Download program notes - Canto Armonico

PROGRAM NOTES – October 24, 2010
The years around the turn of the 15th-16th centuries marked a period of exceptional splendour in
the cultivation of religious ceremonial in England. Magnificent new buildings as well as educational and
musical establishments were generously endowed by a succession of pious monarchs intent on carrying
out their religious duties with due solemnity. Our cultural heritage owes much to their dedication (as
well as to their affluence, of course), in the architectural, musical, and artistic treasures that were created
at their behest.
Pre-eminent among these establishments was the 'College Royal of Our Lady of Eton beside
Windsor', founded by Henry VI in 1440. Its collegiate chapel was constituted with 10 priest fellows, 10
chaplains, 10 lay clerks and 16 choristers, and its statutes specified in detail the patterns of religious
observance that were to be followed, including devotional ceremonies at which the antiphon Salve Regina
was sung during Lent. By fortunate chance, the great collection of music known as the Eton Choirbook
has survived, in part at least, and preserves a significant part of the choir's repertoire from that time in an
exceptionally beautifully written manuscript. Measuring about 60 x 44 cm, it would have rested on a
lectern so that the singers could gather round it, the page turns being carefully organised to synchronise
for all the different voice-parts.
Of the 24 Magnificat settings listed in the index, only six are extant in this source, but others,
including that by William Cornysh, are known from other manuscripts, such as the Caius Choirbook,
copied some 20 or so years later. Cornysh's setting is surely the most virtuosic and brilliant of these
works, its elaborate florid writing a musical counterpart to the fan-vaulted architecture of the buildings,
and designed to show off a very highly skilled group of singers. Its structure follows what had become a
standard design, with plainchant verses alternating with polyphonic ones that are loosely based on the
faburden of the chant (a system that sounds complicated but in effect provides some underlying unity).
Much is made of contrasted scoring, between verses for reduced numbers of voices and those for the full
ensemble, and also of contrasted time signatures, from triple to duple measure and back again. Cornysh
employs text-painting in his imitative motifs for “in brachio suo” (in his arms) – a rocking motion – and
“potentiam” (the mighty) – repeated longer notes. The final verse, 'Sicut erat in principio', sees a thrilling
workout of vocal virtuosity for each voice, leading into the final culminating Amen.
But who was William Cornysh? Two composers of this name, probably father and son, were active
in London musical circles in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The elder one was appointed Master of
the Choristers at Westminster Abbey in 1479, admitted to the Fraternity of St Nicholas in the following
year, lived near the Abbey and was buried in the churchyard of St Margaret's Westminster in 1502. The
younger man, in addition to his duties as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal (he was recorded as attending
the interment of Henry VII and the coronation of Henry VIII in 1509), achieved renown as a court
composer, a leading figure in the plays and entertainments favoured by the young Henry VIII, whom he
accompanied to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Until recently, both the secular songs in the Fayrfax
manuscript (described as the works of 'William Cornysh junior') and the Latin sacred music of the Eton
Choirbook and other sources have been attributed to the William Cornysh who died in 1523, but a recent
re-examination of the evidence has led David Skinner to conclude that the Latin music should in fact be
credited to the older man. [David Skinner, 'William Cornysh: clerk or courtier?', Musical Times, May 1997]
Several anomalies are resolved by the convincing arguments he presents, not least the presence of what
are clearly mature works by Cornysh in the Eton Choirbook, assembled between 1490 and 1504.
-- Sally Dunkley, 2010
Described by a Spanish eulogist as 'honour, glory and light of Flanders', Philippe Rogier (c.15611596) was one of a number of distinguished musicians of Flemish birth who made a career in Spain. He
arrived in Madrid in 1572 as one of several choirboys recruited from the Low Countries by Geert van
Turnhout, maestro di capilla to Philip II. He was appointed assistant maestro to the Spanish king in 1584
and director two years later, at the age of just 25. A collection of his motets was published in 1595, and
one of Masses shortly after his untimely death the following year, but many of his works were lost in the
Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Nevertheless, enough of Rogier's music survives to show him to have been an
unusually fine composer with an individual voice, whose musical vocabulary seems to combine the
extended polyphonic technique of the Flemish school with the emotional intensity of his adopted
country, with a glimpse into the following century in the compelling use of sequential patterns. In
addition to his printed collection of unaccompanied motets, a number of other works recently transcribed
from manuscript exemplify an intriguingly different manner, being scored for two or three choirs with
continuo and looking forward in style to the following century.
The prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary (specified as a Magnificat antiphon for some Marian
feasts) “Sancta Maria, succurre nobis” was set by Rogier for six voices, two of which move in canon
within the sonorous texture of spacious polyphony. The three sections of text, address, intercessions, and
closing, correspond to the tripartite structure of the music. Although there are no pauses, texture and
syllabic/melismatic treatment distinguish the sections, in particular with intercessions beginning in long
notes and culminating in rapturous melismas over “devoto femineo sexu” (women in religious orders).
Rogier reserves his most luxuriant writing for all references to the feminine in this sublime “Sancta
Maria.”
