Updates – Stour Singers

Haydn’s St. Nicolas Mass

Haydn composed his St. Nicolas Mass in 1772 for his employer Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy I’s name’s day. This was not the normal practice, and the mass was composed under unusual circumstances.

There are some signs of turbulence under the surface at this time. It is of course so easy to draw false conclusions from a modern perspective, particularly since in Haydn’s time it was not usual for composers to give expression to their own personal feelings in their work. But in 1772 Haydn wrote some unusually dark works. Of the five symphonies he wrote that year, three are in a minor key. Given that out of his 104 symphonies only 10 are in minor keys, this would seem to be a significant concentration of dark moods. The St. Nicholas Mass, which is in the gentle key of G major, is not without its own particular dark swerves into the minor.

1772 was the year he composed his Farewell Symphony (in F sharp minor). It was customary for the whole Esterhazy court to migrate from its base in Eisenstadt to the Esterhazy palace in Hungary for the summer. Haydn and the leader of the orchestra could take their wives with them; sadly Haydn’s wife would probably have preferred remaining in Eisenstadt, or better still in Vienna. Meanwhile all the other musicians had to leave their wives and families at home in Eisenstadt. Frequently they didn’t return home until December, which caused frictions.

This particular year there was much unrest amongst the musicians because of this and Haydn famously staged a walk-out in the Farewell Symphony, leaving just the leader and Haydn himself playing the violin at the end. Prince Nikolaus took the hint and the court returned to Eisenstadt early.

Haydn quickly composed the St. Nicholas Mass in time for the prince’s name’s day. H.C. Robbins Landon makes the suggestion that the St Nicholas Mass may have been written as a ‘kind of surprise congratulation’ for the prince’s generosity. He must have been pleased: it is a present of great charm.

Mozart Vesperae de Confessore k.339

In 1780, when he composed his Vespers K339, Mozart was becoming increasingly frustrated with life in Salzburg, indeed, itching to escape from it. This is hardly surprising, given his fraught relationships with Archbishop Colloredo. They clearly detested one another. The Archbishop called Mozart, to his face, ‘ein Fetz’ – a nonentity; he also, for good liturgical reasons, put tight restrictions on the length and nature of Mozart’s settings, which must have been frustrating. Given that he also had a very controlling father, life in Salzburg must have been irksome.

1780 was also the year Emperor Joseph II ascended the Habsburg throne. To celebrate this, there was a ceremony held in March of the following year. The ceremony was held in Vienna, and Archbishop Colloredo was of course in attendance. He summoned Mozart to Vienna, housing him along with the other servants, which offended Mozart. What is more, Mozart had the opportunity to perform for the Emperor, for a fee equivalent to half his annual salary, and the Archbishop forbade this, since he wanted Mozart to play for his own concert. Mozart attempted to resign from the Archbishop’s services, but found himself summarily dismissed. The Archbishop’s deputy forcibly ejected him with, as Mozart put it, ‘a kick up the arse’.

Good liturgical reasons

The Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II was a man of the Age of Reason. He sought to bring about far-reaching church reforms in the German-speaking world. These are referred to as Josephinism, and they included making the church services more accessible to the layman, modelled on some of the ideas of the Protestant Reformation. There were to be hymns sung in German, musical settings should be as brief as the text allowed, and there should be no purely instrumental music. In the pursuit of brevity, to shorten the long text of the Creed, it became the practice to sing several lines of text simultaneously.   There was some controversy over the appointment of Archbishop Colloredo. The local ‘favourite’ for the position was the conservative current Dean of the cathedral, but Colloredo was a keen advocate of Josephinism, so he was appointed over the Dean’s head. Altogether it proved something of a poisoned chalice.

