Download DUX 0859

DUX 0859 / 2011
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Requiem
Old Polish Funeral Mass
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Media vita
anonymous, the cantionale of the psalm book of the Benedictine Nuns from Sandomierz,
Andrzej SIEWINSKI (zm. przed 1726): Requiem
Requiem – Kyrie
Graduał Requiem (gregorian chant)
Tractus Absolve (gregorian chant)
Dies irae
Funeral sermon (ks. Baltazar Łabęcki, Wilno 1626)
Domine Jesu
Sanctus
Agnus Dei
Communio Lux aeterna (gregorian chant)
Salve Regina (anonymous, Sandomierz 1750)
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The Katowice City Singers’ Ensemble ‘Camerata Silesia’
Early Music Ensemble Parnassos :
Martyna Pastuszka, Adam Pastuszka – violins
Aleš Ambrosi, Małgorzata Józefowska – oboes
Justyna Krusz – viola da gamba
Urszula Jasiecka-Bury – positive organ
Marcin Świątkiewicz – cembalo
Mariusz Bury – teorba
Adam MYRCZEK – recitation
Anna SZOSTAK – conductor
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DUX Małgorzata Polańska & Lech Tołwiński ul. Morskie Oko 2, 02-511 Warszawa
tel./fax (48 22) 849-11-31, (48 22) 849-18-59
e-mail: [email protected], www.dux.pl
Aleksandra Kitka-Coutellier – International Relations [email protected]
“All the states in a beautiful cluster,
Thickly intermixed with death.
Living, we dance everything,
Not aware that death is there.”
Anonymous text under the Danse Macabre painting at the Church of the Bernardines in Cracow, 17th century.
The notion of death and its manifestation through art is an important element of Old Polish culture. In Polish history, the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are a time of many wars, of slow economic collapse, the weakening power of the
Republic confronted with expansive policies of its neighbours. The people of the time thus had many occasions to
encounter the mystery of death in a most immediate way. The experience had its impact on the images of Death and its
artistic treatment. An important theme in erstwhile literature and art connected with Death, was the often-quoted fact of
its inevitability, and also the equality of all states before the Grim Reaper. Examples of such topics can be found in the
best known early works, such as the writings of Father Józef Baka, masterpieces of Polish baroque poetry. They have
been most concisely contained in the famous painting of the Danse Macabre at the Church of the Bernardine Monks in
Cracow. In its centre we see a ring of dancing women of all ranks, holding hands with skeletons. They are accompanied
by two musicians: one on a violin, another on a clavichord or portable organ. Around this scene are placed fourteen
medallions presenting images of men, of various status, led to the dance by skeletons. Under each medallion is a
quatrain, with the most arresting words spoken by the nobleman, who says “As your dry bones, / Attempted on my
liberties, / I do not allow to dance, / But you drag me in anyway”.
In Old Poland, much importance was attached to the funeral. As known, funerals of the nobility, and especially of
magnates, were extremely lavish, as they became yet another circumstance to demonstrate the family’s power, social
standing and material wealth. Obviously, most ceremonious were the royal obsequies. A model for these became the
Ordo pompae funebris serenissimi Sigismundi Regis Poloniae written in 1548 by Samuel Maciejowski for the funeral of
King Sigismund the Old. Royal funeral rites were copied by magnates, nobles and the more affluent members of the
bourgeoisie. A specific tradition of Polish nobility was to mount on the coffin lid a portrait of the deceased, usually painted
on a metal plate. Funerals of nobles had their own dramaturgy and theatrical elements, the most spectacular of which
probably was the introduction of an archimimus – a knight, dressed in the deceased man’s armour, who fell with a great
crash from his horse in front of the bier on which the coffin was placed. This element of the obsequies, borrowed from
the ancients, was present in Poland from the year 1370. Another act laden with meaning was the breaking of the
weapons and insignia of the deceased. An important aspect of a nobleman’s funeral was the music. In Dyspozycja na
wprowadzenie ciała Pawła Karola Sanguszki do kościoła kapucynów w Lublinie (Disposition for the moving of the body of
Paweł Karol Sanguszko to the Capuchin church in Lublin) of 1750, we read in item eight that “The players are to be
ordered and agreed, for the procession of the Holy Mass sung on the following day of the obsequies and in the
procession, on the route, they should be divided. First at the beginning, Second following the Guilds, Third after the
Brethren before the Priests, so that to every verse sung by the priests the whole ensemble should be playing funeral
laments”. Music embellished various parts of the funeral ceremonies, but since hiring musicians was quite costly, not
everyone could afford it.
The album which we are presenting is special. It is an attempt to reconstruct the music accompanying an Old Polish
funeral mass. At the same time, this is the first ever recording of the Requiem by Andrzej Siewiński, the composition on
which the entire reconstruction is based. Andrzej Siewiński is a now-forgotten Polish composer from the turn of the
17th/18th century. All we know of his life is that he died before 1726 (on the manuscript of the Requiem made in 1726,
next to the name of the author there is the annotation Requiescat in pace) and was somehow connected to the Jesuit
order, although not necessarily as a monk. Siewiński's Missa pro defunctis is an extraordinary composition – in the
repertoire of Polish religious music of the late 17th-early 18th centuries it is one of the rare examples (next to the
Requiem by Damian Stachowicz, composed before 1693) of a funeral mass. Interesting is the ensemble Siewiński
prescribed: four voices, two violins, basso continuo and – untypically for Polish music of the time – two oboes. The
composer took on these parts of the funeral mass: Introit (Requiem), Kyrie, Sequence (Dies irae), Offertory (Domine
Jesu), Sanctus and Agnus Dei. By adding on to Siewiński's polyphonic version of elements of chorale (Gradual Requiem,
Tractus Absolve, Communio Lux aeterna), we obtain a relatively full image of the music at an Old Polish funeral service.
