Alessandro Marcello’s Oboe Concerto in D Minor is an early example of a solo concerto (distinct from the older, ensemble-based concerto grosso), born from the realization that the style of an operatic aria could be adapted for an instrument with orchestral accompaniment. Its earliest champions included Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello, who quickly established the three-movement form still standard for concertos today.

Alessandro Marcello's Oboe Concerto

All three movements of the Oboe Concerto show genesis in song. The first movement, Andante e spiccato, could be a mid-tempo aria, while the Adagio is lyrical and mournful. The vigorous finale, Presto, resembles the “rage” arias of Baroque operatic heroes.

Andante e spiccato

The earliest known surviving manuscript of Alessandro Marcello’s Oboe concerto in D minor exists not as a score from the composer’s own hand, but as an arrangement for solo keyboard by contemporary J.S. Bach. This arrangement, dating from 1713-1714, is part of a collection of works entitled '16 Konzerte nach verschiedenen Meistern', BWV 972–987 (16 concerts according to different masters). It is Bach’s arrangement on which this duo version for guitar is heavily based. Bach discovered this concerto and other works by Italian masters while under the employment of Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar. The musical library of the ducal court was rich with orchestral works by Vivaldi, Corelli, Torelli, Frescobaldi and of course Marcello (both Benedetto and Alessandro). Bach saw this as an opportunity to learn about the Italian style, and proceeded to arrange sixteen of these concerti for solo harpsichord.

Alessandro Marcello - Oboe Concerto

Alessandro Marcello was the elder of two bothers, born to a noble Venetian family. Like Albinoni, they were dilettante musicians who were able to choose a freelance career rather than regular employment. Possibly for this reason, neither Alessandro nor his brother published a substantial amount of music, but both were entirely serious musicians of considerable capability. It is likely that a substantial body of manuscript works by both brothers has been lost. Alessandro's largest collected body of works is a set of concertos published under the title 'La Cetra' sometime between 1730 and 1740. They were issued under the pseudonym of Eterio Stinfalico, probably to disguise his noble background.

Alessandro Marcello

The two brothers were both amateurs and didn’t make their living through their art, as Vivaldi and others did. Instead, they wrote skillful and inventive music for the enjoyment of their friends, who gathered in aristocratic salons around Venice. Alessandro worked variously as a judge, court officer, and merchant, while composing, painting, and writing poetry on the side.

Alessandro Marcello - La Cetra

Alessandro Marcello's (1669, Venice - 1747, Padua) studied law and were members of the city-state's high council. Alessandro was educated at the Collegio di S. Antonio, then joined the Venetian Arcadian society, the Accademia degli Animosi in 1698, and served the city as a diplomat in the Levant and the Peloponnese in 1700 and 1701. After returning to Venice, he took on a series of judiciary positions while dabbling in a number of creative endeavors.

Alessandro Marcello

Marcello's compositional output is small, consisting of not much more than a dozen each of chamber cantatas, violin sonatas, and concertos. His cantatas dealt primarily with pastoral subjects and contained topical references, and, befitting his station in society, were clearly intended for Venice's and Rome's best singers, including Farinelli, Checchino, Laura and Virginia Predieri, and Benedetto's student, Faustina Bordoni. His instrumental works reflect a knowledge and understanding of the differences in French, Italian, and German music of the time, including choices of instruments for both the solo and continuo parts and use of ornamentation.

Venice, 18th century (Canaletto)

His D minor Oboe Concerto reflects the familiar and civilized language of the Baroque and thus provides an interesting comparison to the contrasting moods of the later style of Bellini. Marcello maintains a ‘single affection’ within each movement, where contrasts of texture and volume are wrought, but not of senti­ment. The Adagio is notable, apart from its general ambience, for its upwardly-spiralling oboe theme, enhanced by distinctive ornamentation. The final Presto is delightfully light and fleet-footed and provides a felicitous ending to a most engaging piece.

Adagio

Of all of his works, what is best known is the Adagio from the Oboe Concerto, which has become a staple of wedding music collections.

Venice, 18th century (Canaletto)

HenrAlessandro Marcello - Oboe Concerto (I Cameristi della Scala)

The last two years of Beethoven’s life (1825-1827) were almost completely given over to the writing of string quartets. The project began in 1822 with a commission from Russian Prince Nicholas Galitzin, an amateur cellist who requested "one, two or three" string quartets. Once Beethoven began work in earnest, he turned out not one, two or three, but five massive string quartets that ultimately become six separate works known simply and profoundly as "Beethoven's Late Quartets". For decades, these quartets were regarded by most as strange, difficult, anomalous, quite possibly the work of a once great composer now degenerated into a deafness and insanity. It was not until the 20th century that the late quartets became widely regarded as profound and transcendent masterworks worthy of entering and if not becoming the apex of the traditional repertoire.

Beethoven - String Quartet No. 13 - V. Cavatina -Adagio molto espressivo

The third of the late quartets in the order Beethoven composed them, the String Quartet in B-flat Major Op. 130 was completed in its first version in November of 1825 , only one year after his Ninth Symphony. Beethoven and his publisher surprisingly came to agree that the finale did not sit well with the rest of the quartet movements. A bristling, difficult fugue of epic proportions was deemed "too much." The fugue was detached henceforth as a separate opus and Beethoven composed a fresh, much lighter finale to complete Op. 130 in its revised, final version. Beethoven completed the new finale in November, 1826 (after Schubert's quartet in G). It was the very last piece of music Beethoven wrote. He died shortly after in March, 1827.

Beethoven

Parts/Movements

1    Adagio ma non troppo - Allegro
2    Presto
3    Andante con moto ma non troppo
4    Alla danza tedesca. Allegro assai
5   Cavatina. Adagio molto espressivo
6    Finale. Allegro

Coversheet Op. 130 as published in Berlin, 1827

Beethoven originally planned to have a highly expressive, aria-like third movement, in D flat major. His sketches reveal, however, that he became bogged down in this movement for about a month, and eventually replaced it with the present third movement, marked ‘poco scherzoso’ and also in D flat major. He then worked out the aria-like movement as a ‘Cavatina’ in E flat, using it for the fifth movement. Before it he placed a waltz-like movement entitled ‘Alla danza tedesca’, which had originally been written for his previous quartet (Op. 132) but had been discarded.

Beethoven

The ‘Cavatina’, perhaps the most beautiful movement he ever wrote, is highly charged with intense emotion, and even the composer himself was reportedly moved to tears by its sheer loveliness and profundity.

Beethoven

The Cavatina, Adagio molto espressivo, began with a simple rising and falling of the second violin’s first notes, and then eased into hymn-like four-voiced music of heart-felt beauty. The word 'Cavatina' originally described a short song of simple character, but Beethoven re-imagined the form. The extended opening section, moving as it was, then led into one of the most deeply affecting moments in music. While the lower three voices laid down a ghostly pattern of repeated triplets, the first violin wove imploring but tentative notes far above, almost none of which coincided with the ongoing rhythm. The first violin served as a proxy for someone who seemingly had lapsed into disorientation and hopelessness. The effect was one of gathering desperation. Beethoven marked the word 'Beklemmt' above this passage, loosely translated as 'oppressed' or 'anguished'. The music, almost unbearable in its utterly gripping message, finally released its hold and returned us to a slightly altered version of the original material. Then the movement ended with several pulsating chords dying away in melancholy resignation. Beethoven, although deaf at the time, was said to have wept upon hearing the Cavatina in his inner ear.

