These program notes are from our November 2011 concert.  Program notes for the March 2012 concert will be posted just prior to the concert.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) has been hailed as “the most original and influential Italian composer of the Baroque Era.”  As an almost exact contemporary of J. S. Bach, Vivaldi led a remarkably unconventional life in contrast to Bach’s modest, humble existence. Vivaldi was well-known in his lifetime for his extreme vanity: he boasted widely of his popularity and skill, once commenting that he could “compose a concerto more quickly than it could be copied.” And while Vivaldi was more widely praised for his violin playing than his composition, he was certainly admired by Bach who transposed several of his solo arias for instrumental ensemble. After Vivaldi’s death his music fell into relative obscurity. It wasn’t until the early decades of the twentieth century that scholars and performers turned their attention to Vivaldi’s vast output: over 500 instrumental concerti, nearly 50 operas, and numerous sacred works including cantatas and other multi-movement works.

 

Vivaldi composed three known settings of the “Gloria” text: the justly famous RV 589, the less well-known Introduction and Gloria RV 588, and one setting which does not survive. It is not known exactly when and for what purpose Vivaldi composed these large-scale, multi-movement settings. The instrumentation in each is almost identical: strings, oboes, solo trumpet, and female vocal soloists (although RV 588 contains one aria for solo tenor.) The “Cum Sancto” for each is nearly identical, a stile antico fugue using melodic material from a Veronese contemporary, Giovanni Maria Ruggieri. Scholars’ best guess is that all three settings were likely composed around 1713, after Vivaldi had already been employed by the Venetian Ospedale della Pietà, the orphanage connected to the Devout Hospital of Mercy, for some time.

 

It is difficult to say why Gloria RV 588 has remained relatively untouched by scholars and performers alike. Perhaps the best reason for the rise to popularity of one setting over the other is that RV 589 is perfectly suited for liturgical performance, while RV 588 contains solo passages of non-liturgical sacred text for the mezzo voice (it should be stated, however, that these portions are easily removed for liturgical performance and, likewise, their presence perhaps makes RV 588 all the more suited to a concert performance.) Some have remarked that RV 589 is simply more “Vivaldi-like” in its musical language, though a strong case can be made that each reveals Vivaldi’s wonderfully-sunny nature, with distinctive rhythms and melodies that give the works an immediate universal appeal. In any case, Vivaldi’s Gloria RV 588 deserves the attention its counterpart has received in recent decades, and we hope our performance this afternoon brings it some deserved light.

 

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) emerged from relatively modest beginnings to become one of the greatest composers in all of Western music history. He received the bulk of his musical training at St. Stephen’s choir school in Vienna, remaining there until his voice broke at the age of 16. He lived in Vienna, eking out a meager existence performing in local ensembles and giving music lessons. He furthered his music education through self-study, acquiring theoretical texts and befriending musicians in paid positions throughout the Hapsburg Empire. After a brief stint as Kappellmeister to Vienna’s Count Morzin, he eventually secured a permanent post with the Esterházy family, the wealthiest family in the court of Hungary.

 

After his release from the family in 1790, Haydn traveled to England in 1790, where he was relatively unknown in wider artistic circles. When Haydn returned to Vienna and the Esterházy family after five years abroad he was an international phenomenon; he himself often said that “he first became famous in [Vienna] owing to his reputation in England.” He enjoyed the favor of Baron van Swieten, the imperial leader of an organization of noble patrons who subsidized large-scale performances of oratorios for performance in Vienna (The Creation, 1798; The Seasons, 1801). But, perhaps more importantly, upon returning to Austria his new employer, Prince Nikolaus II, spent more time in the big cities of Vienna and Eisenstadt. As a result Haydn spent the last years of his life in relative luxury, composing large-scale works for admiring audiences.

 

One of Haydn’s primary duties during these final years of his life was to compose a high mass for performance during the celebration of the nameday of Maria Hermenegild, the consort of Prince Nikolaus II. Haydn’s Missa in angustiis, more commonly known as the “Lord Nelson Mass” was one of these six masses. Composed between July 10 and August 31, 1798, it has been called by Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon “Haydn’s single greatest composition.” It employs relatively few orchestral forces due to Esterházy’s sudden dismissal of his wind band that year, leaving Haydn with a “dark” orchestra of strings, organ, trumpets, and timpani. The unusual name, which translates into “Mass in Troubled Times,” was a direct reflection of the day: the summer of 1798 saw Napoleon conquering central Europe and threatening Vienna itself. The reference to Lord Nelson comes from a victory by the English Admiral that took place around the time of the first performance.

 

Haydn’s Missa in angustiis reveals many influences converging upon the composer late in his life. It has been suggested that the choice of D Minor directly reflects Haydn admiration for Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, whose Vienna performance Haydn attended in 1788. According to Landon, “the most memorable scene portrays the unrepentant anti-hero being dragged down to the underworld…the listener hears, perhaps for the first time in music history, the presence of real fear, even terror, Don Giovanni’s terrible D-minor fate.” The opening “Kyrie” is as unlike the more commonly-heard submissive plea as possible, instead revealing itself to be a profane, anguished, and confused call for help. Haydn also recalled to a friend the primary influence behind the militaristic trumpet calls at the end of the “Benedictus”: “Just as he was writing this Benedictus he received news from Prince Esterházy: a courier had arrived with the news that Nelson had beaten the French. From this time onwards he was quite unable to get out of his imagination the picture of the trumpeting courier…” The final movement, “Dona Nobis Pacem”, ends with as light-hearted a fugue as the opening Kyrie is dark and foreboding, a sure hallmark of Haydn’s personality and musical style.

 

Dr. Anne Lyman

November 2011