. In addition he had 8 children and a thriving legal practise.

When he was 41 he was unanimously appointed Kantor at the Thomaskirche, but that was when things started to go downhill. One Georg Telemann enroled at the university, also to study Law, but he, like Kuhnau before him, became very active musically. He established a collegium musicum which was a rival to Kuhnau’s establishment and attracted Kuhnau’s musicians and some of his pupils. He even approached the mayor for permission to compose music for the Thomaskirche, utterly undermining Kuhnau. To rub in salt yet further, in 1703, when Kuhnau was suffering one of several periods of illness, the council asked Telemann to succeed him, should he die.

Kuhnau, in fact, lived for a further 21 years, and although he became very dissatisfied with conditions at the Thomaskirche, he attracted many students who would become distinguished musicians themselves, such was the esteem he was held in by his fellow musicians. He was the last of the Thomaskantors who had something of the ‘renaissance man’ about him. It is easy to see that, at the time, Bach was seen as a less distinguished man – indeed he was in broader terms – he just happened to be one of the greatest musicians ever.

Kuhnau died in June 1722.

Click here to find out about the next Kantor at the Thomaskirche.

Britten in America

In early 1939 England war was clearly brewing with rampant fascism across Europe, the UK included. As a homosexual Jewish pacifist with distinct leftist leanings, Britten had every reason to feel vulnerable. Also he was being pilloried by some critics – and he was always
hypersensitive to criticism.
He had also just met Peter Pears, who would become his life-time’s partner, and he had urgent need to disentangle himself from an assortment of ‘romantic attachments’. So in April Britten and Pears left for Canada.

They soon moved on to Woodstock where Aaron Copland was living, spending the summer there; but they settled more permanently at Pears’ friend Elizabeth Mayer’s house.

Mrs. Mayer became something of a mother to Britten, and he dedicated A Ceremony of Carols to her.

Towards the end of his time in USA,
Britten was planning to write a harp concerto. He had therefore been studying the instrument in depth and was now fully primed for composing A Ceremony of Carols. At this time he also composed A Hymn to St.Cecilia.

In March 1942 Britten and Pears set sail from New York, in the Swedish merchant ship Axel Johnson. Passing through emigration the officials confiscated the scores for the Harp Concerto and Hymn to St. Cecilia, thinking they contained subversive messages in code. On the first leg of the voyage, Britten rewrote Hymn to St. Cecilia.

Since America had joined the war after the attack on Pearl Harbour, the eastern seaboard of USA was heavily targeted by German U-boats and many allied vessels were torpedoed during the course of the war. They must have undertaken the crossing with much trepidation.

So the Axel Johnson sailed first to Halifax, Nova Scotia to join its convoy. While waiting in Halifax Britten found an anthology of medieval verse, The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems. During the Atlantic crossing he set 7 of these for boys’ voices and harp. These he expanded to give us ‘A Ceremony of Carols’, completed in 1943.

Handel’s Saul

is surely one of the most moving works in Handel’s whole output. He took great care over it, spending a full 65 days in its composition (compared with the amazing 24 days for Messiah and 27 days for Israel in Egypt.

Charles Jennens, had presented Handel with a libretto, perhaps for Saul in 1735. But it was on 26th July 1738 that the 53-year-old Handel actually started work on Saul, the day after hearing there were not enough subscribers for a proposed opera. Oratorios were so much cheaper to stage than operas.

In Saul, as in his next oratorio Israel in Egypt, the chorus plays a major role as the People of Israel. Apparently the public of the time did not particularly like massive choruses, preferring simpler airs; but in the longer term the choruses have proved to provide some of the most powerful and poignant moments in the piece, as in the Envy chorus and the funeral lament.
The public didn’t appreciate the more imaginative orchestra either. They were used to an orchestra of just strings, oboes and continuo; in Saul there were also trumpets, trombones, kettle-drums (borrowed from the Tower of London), flutes at one point and a carillon. This carillon was played with a keyboard, and was in effect forerunner of the celeste. It was, according to Jennens, one of Handel’s maggots.

Saul was first performed in January, 1739 at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket. It proved to be one of his most popular works, being performed six times on the trot during its first season.