Cavatina, sheet

This is the movement that can be described as being out of this world. Figuratively, the deep personal expression seems borne of that same insight Beethoven draws upon during this late period. His vision and understanding seem somehow transported beyond our sphere, into a good place that he is able portray in this music. Literally, a recording of the Cavatina by the Budapest String Quartet is travelling at this moment through the Kuiper Belt on the far edge of our solar system aboard the Voyager 7 launched in 1977. This was Carl Sagan’s idea.

The Voyager Golden Record

A cavatina is a short, simple song. Beethoven’s, though simple and kind of short (six minutes) probes our inner most feelings, connecting his with ours. It is a meditation. It is Mahleresque. Beethoven himself said that the Cavatina cost him tears both in the writing of it and merely to revive it in his thoughts afterwards. I became fascinated by the cavatina movement in Opus 130, the Quartet in B-flat Major. I listened to it again and again. How did he do that? What is he telling me? It is beautiful.

Beethoven String Quartets by Budapest SQ

The Quartet’s subtitle, “Liebquartett” (“Dear Quartet”) is how Beethoven referred to the piece in his conversations books. When writing about the quartet, Beethoven knowingly stated, “Art demands of us that we don’t stand still.”

Beethoven by J.P. Lyser

Beethoven - Cavatina from String Quartet Op.130 (Arctic Philharmonic)

During his long career under the Communists, Dmitri Shostakovich seesawed between being the pride of Russian music and a pariah one step away from the Siberian Gulag. His lowest moments came in 1936, when he was denounced for his seamy opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (he restored himself to favor with his famous Fifth Symphony), and again in 1948. In that year, Stalin, aging and crazier than ever, attacked musicians, writers, scientists, and scholars: denouncing the most prominent figures to cow the masses. A Party Resolution condemned composers for "formalistic distortions and anti-democratic tendencies alien to the Soviet people." Black lists were drawn up, and heading the composers' list were the names of Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

Dmitri Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No 1 in A Minor

In 1948, Shostakovich had just completed his First Violin Concerto, but locked it away in a desk drawer; this probing and sometimes sarcastic work might seal his doom with the Soviet authorities. With little warning, Shostakovich and other leading Soviet composers found that many of their works that were once praised were now banned. The rationales given were ludicrous; Shostakovich and other composers were forced to listen to long harangues from cultural apparatchiks laden with virtually meaningless terms like “formalism” and “socialist realism.” Despite having sincerely tried to understand these terms for the past two decades, many composers came to the conclusion that social realist works were simply the ones in favor at the moment and formalist ones were not. It would have been laughable if only so much had not been at stake.

Shostakovich and Stalin

After the death of Stalin in 1953, there was a gradual relaxation of the persecution of Soviet artists. By 1955 when the composer was 50, under the more relaxed regime of Nikita Khrushchev, compositions that had been hidden away for fear of disciplinary actions were beginning to emerge. One such was Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. He revised the score a bit; the premiere was given in Leningrad on October 29 of that year by the illustrious violinist David Oistrakh with the Leningrad Philharmonic under Evgeny Mravinsky, and published as Op. 99.

Mravinsky, Oistrakh and Shostakovich

The Concerto is drawn to the broad proportions of such predecessors as the violin concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, but it is in four movements rather than the usual three (as Brahms had actually intended for his own concerto at first), resembling the form of a symphony more than a concerto, and quite specifically the somewhat unorthodox layout characteristic of Shostakovich's own symphonies.

Dmitri Shostakovich

The opening movement is not a heroic allegro, but a slowich Nocturne. Shostakovich presents us with a supremely beautiful movement, beginning Moderato and sustaining a quiet mood of meditation and memory for quite a long time. The upper registers of the violin are used to their full extent, lyrical and invading, lilting over adept orchestrations. This is profoundly melancholy, even anguished music: an aria for violin with the soloist as a lonely insomniac singing to a sleeping, indifferent world. Darkest woodwinds — clarinets with bass clarinet, bassoon with contrabassoon — paint deep shadows around her. The bleak ending, with tolling harp and celesta accompanying the soloist floating on a fragile high harmonic note, is unforgettable.

Opening movement - Nocturne

The savage second-movement Scherzo is a Fellini-esque circus of the absurd. “Scherzo” means "joke," and this is a harshly sarcastic joke indeed. The ensuing scherzo is a wild, frenetic dance. In this movement, Shostakovich introduces for the first time what would become his musical signature: the notes D-Eb-C-B (in German, these notes are called D-S-C-H, a cypher for Dmitri SCHostokowitsch, the German spelling of Shostakovich’s name). Technically, the first appearance of this figure is D#-E-C#-B, but it later morphs into the more usual form. The inclusion of this motif suggests an autobiographical intent. We cannot know what Shostakovich was thinking when he wrote this passage, but one of Shostakovich’s comments to his friend Maria Sabinina after being forced to read a speech at this time seems to resonate:

“And I got up on the tribune, and started to read out aloud this idiotic, disgusting nonsense concocted by some nobody. Yes, I humiliated myself, I read out what was taken to be ‘my own speech.’ I read like the most paltry wretch, a parasite, a cut-out paper doll on a string!!” This last phrase he shrieked out like a frenzied maniac, and then kept on repeating it.

Not long after the appearance of Shostakovich’s musical signature, the music arrives at a boisterous, klezmer-inspired central episode. The beleaguered soloist flies through a crazed, driven dance of exacting virtuosity.

Hilary Hahn plays Violin Concerto No. 1

As he would in other major works, Shostakovich turned to the Baroque passacaglia form for his powerful F-minor third movement, the Concerto's emotional center. The passacaglia is a repeating melodic-harmonic pattern, usually in the bass. The bass line in this case is a heavy, oppressive figure introduced by the cellos and basses, as horns play pulsing figures and arpeggios above it. Shostakovich's theme, which we hear is 17 measures long and broken into choppy two-measure phrases. Gradually this pattern travels through the orchestra; even the soloist eventually takes it up in fierce double-stopped octaves. After a quieter variation for winds, the soloist enters with an expressive melody. An increasingly tense series of variations follows, until the solo violin takes up the bass line itself before returning to its original melody. The movement concludes with one of the longest and most taxing (both physically and emotionally) cadenzas ever written for a violinist; it is almost a movement in itself and constitutes the soloist's commentary on the entire concerto.

Passacaglia theme

In the concertos of the previous century, cadenzas were normally placed just before the end or at the climax of the first movement. Instead, Shostakovich places his cadenza between movements, making it seem untethered, as if we have passed into some netherworld that is neither here nor there. Suspended in this liminal space, the soloist seems even more alone and isolated. The cadenza becomes faster and more intense as it progresses, recalling ideas from the previous movements, including the DSCH motif. Climaxing with the return of the klezmer theme in the violin’s highest register, the cadenza then accelerates into the finale.