-- Sally Dunkley, 2010
Bálint Karosi’s “Ne Timeas, Maria,” composed over the summer of 2010, is based on the chant “Ne
Timeas, Maria,” here sung at the outset of the piece by the bass section of Canto Armonico. Central to the
conception of the piece is the choral Magnificat at the end of the second movement of Liszt’s Dante
Symphony, sung by sopranos and altos. A direct allusion to this work is found at the conclusion of “Ne
Timeas, Maria.” Gustave Doré’s engraving of Paradise with its concentric levels of soaring, anonymous
angels, shown in the flyer for this Canto Armonico concert, also served as conception for “Ne Timeas,
Maria.” Canon, which equalizes the voices, thus becomes the principal structural device. Singers begin
softly with a three-pitch rhythmic section in strict unison canon over a tenor chant, followed by canonic
treatment of the chant’s opening notes in all voices. Melodic and rhythmic ostinati, in a nod to fellow
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, then take over as the figurative angels soar ever higher. As pitch
increases and rhythmic values shorten, melodic ostinati based on the chant, and starting in the upper
voices, are treated rhythmically against chant, heard in long values in the uppermost voice and against an
organ part that employs a combination of similar melodic and rhythmic ostinati, broken chord clusters,
14th-century cadential patterns, and eventually the “Ne Timeas, Maria” chant singled out in the pedals.
Finally, at the top of the angelic spiral, sopranos sing long, seemingly measureless, undulating alleluias
that condense to a single high E. The serenity shared with Liszt’s Magnificat setting is maintained until
just before the final chordal section, when the two lower voices break into a perky, staccato delivery of
the words “His Kingdom will never end.”
– Cheryl Ryder
Although Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was evidently an accomplished organist in his youth and
early adulthood, the organ holds a marginal position in his compositional output. Of his more than 300
works for solo keyboard (not counting the 47 keyboard concertos, of which two are for organ), only five
sonatas and one prelude are specifically designated for the organ. Of his six "Clavierfugen" (keyboard
fugues) only two are in four voices and even then the pedal is not necessary but could, Bach admitted, be
used with good effect. Indeed, the pedal does not come into play at all in Bach's organ works, except for
some long held notes in the Prelude in D Major, Wq 70/7.
The Sonata in A-minor, Wq 70/4, is one of four organ sonatas that Bach composed in 1755,
probably for Princess Anna Amalia, sister of Bach's employer Frederick the Great. Johann Nikolaus
Forkel, the first biographer of J.S. Bach, annotated his own copy of the sonatas with a remark that
probably originated with C.P.E. Bach: "NB. These four organ solos were composed for a princess who
could not play the pedals, nor anything difficult, although she had a beautiful organ with two manuals
and pedal made for her, and liked to play upon it." (The still-extant organ is now in the Kirche zur frohen
Botschaft in Karlshorst, in the outskirts of Berlin.) The A-minor sonata, while not overly taxing, probably
would have presented some technical challenges to the organ-loving princess. The opening Allegro assai is
an example of Empfindsamkeit, or the "sensitive style," with abrupt changes of mood, texture, and
dynamics, the latter most easily accomplished on the organ by switching from one manual to another.
The various sections of the movement are punctuated by an arresting, chromatically-tinged unisono
passage played by both hands in octaves. The Adagio gives the organist a chance to make the instrument
sing and suggests the intimately expressive style of keyboard playing for which Bach was renowned. The
closing Allegro returns to the unsettled, stormy atmosphere established by the opening movement.
Both of the outer movements contain repeated sections. It is a matter of debate how one should
observe the repeats, if at all. If taken, should the repeats be played literally, or should they be decorated
with ornaments and other embellishments? Bach's first set of Sonatas with Varied Reprises, in which the
repeated sections are written out complete with embellishments (not just ornament signs), was not
published until 1760. It seems reasonable to conclude that Bach's keyboard music of the mid-1750s,
including the organ sonatas, can also be played in a way that suggests improvisation, so that no two
renditions of a given work would ever be exactly alike.
The Magnificat in D, Wq 215, written in Potsdam in 1749 (a little over ten years into his tenure as
the court harpsichordist to Frederick the Great of Prussia), is C.P.E. Bach's earliest surviving major vocal
work. Bach evidently wrote cantatas while he was a student at the university in Frankfurt an der Oder,
but all of these works are lost. It was long believed that he wrote no vocal works during his early years in
Leipzig. But in the fall of 2009 a manuscript, housed in a parish archive, was identified as an autograph
composing score of a solo cantata for bass and strings on a text by Picander (Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem
Stande), written for Septuagesima Sunday of 1733 or 1734. Despite the importance of this discovery for
our understanding of Bach's early years, the Magnificat must still be considered one of the most important
works of Bach's entire output. During the last phase of his career, as director of church music in Hamburg
(from 1768 until his death in 1788), Bach revived the work twice at least twice (1779 and 1786), and he
reused every movement, with new German texts and other modifications, in cantatas for feast days and
special occasions.
