Updates – Page 3 – Stour Singers

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.

Jean Baptiste Lully

Jean Baptiste Lully was court composer to Louis XIV (who ascended the throne when he was only 5).

He used his influence on the boy king to secure for himself a monopoly for the composing of operas in France; he blocked the advancement of rivals, such as the much more gifted composers Charpentier and Lalande. Fortunately both flourished well in the immediate perifery of the royal court. Both had strong associations with the Church, and of course Charpentier had the benefit of employment by the Guise court which culturally was rival to that of the royal household.

friends and relations

Living upstairs at the Hôtel de Guise was Marie’s nephew, the Duc de Guise and his wife, née Isabelle d’Orleans, known as Madame de Guise.

Apart from composing music for them, no doubt the family connection eased Charpentier into the position of music teacher to Phillipe d’Orleans (nephew to the king).

It was probably through the family that Charpentier came to work with Molière and his theatre, La Comédie Française. Lully was the composer Molière employed to produce incidental music for his plays; but they fell out. Charpentier took his place and continued a fruitful association with Molière and La Comédie (after Molière’s death) for 20 years.

Mademoiselle de Guise and the Italians

In her 20s, Marie was exiled with her family to Florence.

There she became very attached to the Medicis, with whom she remained in continual contact for the rest of her life. Being immersed in Italian high culture, she became very attached to Italy, its art and particularly its music. So it is hardly surprising that she pounced on the young, highly gifted and Italianate Charpentier.

The Italian style

One aspect of the Italian style was the approach to the setting of words.

Since the turn of the 17^th century, Italian composers had become obsessed with giving vivid expression to words, as in the madrigals of Gesualdo and in the first operas, particularly of Monteverdi. This brought a new boldness in the use of striking harmonies and chromaticisms.

Charpentier did not meet Monteverdi, (Monteverdi died the year Charpentier was born!); but he met, and was strongly influenced by one of his disciples, Carissimi. When he returned to Paris, Charpentier took with him the scores of works by Carissimi, much music in his ‘prodigious musical memory’, and the Italian style in his bones.

Mademoiselle de Guise

Mademoiselle de Guise was born in Paris, (1615) Princess Marie de Lorraine. She lived in the Hôtel de Guise, and when her father the Duc de Guise died, she became Duchesse de Guise; but she had been known as Mademoiselle de Guise since she was a child.

The Guise family history is one of much wielding of power, brutality and sticky ends. Claiming descent from Charlemagne, the family aspired to the French throne and sought to eradicate the Bourbons. A forebear was mother of Mary Queen of Scots, another was Archbishop of Reims, another started a civil war (the War of the Three Henrys).

Mademoiselle de Guise was the last of the direct line, however, and married morganatically. This meant her several children were not heir to the title. But she had her own somewhat lavish select private court. She otherwise used her immense wealth to found a teachers’ training college, and both in Paris and her provincial lands she founded hospitals for the poor and schools for girls.

After her death in 1688 there was much wrangling over the inheritance, and the palace was sold in 1700 and became the Hôtel de Soubisse – which now houses the National Archive.

Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier was born in or near Paris into a family of lawyers.

His father was a master scribe, which was perhaps an influence on the beautiful clarity and almost decorativeness of the composer’s manuscripts. Marc-Antoine did study law at university, but left after a term.

He seems to have been educated by the Jesuits, with whom he had a life-long association. So apart from his prestigious position as Mademoiselle de Guise’s court composer, he was also Director of Music at the principal Jesuit church in Paris, St. Paul-St. Louis. He was in constant demand to compose music for numerous churches, colleges and abbeys around Paris. Towards the end of his life he was appointed Director of Music at the Sainte Chapelle. Therefore, while he was never a member of the Chapel Royal, he was the foremost composer working in Paris at the time.

Very little of Charpentier’s music was published in his lifetime, but he took care over its storage. He bequeathed his manuscripts to a nephew, Jacques Edouard, who tried to publish them, but there was by then little interest in his music. So Edouard sold them, bound in 28 large volumes. Some found their way into the king’s library. His music was not rediscovered until the 20^th century.

Charpentier’s Filius prodigus

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643 – 1704) lived and worked under the rule of Louis XIV.

For a composer of his stature it is perhaps surprising that he was never a member of the Chapel Royal. But there were excellent opportunities elsewhere in Paris, such as the court of Mademoiselle de Guise, for whom he composed Filius Prodigus in 1680.

Ten years previously he had returned home to Paris from a 3-year stay in Rome, imbibing all that was Italian in musical practice. Mademoiselle de Guise, being very much an italophile, immediately appointed him her court composer and resident counter-tenor.
During the next 17 years he composed a huge amount of music for her and her friends and relations, including the ‘motet dramatique’, Filius prodigus. In 1680 Mademoiselle de Guise enlarged her group of musicians, making it one of the largest and best private musical establishments in France. His scope thus widened, Charpentier produced, in Filius prodigus, a work on the scale of a small oratorio. He cast the rôle of the prodigal son as a counter-tenor, so Charpentier himself will have been the first to perform the rôle.

The Haydns’ employers

There was a significant difference, though:

Joseph, working for the Esterhazy Court, produced vast quantities of secular music in the form of symphonies, string quartets, sonatas (including over 200 for the Baryton – the Prince’s favourite instrument). He was less frequently called upon to write sacred music.

Michael, on the other hand, in the employ exclusively of Archbishops, wrote a substantial amount of church music. His output of secular music became more limited by the time he reached his mid-30s. In his day, there were those who rated his church music more highly than that of his now more illustrious brother.