Nicola Benedetti plays Violin Concerto No. 1

Shostakovich titled the last movement “Burlesca,” (Allegro con brio) an indication that fits the music’s darkly comic atmosphere. Its mad, virtuoso fiddle music brings the concerto to an unsettling, but thrilling conclusion. But here the mood seems less bitter than earlier: more a wild folk dance over a driving rhythmic ostinato. Midway, the passacaglia theme makes a brief, mocking appearance in clarinet, horn, and the hard-edged clatter of xylophone. Again, shrill woodwinds dominate this finale, while the soloist hurtles through a non-stop display of virtuosity, culminating in a final acceleration to Presto.

Leonidas Kavakos plays Violin Concerto No. 1

Composed in four movements of symphonic weight, this is a true "iron man" concerto, calling on everything in the violinist's technical arsenal as well as vast physical and emotional stamina. Even the redoubtable Oistrakh begged the composer to give the opening of the finale to the orchestra so that "at least I can wipe the sweat off my brow" after the daunting solo cadenza that concludes the third movement.

Shostakovich and Oistrakh

Because of the delay before its premiere, it is unknown whether or not the concerto was composed before the Tenth Symphony (1953). While the Symphony is generally thought to have been the first work that introduces Shostakovich's famous DSCH motif, it is possible that the First Violin Concerto was actually the first instance of the motif. Shostakovich uses this theme in many of his works to represent himself.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No 1 - David Oistrakh

When Arvo Pärt sets words to music, he gives the impression of having entered into the depths of his chosen text and returned to the surface with an entirely fresh impression of what it's all about. This is certainly true of his “Stabat Mater,” and yet the result is to reaffirm the traditional significance of the text and to place the work securely in the long line of settings that includes those of Josquin Desprez, Lassus, and Palestrina, and in modern times Poulenc and Penderecki. Pärt achieves this partly by the purity and simplicity of his musical language, and partly by the way in which he draws such powerfully expressive music directly out of the rhythms and forms of the text, so that it almost seems as if the words have composed the music.

Stabat Mater by Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt was born in Estonia in 1935. Most of the works at the beginning of his career were for piano in the neo-classical style. After that, he turned his interest to serial music and continued creating works with serial techniques throughout the 1960s. After his “self-imposed silence” period (during the years 1968-1976), Pärt emerged with a new musical style, which he called “tintinnabuli.” Although, this technique was influenced by music from the medieval period, the texture and function of its musical style cannot be described easily in terms of any single musical technique of the past.

Arvo Pärt

Tintinnabuli comes from the latin word ‘tintinnabulum’ which translates to ‘bell’ (you may recognize the word from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Bells,” in which he coined the word “tintinnabulation”). When a bell is struck, we hear an initial single tone but then we also begin to hear the overtones emanating from the initial tone. “The tintinnabuli method,” writer Arthur Lubow explains in a 2010 article for The New York Time Magazine, “pairs each note of the melody with a note that comes from a harmonizing chord, so they ring together with bell-like resonance.” Specifically, Pärt is concerned with triads and diatonic melodies, heavily influenced by the sound of Gregorian chant and the Notre Dame School (which refers to a group of composers working between the mid 12th and 13th centuries). To our contemporary ears, it is a relatively simple music, evocative (as you would imagine) of dark, incense-filled abbeys.

Arvo Pärt - Stabat Mater

“Stabat Mater” was composed in 1985 when Pärt got a commission by the Alban Berg Foundation. The title is a similar name to the medieval sequence that was attributed to Jacopone da Todi (c. 1230-1306), a Franciscan monk. There are two hymns in Stabat Mater, which are ‘Stabat Mater Dolorosa’ and ‘Stabat Mater Speciosa.’ Stabat Mater Dolorosa, which means “sorrowfully his mother stood” in Latin, reflects Mary’s suffering during Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. Wright suggests that Pärt’s version of Stabat Mater text is very similar to the version of Palestrina. This is probably because Pärt may have known the Palestrina’s setting when he studied pre-Baroque music during the 1970s.

Arvo Pärt - Stabat Mater (Quator Franz Joseph)

A pathetic motif of three descending notes is elaborated instrumentally and vocally. The text is sung in a slow recitative and the sparse, open texture of the vocal lines is paralleled by the string parts, heightening the pain and anxiety of the text. The predominant slow motion is interrupted three times by short fast gigs. In the "Amen" at the end the motif from the beginning returns. The Stabat Mater is, in many ways, a realization of the composer’s goal to find “a musical line that is a carrier of the soul, an absolute monody, a naked voice from which everything originates.”

Stabat Mater

This work differs from Pärt’s other music that uses sacred texts because other works are set up for choir; however, Stabat Mater was composed for string trio and solo voices (soprano, contratenor (alto), and tenor). This instrumentation suggests a similar sound to chamber music. It has a duration of approximately 24 minutes. A version with expanded forces (mixed chorus and orchestra) was premiered on 12 June 2008 at the Großer Musikvereinssaal during the Wiener Festwochen 2008 with Kristjan Järvi conducting the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien and the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich. This new version was commissioned by the Tonkünstler-Orchester.

Arvo Pärt - Stabat Mater (Goeyvaerts String Trio)

Stabat Mater could be described as Pärt’s greatest hit. The orchestra and choir work together in this commemoration of the Virgin Mary’s suffering on witnessing the death of her son. The low mournful sound of the music is abruptly joined by a high keening vocal lament. In the end, one doesn't hear the music as part of the tintinnabuli method or as the product of a system of composition, but rather as lovely, simple music whose magnetic appeal is undeniable.

Stabat Mater

Arvo Pärt - Stabat Mater: Part I

For being such utterly beautiful music, this piece doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention. That's a shame, because you can't help but be captivated by it once you listen. Theses are the dangers of extolling a composer for a particular section of his work; this unfortunately tends to smother the hidden gems in his or her output. The Vespers aren't exactly hidden, but they aren't clogging the shelves either.

Rachmaninov - All-Night Vigil (Vespers)

Rachmaninov’s “All Night Vigil” (“Vsenoshchnoe bdenie”) is generally known in English-speaking countries as the “Vespers,” but this translation is “incorrect”. However the usage of the title “Vespers” is well-established, and is not likely to be superseded any more. “Vespers” is after all the title usually employed to describe evening services in both the Anglican and Catholic liturgies.

Sergey Rachmaninov

Rachmaninoff composed the “All-Night Vigil” in less than two weeks in January and February 1915. ‘The All-Night Vigil’ is perhaps notable as one of two liturgical settings (the other being the ‘Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom’) by a composer who had stopped attending church services. As required by the Russian Orthodox Church, Rachmaninoff based ten of the fifteen sections on chant. However, the five original sections (numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, & 11) were so heavily influenced by chant that the composer called them "conscious counterfeits".

All-Night Vigil - score

When celebrated at the All-night vigil, the orders of Great Vespers and Matins vary somewhat from when they are celebrated by themselves. In parish usage, many portions of the service such as the readings from the Synaxarion during the Canon at Matins are abbreviated or omitted, and it therefore takes approximately two or two and a half hours to perform. The Psalms are numbered according to the Septuagint, which differs from that found in the Masoretic.