Our knowledge about the genesis of C.P.E. Bach's Magnificat is sketchy at best. On his autograph
score, Bach wrote only "Potsdam. d. 25 Aug. 1749." Based on some third-party reminiscences, the survival
of four performance parts in the hands of Leipzig copyists, and the diverse styles in which the work is
written, the leading hypothesis is that the Magnificat was written as an audition piece to support C.P.E.
Bach's candidacy as the successor to his still-living father as the Leipzig Thomaskantor. No corroborating
documentation survives to attest even to an actual date of performance, although various Marian feast
days have been suggested.
The Magnificat as heard in this afternoon's performance represents the so-called Berlin version,
for which we have complete sets of performing materials but no specific knowledge of performance dates
or venues. Bach scored the work for pairs of horns, flutes, and oboes in addition to the voices and strings.
In the later Hamburg version (with documented performances in 1779 and 1786), Bach expanded the
scoring with the addition of trumpets and timpani, and he wrote an entirely new—and much shorter—
setting for the chorus no. 4, "Et misericordia." Otherwise the work remained essentially the same.
It is probably inevitable to draw comparisons and to notice relationships between C.P.E. Bach's
setting of the Magnificat and that of J.S. Bach (BWV 243), but by no means is the son content to remain in
the shadow of his father. As mentioned above, the work is stylistically diverse. Indeed, C.P.E. Bach
displays a sure hand in both the most up-to-date but also the more old-fashioned idioms (this is, after all,
a sacred work), not only in the arias but perhaps especially in the choral movements: the largely
homophonic textures and driving rhythms of the opening "Magnificat anima mea Dominum," the sighing
lament of the "Et misericordia" (with the citation of the cantus firmus in the oboes), and the full-blown
double fugue on "Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum. Amen." in the final
movement. In their use of cyclic structures, C.P.E. and J.S. Bach's settings resemble each other closely, yet
with significant differences. J.S. Bach's final movement is not a fugue (he had already set the text "Sicut
locutus est" fugally) but a reprise of the music of the opening "Magnificat" chorus. C.P.E. Bach, on the
other hand, reprised the music of the opening chorus on the text "Gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancto" as
a prelude to the fugal grand finale.
That C.P.E. Bach thought highly of his Magnificat is shown by his including it in a concert of 1786,
a program which included the Credo of his father's B Minor Mass, portions of Handel's Messiah, and his
own double-choir “Heilig.” Although it was a work from much earlier in his career, Bach clearly valued
the Magnificat as a composition that could stand alongside not only his later Hamburg works, but also the
great choral masterpieces of the previous generation. Indeed, in our own day of rekindled interest in the
music of C.P.E. Bach and other member of the Bach circle, the Magnificat continues to stand the test of
time. [The early version of the Magnificat will be published in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete
Works, series V, vol. 1, part 1, edited by Christine Blanken (Los Altos, Calif.: The Packard Humanities
Institute, forthcoming)]
-- Jason B. Grant
Martin Luther declared, "I neither have nor know any other God, in heaven or on earth, apart
from this one who is nursed at the breast of the Virgin Mary." Though Luther rejected the theological
(and liturgical) claims of the medieval church that made Mary herself into an intercessor or mediator of
grace (reflected here in Rogier's antiphon), he never tired of preaching and reminding his hearers that the
only place where a gracious God could be found was in the flesh of the Jesus, the Son of God who became
a human being through Mary.
In Mary herself, Luther found a model of Christian life. He found her exemplary not because of
her purity (which Luther did not deny), but because of her faith, which believed God's word of grace
proclaimed by the angel. Thus she received forgiveness and salvation through the promise of a Savior
that was being fulfilled through her.
In celebration of the incarnation of the Son of God from Mary, Lutherans continued to observe
not only the feast of Christmas, but also the festivals of the Annunciation (March 25), Visitation, and
Presentation (February 2). And in the daily prayer of Christians, Luther treasured the Magnificat, Mary's
song of praise from Luke 1:46-55, as a testimony of the faith of Mary and all Christians in God's saving
work in Christ. The Magnificat had long been the traditional canticle for the evening prayer office of
Vespers, a central part of the monastic life in which Luther was steeped as well as in the daily public
prayer observed at cathedrals and other prominent churches. Lutherans retained the Magnificat at the
center of their own daily Vespers services, usually sung, either in simple chant or in polyphonic setting,
by choirs of schoolboys, or sometimes as a congregational hymn.
In both its Roman Catholic and Lutheran liturgical use, the invariable text of the Magnificat itself
(including the Gloria Patri) was preceded and followed by a short antiphon, a few lines of text drawn
from elsewhere in the Bible or written specifically for the liturgy. The festivals of the church year had
their own proper antiphons (such as the one by Karosi here). But in ordinary time, Lutherans sang an
antiphon that echoes the faith in Mary's son Jesus that was the central and abiding faith of the Christian
Church: "Christ the Lord, our Savior, everlasting God and Mary's Son, we praise You forevermore."
-- Christopher Boyd Brown