Vivaldi’s Kyrie in G minor

Vivaldi’s Kyrie in G minor is written for double choir and orchestra, a favourite layout for Venetian composers since the 16th century. The geography of St. Mark’s Cathedral allowed the placing of groups of musicians around the building to create the excitement of a new ‘music in the round’ – Venice became famous for this. The Ospedale chapel is quite small which means the Kyrie could not have been performed there – the space has insufficient breadth to accommodate two orchestras and two choirs. There is a canal next to the Ospedale which leads to the nearby church of San Lorenzo, a Benedictine monastery church with a spacious rectangular nave. It is believed Vivaldi wrote this and his other polychoral works for the Benedictines. Sadly their church was severely damaged during the Napoleonic Wars, and was only recently reopened – as an exhibition space.

Vivaldi’s Gloria

For most of his adult life, Vivaldi was employed by the Ospedale della Pietà (Hospital, or Hospice of Mercy), one of the orphanages for ‘orphans and abandoned children’ in Venice. The boys were educated for a trade and the girls were trained to provide music for the church services and concerts to raise money. The sheer virtuosity of Vivaldi’s playing, and that of some of his pupils, attracted numerous visitors from all over Europe, bringing generous donations. He trained some of his best pupils to teach, which meant in later life he could absent himself for long periods as long as he kept supplying the Ospedale with new concertos fortnightly (they paid him 2 gold sequins a concerto).

Considering the Gloria is the most famous of Vivaldi’s sacred choral pieces, it is perhaps surprising there is so little known about its origins. It was most likely composed for the Ospedale della Pietà. Since the musical establishment had an almost entirely female staff (Vivaldi taught there in the presence of a chaperone), it will have been performed entirely by the ladies of the Ospedale, tenor and bass parts included. They performed behind a metal grille to shield them from the public view.

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.

Review of our May 2019 concert

TIME TO SMILE

The audience enjoyed a full-blown baroque treat from the Stour Singers at their concert on 11^th May with Handel’s The Trumpet Shall Sound (Messiah) and Foundling Hospital Anthem, Monteverdi’s popular Beatus Vir from his late liturgical works, and a Vivaldi favourite, the Dixit Dominus. It was an inspired programme choice of three baroque composers at their best.

Under the lively baton of Music Director, Richard Emms, and with the enthusiastic support of the youthful Queen’s Park Sinfonia who contributed a spring-like freshness to the scores, this concert with fully committed choir and soloists was a joy. The choir’s accomplished accompanist Rachel Bird was busy on keyboard throughout the programme.

These works demand a lot of concentration and accurate timing from any choir, being considerably energetic pieces that also need a subtlety of expression and the Stour Singers rose to the occasion to give the audience a very strong performance.

The vivid opening piece The Trumpet Shall Sound was brightly exemplified by one of the Sinfonia’s excellent trumpeters and bass baritone Julian Debreuil. The choral works were enriched with the professional interpretation of all the soloists. Both Susanna Fairbairn, soprano, and Cathy Bell, mezzo soprano, sang with a lyrical and moving expressiveness and with voices beautifully tuned in those duo passages echoing each other or in the exciting runs in the Dixit Dominus. The same must be said for Tom Raskin’s bright tenor sound and the vocal colour of Julian Debreuil’s bass baritone, who also shared some exciting duo passages. As a quartet the soloists performed well.

The whole programme resounded with an intuitive sense of balance and shared feeling between choir, orchestra and soloists to produce one of the best concerts of so many. Though musical content was sacred, this exhilarating performance with its considerable bounce simply made you smile.

Don’t miss this choir’s only other major public performance of the year at Christmas.

Tom Bone

Stratford Herald, 16 May 2019

Telemann’s Magnificat in C

Telemann composed his Magnificat in C around 1705, probably while he was still in Leipzig.

He had enrolled at Leipzig University to read Law, but was very active musically, becoming thoroughly embedded in the musical life of the city. Indeed, he became so dominant a figure that he seriously trod on the toes of Johann Kuhnau, J.S. Bach’s predecessor at the Thomaskirche.

It was customary in Leipzig when performing the Magnificat as part of a service that congregational hymns would be inserted between movements. In line with this tradition, in this performance there will be appropriate Christmas carols included for the audience to join in.

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.