All-Night Vigil - Christmas Vigil

Rachmaninoff's work is a culmination of the preceding two decades of interest in Russian sacred music, as initiated by Tchaikovsky's setting of the all-night vigil. The similarities between the works, such as the extensive use of traditional chants, demonstrates the extent of Tchaikovsky's influence; however, Rachmaninoff's setting is much more complex in its use of harmony, textual variety and polyphony.

Christmas Vigil

The first performance was given in Moscow on March 10, 1915, partly to benefit the Russian war effort. Nikolai Danilin conducted the all-male Moscow Synodal Choir at the premiere. It was received warmly by critics and audiences alike, and was so successful that it was performed five more times within a month. However the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the rise of the Soviet Union led to the government condemnation of religious music, and on 22 July 1918 the Synodal Choir was replaced by a non-religious "People's Choir Academy". It has been written that "no composition represents the end of an era so clearly as this liturgical work".

Nicolai Danilin

The first recording of the Vigil was made by Alexander Sveshnikov with the State Academic Russian Choir of the USSR for the Soviet Melodiya label in 1965 - exactly half a century after the work's first performance. Because of Soviet anti-religious policies, this record was never available for sale within the USSR, but was only made for the export market and private study. This recording still has a legendary reputation, in part because of its extremely strong low basses, but also because of the solos by Klara Korkan and Konstantin Ognevoi.

Alexander Sveshnikov

Anyone familiar with this repertoire, so intimately associated with Russian culture and religious tradition, who happened to be looking for an exemplary recording, might understandably assume that the ideal performance would be owned by a Russian church or concert choir; after all, these groups, theoretically at least, possess both the singular vocal quality and practiced technique, along with the inherent interpretive understanding, to set the standard for all others. The work first became known outside Russia from Melodiya recordings in the 1970s. For a long time the piece was regarded as the exclusive preserve of Soviet choirs, if only because the sometimes subterranean writing for the basses was considered to be beyond the capacity of non-Slavic voices.

Rachmaninov - Vespers, 1965

Until the late 1980s non-Russian recordings were rare, while those made in Russia had to contend with official disapproval from the religion-leery Soviet state. Since then, both Russian and Western recordings have come fast and furious. Interpretations are as varied as for any major work of the 20th century, with everything from magnificently rumbling but tonally insecure Russian singers to precise but pale Western cathedral choirs taking on the work.

Rachmaninov - Vespers, Hillier 2005

The Rachmaninov’s Vigil has been set to music most famously, whose setting of selections from the service is one of his most admired works. The “All-Night Vigil” has a myriad of different versions available, and your taste in vocal style will have everything to say about which kinds of performance you will prefer over the long term.

Rachmaninov - Vespers, Polyanski 1986

Movements:
1    Приидите, поклонимся (Priidite, poklonimsya) / O Come, Let Us Worship (Venite adoremus)
2    Благослови, душе моя (Blagoslovi, dushe moya)/ Praise the Lord, O my soul (Benedic anima mea)
3    Блажен муж (Blazhen muzh) / Blessed is the Man (Beatus vir)
4    Свете тихий (Svete tikhiy) / Gladsome Light
5    Ныне отпущаеши (Nyne otpushchayeshi) / Nunc dimittis
6    Богородице Дево, радуйся (Bogorodishche Devo, raduysya) / Ave Maria
7    Шестопсалмие (Shestopsalmiye) / Glory be to God
8    Хвалите имя Господне (Khvalite imya Gospodne)/ Praise be the name of the Lord (Laudate Dominum)
9    Благословен еси, Господи (Blagosloven yesi, Gospodi) / Blessed be the Lord
10   Воскресение Христово видевше (Voskreseniye Khristovo videvshe)/ The Veneration of the Cross
11   Величит душа Моя Господа (Belichit dusha Moya Gospoda) / Magnificat
12   Славословие великое (Slavosloviye velikoye) / Gloria in Excelsis
13   Днесь спасение (Dnes' spaseniye) / The Day of Salvation
14   Воскрес из гроба (Voskres iz groba) / Christ is Risen
15   Взбранной воеводе (Vzbrannoy voyevode) / To the Mother of God 

WDR Rundfunk Choir (Nikolas Fink) sing Rachmaninov's Vespers

Rachmaninov – All-Night Vigil (Phoenix Chorale-Kansas City Chorale, Charles Bruffy)

Stéphane Mallarmé's eclogue “L'Après-midi d'un Faune” ("The Afternoon of a Faun") was published in 1876. Debussy first set a poem by Mallarmé to music in 1884, at the age of 22. Three years later, the young composer joined the circle of poets and artists who met at Mallarmé's house every Tuesday night for discussions and companionship. Thus he was thoroughly familiar with the poet's style before he began work on his prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" in 1892.

Debussy - The Afternoon of a Faun

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) was one of the greatest innovators in the history of French poetry. His works, which abound in complex symbols and images, seek to represent states of mind rather than ideas, express moods rather than tell stories.

Stéphane Mallarmé

This poem is about a faun who awakes in the mist of forest nymphs. The first-person narrator is a faun, a mythological creature who is half man and half goat. The faun lives in the woods, near a river surrounded by reedy marshes; he is daydreaming about nymphs who may be real or mere figments of his imagination. The faun's desire is filtered through the vagueness of its object as he recalls past dreams, which emerge from the shadows only to recede into the darkness again.

Faun (& nymph)

Debussy pondered the poetic source material for many years. “The Afternoon of a Faun” deals with a faun’s erotic fantasies inspired by nymphs (“Was it a dream I loved?”). The classical setting and overt sexuality of the text made it a touchstone for debates over the future of literature. Debussy’s tastes made him susceptible to the poem’s allure, for he had already begun setting similar texts by Baudelaire and Maeterlinck when work on the Prelude commenced in 1892. At first, he planned a full accompaniment to each moment of the poem, perhaps even a mini staged drama. But by the time of completion, he had wisely settled on a “very free illustration of the beautiful poem of Mallarmé.”

Claude Debussy, 1884

The iconic opening theme outlines a descending tritone from C-sharp to G natural using solo flute. Uncertain tonal implications are given new light when the theme subsequently receives a harmonic foundation in a seventh chord on D. Above shimmering glissandi in harp and pulsating chromatic motion in the winds, the flute arabesques become gradually more ornate, more seductive.

Main theme, flute solo

The flute’s theme, recurring throughout the work, though it is not intended as a literal translation of the poem. The line progresses throughout the piece and its metamorphoses account for the Prelude’s richness of texture and harmony.

Nijinsky as Faun

Debussy closes the first section in B major and then moves into a more agitated episode culminating in soaring strings. Tonal color, built from radiant mixtures of whole-tone and pentatonic elements, turns gently to A flat major. The next scene, (a pas de deux in Nijinsky’s choreographed version,) suggests the faun embracing a nymph. Its poignant union of rapture and longing centers on the tritone-related chord progression. Debussy’s lines undulate and swell, rise and recede. At the last part of the dance, he calms the rampant sensuality down to a violin solo leading seamlessly to a reprise of the opening theme. Almost the entire final three minutes are needed to cool off from the heat of passionate embraces. At the last, Debussy’s faun strikes a languorous pose in serene E major.

The afternoon ..., flute score

About his composition Debussy wrote: “The music of this prelude is a very free illustration of Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. By no means does it claim to be a synthesis of it. Rather there is a succession of scenes through which pass the desires and dreams of the faun in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of pursuing the timorous flight of nymphs and naiads, he succumbs to intoxicating sleep, in which he can finally realize his dreams of possession in universal Nature.”

Claude Debussy

Paul Valéry reported that Mallarmé himself was unhappy with his poem being used as the basis for music: “He believed that his own music was sufficient, and that even with the best intentions in the world, it was a veritable crime as far as poetry was concerned to juxtapose poetry and music, even if it were the finest music there is.”

Stéphane Mallarmé

However, Maurice Dumesnil states in his biography of Debussy that Mallarmé was enchanted by Debussy’s composition, citing a short letter from Mallarmé to Debussy that read: “I have just come out of the concert, deeply moved. The marvel! Your illustration of the Afternoon of a Faun, which presents a dissonance with my text only by going much further, really, into nostalgia and into light, with finesse, with sensuality, with richness. I press your hand admiringly, Debussy. Yours, Mallarmé.”

Stéphane Mallarmé as Faun

Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” signaled a new era in compositional style and intent, even though that new style was not to everyone’s liking. Some saw it as a liberation from the weighty textures and Teutonic mythology that Wagnerism had spread over much European music. Debussy was leaner and more evocative. Others thought it did not go nearly far enough in that direction; the Prelude’s dreamy use of non-tonal pitch collections effused a world of shadows and perfume when a harsh dose of bright reality was needed.

Afternoon of Faun by Levy-Dhurmer

Two aspects of Debussy's style bear special mention here: his use of chromaticism and his handling of orchestral color. Chromaticism had been one of the main musical means to express sensuality at least since Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, a work that exerted a decisive influence on the young Debussy. But Debussy's use of chromaticism is more subdued and less goal-oriented than Wagner's. His instrumentation, much more restricted than Wagner's (no brass except horns, no percussion except the soft-toned antique cymbals) causes us to perceive the faun's sensuality at a certain remove. Mallarmé referred to the faun's syrinx as an "instrument des fuites" (translated as "elusive instrument"; literally, perhaps, "instrument of evasion"); with his novel rhythmic and harmonic language, Debussy managed to render that elusive/evasive quality of the faun's self-expression.

Claude Debussy, 1893

It was first performed in Paris on 22 December 1894, conducted by Gustave Doret. The flute solo was played by Georges Barrère.

Afternoon of Faun

Stephane Mallarmé - L'après-midi d'un faune (Églogue)

Le Faune:
Ces nymphes, je les veux perpétuer.
Si clair,
Leur incarnat léger, qu'il voltige dans l'air
Assoupi de sommeils touffus.

Aimai-je un rêve ?
Mon doute, amas de nuit ancienne, s'achève
En maint rameau subtil, qui, demeuré les vrais
Bois mêmes, prouve, hélas ! que bien seul je m'offrais
Pour triomphe la faute idéale de roses.

Réfléchissons...
ou si les femmes dont tu gloses
Figurent un souhait de tes sens fabuleux !
Faune, l'illusion s'échappe des yeux bleus
Et froids, comme une source en pleurs, de la plus chaste :
Mais, l'autre tout soupirs, dis-tu qu'elle contraste
Comme brise du jour chaude dans ta toison ?
Que non ! par l'immobile et lasse pâmoison
Suffoquant de chaleurs le matin frais s'il lutte,
Ne murmure point d'eau que ne verse ma flûte
Au bosquet arrosé d'accords ; et le seul vent
Hors des deux tuyaux prompt à s'exhaler avant
Qu'il disperse le son dans une pluie aride,
C'est, à l'horizon pas remué d'une ride
Le visible et serein souffle artificiel
De l'inspiration, qui regagne le ciel.

O bords siciliens d'un calme marécage
Qu'à l'envi de soleils ma vanité saccage
Tacite sous les fleurs d'étincelles, Contez
« Que je coupais ici les creux roseaux domptés
« Par le talent ; quand, sur l'or glauque de lointaines
« Verdures dédiant leur vigne à des fontaines,
« Ondoie une blancheur animale au repos :
« Et qu'au prélude lent où naissent les pipeaux
« Ce vol de cygnes, non ! de naïades se sauve
« Ou plonge... »

Inerte, tout brûle dans l'heure fauve
Sans marquer par quel art ensemble détala
Trop d'hymen souhaité de qui cherche le la :
Alors m'éveillerai-je à la ferveur première,
Droit et seul, sous un flot antique de lumière,
Lys ! et l'un de vous tous pour l'ingénuité.

Autre que ce doux rien par leur lèvre ébruité,
Le baiser, qui tout bas des perfides assure,
Mon sein, vierge de preuve, atteste une morsure
Mystérieuse, due à quelque auguste dent ;
Mais, bast ! arcane tel élut pour confident
Le jonc vaste et jumeau dont sous l'azur on joue :
Qui, détournant à soi le trouble de la joue,
Rêve, dans un solo long, que nous amusions
La beauté d'alentour par des confusions
Fausses entre elle-même et notre chant crédule ;
Et de faire aussi haut que l'amour se module
Évanouir du songe ordinaire de dos
Ou de flanc pur suivis avec mes regards clos,
Une sonore, vaine et monotone ligne.

Tâche donc, instrument des fuites, ô maligne
Syrinx, de refleurir aux lacs où tu m'attends !
Moi, de ma rumeur fier, je vais parler longtemps
Des déesses ; et par d'idolâtres peintures
A leur ombre enlever encore des ceintures :
Ainsi, quand des raisins j'ai sucé la clarté,
Pour bannir un regret par ma feinte écarté,
Rieur, j'élève au ciel d'été la grappe vide
Et, soufflant dans ses peaux lumineuses, avide
D'ivresse, jusqu'au soir je regarde au travers.

O nymphes, regonflons des souvenirs divers.
« Mon œil, trouant le joncs, dardait chaque encolure
« Immortelle, qui noie en l'onde sa brûlure
« Avec un cri de rage au ciel de la forêt ;
« Et le splendide bain de cheveux disparaît
« Dans les clartés et les frissons, ô pierreries !
« J'accours ; quand, à mes pieds, s'entrejoignent (meurtries
« De la langueur goûtée à ce mal d'être deux)
« Des dormeuses parmi leurs seuls bras hasardeux ;
« Je les ravis, sans les désenlacer, et vole
« A ce massif, haï par l'ombrage frivole,
« De roses tarissant tout parfum au soleil,
« Où notre ébat au jour consumé soit pareil. »

Je t'adore, courroux des vierges, ô délice
Farouche du sacré fardeau nu qui se glisse
Pour fuir ma lèvre en feu buvant, comme un éclair
Tressaille ! la frayeur secrète de la chair :
Des pieds de l'inhumaine au cœur de la timide
Qui délaisse à la fois une innocence, humide
De larmes folles ou de moins tristes vapeurs.

« Mon crime, c'est d'avoir, gai de vaincre ces peurs
« Traîtresses, divisé la touffe échevelée
« De baisers que les dieux gardaient si bien mêlée :
« Car, à peine j'allais cacher un rire ardent
« Sous les replis heureux d'une seule (gardant
« Par un doigt simple, afin que sa candeur de plume
« Se teignît à l'émoi de sa sœur qui s'allume,
« La petite, naïve et ne rougissant pas : )
« Que de mes bras, défaits par de vagues trépas,
« Cette proie, à jamais ingrate se délivre
« Sans pitié du sanglot dont j'étais encore ivre. »

Tant pis ! vers le bonheur d'autres m'entraîneront
Par leur tresse nouée aux cornes de mon front :
Tu sais, ma passion, que, pourpre et déjà mûre,
Chaque grenade éclate et d'abeilles murmure ;
Et notre sang, épris de qui le va saisir,
Coule pour tout l'essaim éternel du désir.
A l'heure où ce bois d'or et de cendres se teinte
Une fête s'exalte en la feuillée éteinte :
Etna ! c'est parmi toi visité de Vénus
Sur ta lave posant tes talons ingénus,
Quand tonne une somme triste ou s'épuise la flamme.
Je tiens la reine !

O sûr châtiment...
Non, mais l'âme
De paroles vacante et ce corps alourdi
Tard succombent au fier silence de midi :
Sans plus il faut dormir en l'oubli du blasphème,
Sur le sable altéré gisant et comme j'aime
Ouvrir ma bouche à l'astre efficace des vins !
Couple, adieu ; je vais voir l'ombre que tu devins.

Claude Debussy

The Afternoon of a Faun (English translation)

The Faun:
These nymphs, I would perpetuate them.
So bright
Their crimson flesh that hovers there, light
In the air drowsy with dense slumbers.
Did I love a dream?
My doubt, mass of ancient night, ends extreme
In many a subtle branch, that remaining the true
Woods themselves, proves, alas, that I too
Offered myself, alone, as triumph, the false ideal of roses.
Let’s see….
or if those women you note
Reflect your fabulous senses’ desire!
Faun, illusion escapes from the blue eye,
Cold, like a fount of tears, of the most chaste:
But the other, she, all sighs, contrasts you say
Like a breeze of day warm on your fleece?
No! Through the swoon, heavy and motionless
Stifling with heat the cool morning’s struggles
No water, but that which my flute pours, murmurs
To the grove sprinkled with melodies: and the sole breeze
Out of the twin pipes, quick to breathe
Before it scatters the sound in an arid rain,
Is unstirred by any wrinkle of the horizon,
The visible breath, artificial and serene,
Of inspiration returning to heights unseen.
 
O Sicilian shores of a marshy calm
My vanity plunders vying with the sun,
Silent beneath scintillating flowers, 

RELATE
‘That I was cutting hollow reeds here tamed
By talent: when, on the green gold of distant
Verdure offering its vine to the fountains,
An animal whiteness undulates to rest:
And as a slow prelude in which the pipes exist
This flight of swans, no, of Naiads cower
Or plunge…’

Inert, all things burn in the tawny hour
Not seeing by what art there fled away together
Too much of hymen desired by one who seeks there
The natural A: then I’ll wake to the primal fever
Erect, alone, beneath the ancient flood, light’s power,
Lily! And the one among you all for artlessness.
Other than this sweet nothing shown by their lip, the kiss
That softly gives assurance of treachery,
My breast, virgin of proof, reveals the mystery
Of the bite from some illustrious tooth planted;
Let that go! Such the arcane chose for confidant,
The great twin reed we play under the azure ceiling,
That turning towards itself the cheek’s quivering,
Dreams, in a long solo, so we might amuse
The beauties round about by false notes that confuse
Between itself and our credulous singing;
And create as far as love can, modulating,
The vanishing, from the common dream of pure flank
Or back followed by my shuttered glances,
Of a sonorous, empty and monotonous line.
 
Try then, instrument of flights, O malign
Syrinx by the lake where you await me, to flower again!
I, proud of my murmur, intend to speak at length
Of goddesses: and with idolatrous paintings
Remove again from shadow their waists’ bindings:
So that when I’ve sucked the grapes’ brightness
To banish a regret done away with by my pretence,
Laughing, I raise the emptied stem to the summer’s sky
And breathing into those luminous skins, then I,
Desiring drunkenness, gaze through them till evening.
O nymphs, let’s rise again with many memories.

‘My eye, piercing the reeds, speared each immortal
Neck that drowns its burning in the water
With a cry of rage towards the forest sky;
And the splendid bath of hair slipped by
In brightness and shuddering, O jewels!
I rush there: when, at my feet, entwine (bruised
By the languor tasted in their being-two’s evil)
Girls sleeping in each other’s arms’ sole peril:
I seize them without untangling them and run
To this bank of roses wasting in the sun
All perfume, hated by the frivolous shade
Where our frolic should be like a vanished day.’

I adore you, wrath of virgins, O shy
Delight of the nude sacred burden that glides
Away to flee my fiery lip, drinking
The secret terrors of the flesh like quivering
Lightning: from the feet of the heartless one
To the heart of the timid, in a moment abandoned
By innocence wet with wild tears or less sad vapours.

‘Happy at conquering these treacherous fears
My crime’s to have parted the dishevelled tangle
Of kisses that the gods kept so well mingled:
For I’d scarcely begun to hide an ardent laugh
In one girl’s happy depths (holding back
With only a finger, so that her feathery candour
Might be tinted by the passion of her burning sister,
The little one, naïve and not even blushing)
Than from my arms, undone by vague dying,
This prey, forever ungrateful, frees itself and is gone,
Not pitying the sob with which I was still drunk.’

No matter! Others will lead me towards happiness
By the horns on my brow knotted with many a tress:
You know, my passion, how ripe and purple already
Every pomegranate bursts, murmuring with the bees:
And our blood, enamoured of what will seize it,
Flows for all the eternal swarm of desire yet.
At the hour when this wood with gold and ashes heaves
A feast’s excited among the extinguished leaves:
Etna! It’s on your slopes, visited by Venus
Setting in your lava her heels so artless,
When a sad slumber thunders where the flame burns low.
I hold the queen!
O certain punishment…
No, but the soul
Void of words, and this heavy body,
Succumb to noon’s proud silence slowly:
With no more ado, forgetting blasphemy, I
Must sleep, lying on the thirsty sand, and as I
Love, open my mouth to wine’s true constellation!

Farewell to you, both: I go to see the shadow you have become.

Stéphane Mallarmé by Manet, 1876

Perhaps no piece of music evokes more pungently our image of the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV, than the well-loved ‘Prelude’ to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's ‘To Deum.’ Yet, though Louis may at some time have heard this setting of the canticle, it was not in fact written for the court at all but, in all probability, for one of the Paris churches with which Charpentier was at one time associated. It is one of the ironies of music history that Marc-Antoine Charpentier never held formal ties to the royal court of France. Nevertheless he became most famous for this “Te Deum H.146 in D,” which was written in celebration of a military victory by King Louis XIV.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier – Te Deum

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) had no formal links with the court, where Lully’s music held sway. But he did have limited contact with the court, mainly through relatives of the king. Charpentier worked as house composer to Marie de Lorraine, duchesse de Guise, who was known familiarly as "Mlle de Guise.”

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

It is not quite certain for which event the Te Deum was written, but it seems likely it was the victory at Steinkerque in August 1692; François Couperin refers to this event in his “Sonata La Steinkerque.” The choice of the key of D major is highly appropriate: the German theorist Johann Mattheson links this key to 'military things'. Charpentier considered the key D-major as ‘bright and very warlike’.

Louis XIV - Sun King

The composition is scored for five soloists (SSATB) and choir (SATB), accompanied with an instrumental ensemble of 2 nonspecified recorders or flutes, 2 oboes, 2 trumpets (second trumpet in unison with timpani), timpani, 2 violins, 2 violas ("haute-contres de violon" and "tailles de violon") and basso continuo.

Te Deum (Versailles)

The composition consists of the following parts:

    Prelude (Marche en rondeau)
    Te Deum laudamus (bass solo)
    Te aeternum Patrem (chorus and SSAT solo)
    Pleni sunt caeli et terra (chorus)
    Te per orbem terrarum (trio, ATB)
    Tu devicto mortis aculeo (chorus, bass solo)
    Te ergo quaesumus (soprano solo)
    Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis (chorus)
    Dignare, Domine (duo, SB)
    Fiat misericordia tua (trio, SSB)
    In te, Domine, speravi (chorus with ATB trio)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

This Te Deum may reflect the pomp and circumstance which one expects from such a composition. There is also a close connection between text and music. The triple "Sanctus" causes the use of three solo voices and so does the reference to the Trinity in the fifth section (Te per orbem terrarum). "Pleni sunt coeli" (Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory) is obviously set for the tutti. The intimate prayer "Te ergo quaesumus" (We therefore pray Thee) is given to a solo soprano.

Te Deum

The text contains strong contrasts: for instance, a passage about the Last Judgement is followed by prayers for God’s mercy. These contrasts are fully exploited by the composer, both in the scoring and the affetti. Contrasts in music were something Charpentier was specifically interested in: ‘the very diversity is what creates perfection’. There can't be any doubt that what we see here is the influence of his teacher, Giacomo Carissimi, who was especially famous for his oratorios which had a strongly dramatic character.

Maurice Andre plays Prelude to Te Deum

The opening track Prelude (notably the trumpet and drum fanfare) is instantly recognizable, but once past that the present-day association gives way to the sense of historical occasion. In addition to trumpets and drums (which return in three further movements), Charpentier used other colourful instruments.

Prelude to Te Deum

After the work's rediscovery in 1953 by the musicologist Carl de Nys, the instrumental prelude, “Marche en rondeau,” was chosen in 1954 as the theme music preceding the broadcasts of the European Broadcasting Union. After over sixty years of use notably before EBU programs such as the popular Eurovision Song Contest and Jeux Sans Frontières, the prelude, as arranged by Guy Lambert and directed by Louis Martini, has become Charpentier's best-known work.

Eurovison (European Broadcasting Union)

Charpentier – Te Deum Prelude (Chapelle Royale de Versailles)

The Brockes-Passion can be considered the archetype of the German Passion oratorio. As such, it served as a model and source of inspiration for famous later masterpieces, enjoying uninterrupted popularity throughout the 18th century when no less than 11 composers, including Handel and Telemann, set it to music. The superb version by Reinhard Keiser fellow citizen of Brockes in Hamburg, is the first (1712). Four at that time known settings, by Keiser, Telemann, Händel and Mattheson, were performed over four evenings in 1719, 1722, 1723, and 1730.

Brockes Passion (by Stölzel)

The German poet, Barthold Heinrich Brockes, was an almost exact contemporary of J.S. Bach. He was born in Hamburg in 1680 and lived to 1747. Although we should call his specifically poetic works "minor", Brockes was an accomplished and influential figure in pre-Enlightenment Germany: he translated Alexander Pope and James Thomson's "Seasons". From a literary standpoint Brockes's most important and, indeed, voluminous work—nine sturdy volumes—is his “Irdisches Vergnugen in Gott” ( ''Earthly Contentment in God''). For many eighteenth-Century composers, however, the importance of Brockes as a writer lay in his Passion oratorio libretto, “Der fur die Sunden der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus” ( ''Jesus martyred and dying for the wickedness of the world'').

Barthold Heinrich Brockes

In Brockes' version of a passion, a tenor Evangelist narrates, in recitative passages, events from all four Gospels' accounts of Jesus' suffering and death. Persons of the Gospel story (Jesus, Peter, Pilate, etc.) have dialogue passages, also in recitative; a chorus sings passages depicting the declamation of crowds; and poetic texts, sometimes in the form of arias, sometimes that of chorales (hymn-like short choral pieces), reflect on the events. Some of the arias are for the persons of the Passion, Jesus himself, Peter, etc., but Mary the mother of Jesus, who does not appear in the Gospel accounts of the Passion, also has a singing part, and fictitious "characters", The Daughter of Zion, four solo Believing Souls, and A Chorus of Believing Souls, also observe and comment.

Barthold Heinrich Brockes

Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749) was a prolific composer of stage works, oratorios, masses, cantatas, and various instrumental works, little of his output has survived ; for example, only 12 of his 85 known secular cantatas, and fragments from only 10 of his 442 sacred cantatas, are extant. At least 18 orchestral suites and over 90 vocal serenatas are completely lost. Part of this is due to the fact that his music quickly became unfashionable after his death.

Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel

Although highly regarded prior to the Neapolitan conquest of north European opera, in modern times Stölzel was known until quite recently from a handful of works, primarily the aria "Bist du bei mir", often mistakenly attributed to J.S. Bach, and a concerto for six trumpets. Regarding "Bist du bei mir", there is nothing in the few other recorded works by Stölzel.

Brockes-Passion, 1712

That the Brockes-Passion was able to survive is something that we owe to a fortunate series of circumstances. Stölzel sent a copy of the passion to Sonderhausen, presumably in 1735. After several performances at the court there (such as is indicated by the parts, some of which have come down to us in multiple copies), it was stored away with numerous other compositions by him in a container. The container ended up behind the organ, and soon nobody remembered that it was there. It was not until 1870 that the court organist Heinrich Frankenberger and the later Bach biographer Philipp Spitta rediscovered it. Another hundred years would go by before a musicologist would take a closer look at Stölzel. Fritz Hennenberg's dissertation of 1965 includes a catalogue of Stölzel's cantatas and makes some remarks about the passion.

Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel

In 1996 Ludger Rémy undertook a closer examination of the sources and did some research into the background of the Gotha passion performances. After some 250 years the passion was performed again for the first time in 1997.

Brockes-Passion, 1716

In the personal foreword to his recording of Stölzel's Brockes-Passion (CPO, 1998), Ludger Rémy writes: "When I read the first pages of the score manuscript from Sondershausen, I was overcome by all sorts of emotions and felt no little shock. Here was a work that had been lying dormant for over 250 years, and it had an inner strength and power to it that have continued to hold me under their spell ever since then. Incredible music...and after reading it I was a changed man.

Ever since then I hove regarded the Brockes Passion by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel as one of the most moving and genuinely human pieces of music that I have ever performed or had the good fortune to hear, and I reckon Stölzel among the truly great masters of the Central German Baroque, one who is perhaps even superior to most other composers of those times in his effect on heart and soul. I believe that the helpless silence and perplexity of humanity in face of the unchangingness of existence has only rarely found such eloquent expression in music."

Ludger Rémy

The conductor Ludger Rémy uses a first-rate period-instrument small ensemble, good chamber choir and a superb roster of vocal soloists; some of them are familiar from recordings of Bach's vocal works. Among them are soprano Dorothee Mields, with angelic voice and dramatic expression, the earthier and no-less impressive soprano Constanze Backes, the native-sounding strong-voiced counter-tenor Henning Voss, the tenors Knut Schoch (who sang the lion's share of tenor parts in Leusink's Bach cantata cycle) as the Evangelist, and Andreas Post in most of the arias, and the dignified, authoritative and reliable as ever Klaus Mertens (who sang all the bass parts in Koopman's Bach cantata cycle) as Jesus.

Stölzel - Brockes-Passion, album

There is the only one recording of Stölzel's Brockes-Passion. Why has not any other conductor took upon himself recording this work since 1997 ?

Rubens - The Crucified Christ

Young Count Almaviva is in love with Rosina, ward of the cantankerous Dr. Bartolo. With the help of some local musicians, he serenades her outside her balcony window (“Ecco ridente”), but she does not appear. Despairing, he dismisses the band. Just as they disperse, he hears someone approaching and hides. It is Figaro, barber and factotum extraordinaire, who will take on any job as long as he is well paid (“Largo al factotum”). Having recognized Figaro, Almaviva emerges from hiding and lays out his problem. The Count is in luck, for Figaro is frequently employed in Bartolo’s house as barber, wigmaker, surgeon, pharmacist, herbalist, veterinarian—in short, as jack-of-all-trades.

Largo Al Factotum

Rossini was composing an opera based on the first play of Beaumarchais famous trilogy of plays: Le Barbier de Séville, Le Marriage de Figaro, and La Mère Coupable. Twenty years earlier, Mozart had composed his opera The Marriage of Figaro, and comparisons between ‘Barber’ and ‘Figaro’ continue to this day. Furthermore, there was an earlier “Barbiere de Siviglia”,composed by Giovanni Paisello in 1776.

Beaumarchais - Le Barbier de Séville, 1776

Like many great composers, Gioachino Rossini demonstrated musical genius at a young age. His first opera was produced when he was only 18. His first big hit was “Tancredi” in 1813 when he was 21, followed by ‘Barber’ at age 23. Quite possibly that “The Barber of Seville” was the fastest opera ever written. It is said that Rossini composed ‘Barber’ in 13 days. In any case, as it was commissioned by Duke Cesarini, the impresario of the Teatro Argentina, on December 26, 1815, it had to have been written between that day and its première on February 5, 1816, only 40 days later.

Young Gioachino Rossini

Everybody know Rossini’s aria. Figaro is one of the most widely recognized opera characters and his aria “ Largo al factotum” has, no doubt, been the aria used most in cartoons. For some people, their one and only opera reference may come from this aria!

Largo al factotum, score

Factotum - an employee who does all kinds of work. Figaro, in’Largo al factotum del città’ (Make way for the factotum of the city), explains his ability to do everything for everybody in the opera, if not in the entire city of Seville.

Tito Gobbi - Largo al factotum

Typically, Figaro sings this aria alone onstage at the first entrance of the title character; the repeated "Figaro"s before the final patter section. Due to the constant singing of triplets in 6/8 meter at an allegro vivace tempo, the piece is often noted as one of the most difficult baritone arias to perform. This, along with the tongue-twisting nature of some of the lines, insisting on Italian superlatives (always ending in "-issimo"), have made it a pièce de résistance in which a skilled baritone has the chance to highlight all of his qualities.

Mario del Monaco - Largo al factotum

“The Barber of Seville” is almost 200 years old but is perpetually young. “Largo al factotum” is so familiar that it’s hard to imagine how new and different from anything before it must have seemed to audiences in the second decade of the 19th century.

Gioachino Rossini

Largo al factotum (Italian)

Largo al factotum della città.
Presto a bottega che l'alba è già.
Ah, che bel vivere, che bel piacere
per un barbiere di qualità! di qualità!
	
Ah, bravo Figaro!
Bravo, bravissimo!
Fortunatissimo per verità!

Pronto a far tutto,
la notte e il giorno
sempre d'intorno in giro sta.
Miglior cuccagna per un barbiere,
vita più nobile, no, non si da.
	
Rasori e pettini
lancette e forbici,
al mio comando
tutto qui sta.
V'è la risorsa,
poi, del mestiere
colla donnetta... col cavaliere...
	
Tutti mi chiedono, tutti mi vogliono,
donne, ragazzi, vecchi, fanciulle:
Qua la parrucca... Presto la barba...
Qua la sanguigna...
Presto il biglietto...
Qua la parrucca, presto la barba,
Presto il biglietto, ehi!
	
Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!, ecc.
Ahimè, che furia!
Ahimè, che folla!
Uno alla volta, per carità!
Ehi, Figaro! Son qua.
Figaro qua, Figaro là,
Figaro su, Figaro giù.
	
Pronto prontissimo son come il fulmine:
sono il factotum della città.
Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo;
a te fortuna non mancherà.

Placido Domingo - Largo al factotum

Largo al factotum (English translation)

Make way for the factotum of the city,
Hurrying to his shop for it's already dawn.
Ah, what a fine life, what fine pleasure
For a barber of quality!

Ah, bravo Figaro!
Bravo, bravissimo!
Most fortunate indeed!

Ready to do everything
Night and day,
Always on the move.
A cushier fate for a barber,
A more noble life, is not to be had.

Razors and combs,
Lancets and scissors,
At my command
Everything's there.
Here are the tools
Of my trade
With the ladies...with the gentlemen...

Everyone asks for me, everyone wants me,
Ladies, young lads, old men, young girls:
Here is the wig... The beard is ready...
Here are the leeches...
The note is ready...
Here is the wig, the beard is ready,
The note is ready, hey!

Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!, etc.
Dear me, what frenzy!
Dear me, what a crowd!
One at a time, for pity's sake!
Hey, Figaro! I'm here.
Figaro here, Figaro there,
Figaro up, Figaro down.

Swifter and swifter, I'm like a thunderbolt:
I'm the factotum of the city.
Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo,
You'll never lack for luck!

Gioachino Rossini

Largo Al Factotum from The Barber of Seville (Andre Rieu)

Johann Sebastian Bach - Weihnachts-Oratorium

Shout for joy - Jauchzet frohlocket

For the First Day of Christmas