One must add that the Requiem by Andrzej Siewiński is an extremely beautiful work, with profound expression, and proof
of excellent artistic craftsmanship. The calibre of this composition is indisputable, that is why its presentation to a wider
audience gladdens so much.
The musical ornamentation to a funeral mass has been complemented by yet another, indispensable and also very
interesting element. This is the acting interpretation of a funeral sermon from the 17th century. Such sermons were an
important part of the funeral ceremony in Old Poland. Often these were long (lasting several hours) treatises, full of
rhetorical figures, devoted to the frailty of the human condition, and also containing words of praise for the merits of the
deceased and his family. Richer families might also have the sermon published; a frequent practice in Poland of the time.
The sermon attached to this recording was preached on March 24, 1624 at the funeral of Piotr Wołowicz, cupbearer of
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, by father Baltazar Łabęcki.
The musical reconstruction of a funeral mass is enhanced by two anonymous compositions which are exceedingly
interesting and beautiful in their simplicity. The recording begins with a polyphonic version of the antiphon Media vita,
taken from the psalm book of the Benedictine Nuns from Sandomierz, dating 1721. In the manuscript, under the notes is
written the Latin text of the antiphony, along with its Polish translation. The whole ends with a penetrating, three-part
version of the antiphon Salve Regina, preserved in the 1750 manuscript (also from the collection of the Benedictine Nuns
in Sandomierz). Salve Regina was traditionally performed when the coffin with the body was lowered into the grave. At
funerals of magnates or richer nobility, this was when cannons were fired. In the above cited Dyspozycja... we read when
precisely should a salute be fired: “Cannons should sound these many times: 1. A good Hour before the Body is moved to
let invited persons know they should come. 2. After each Exhortation when the Body is moved. 3. When the Body is
brought to the Church. 4. After the Procession, to Salve Regina, together with the cannon a shotgun should always be
fired.”
The Old Polish pompa funebris, in many ways commercialized, was intended to acquaint the living with the mystery of
death, and offer effective prayers for the dead to be pardoned from purgatory sins. An important aspect was also the
need to externalize grief by the bereaved family, and sometimes simply to demonstrate status. In whichever case, funeral
ceremonies were accompanied by real grief combined with the Christian hope for salvation of the soul, and fear of
eternal damnation. The emotions can be well understood from a poem which sums up the cycle of medallions presenting
the various states in the Danse Macabre at the Church of the Bernardines in Cracow:
“Happy he, who from this Dance
takes rest in the ramparts of Heaven.
Unhappy, who from this circle
falls into Hell, and cries woe.”
Marcin Konik
Anna SZOSTAK is a graduate of the Arts Department of the Silesian University in Katowice, where she is now an
assistant professor, with a doctorate in conducting. One of the leading choral conductors in Poland, she has founded and
worked with several vocal groups, including Camerata Silesia which she established in 1990. Under her artistic leadership,
the ensemble has gained renown especially in Europe for its stylish interpretations of both early and contemporary music.
In her interpretations of vocal-instrumental works of the Renaissance and Baroque, she favours period instrument
performance. The concerts with Emma Kirkby and Barbara Schlick, as well as those with such prominent ensembles as Il
Tempo, Concerto Polacco, Arte dei Suonatori, Accademia dell’Arcadia, the Silesian Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber
Players of the National Polish Radio SO and New Music Orchestra, belong to this category. Highlights in Anna Szostak’s
career have included the first performances of works by the 17th-century composer from the Jasna Góra monastery,
Aleksander Władysław Leszczyński (at the ‘Gaude Mater’ Festival in Częstochowa, 2007), and concert performances with
participation of the ensemble, of rediscovered compositions by Józef Zeidler at the ‘Musica Sacromontana’ Festival in
Gostyń. The music of Leszczyński and Zeidler has been since recorded and published on CD.
In addition to oratorios and cantatas (Bach’s Magnificat and Weihnachtsoratorium, Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Coronation
Mass) Anna Szostak also conducts concerts of Classical music (Mozart symphonies) as well as works by contemporary
composers, such as Krzysztof Knittel, Witold Szalonek, Arvo Pärt and Witold Lutosławski (in Lutosławski’s Trois poèmes
d’Henri Michaux she has conducted alongside Antoni Wit, and with Peter Hirsch in Brussels). Deserving notice is her
presentation of Paweł Szymański’s Miserere (at a Warsaw festival devoted exclusively to Szymański’s music) and Luigo
Nono’s Das atmende Klarsein (in Feltre, Italy, with the prominent flautist Roberto Fabricciani). A special place is held by
the first-ever performances of new works by contemporary Polish composers at the Festival in Katowice – very often
these are compositions dedicated to the conductor or her ensemble.
Anna Szostak’s honours include the Award of the Minister of Culture and Art for outstanding musical achievements (1993)
and the Jerzy Kurczewski Award for achievements in choral music (2004), the only award of its kind presented in Poland.
She has also received many awards at choral competitions and festivals, including the International Choral Festival in
Międzyzdroje (1982), the ‘Legnica Cantat’ National Choral Tournament (1983 and 1986) and the ‘Holsatia Cantat’
International Choral Competition in Neumünster (1990). She is the recipient of the Artistic Award of the Marshal of the
Silesian Province (2008) and of the Award of the President of the City of Katowice in the field of culture (2009).
Adam MYRCZEK – graduate of the Music Academy in Katowice. Collaborates regularly with “Camerata Silesia”. Actor at
Teatr Polski in Bielsko-Biała since 1989.
Parnassos has been on the music scene since 2001. Its musicians have close connections to Silesia and this is where
they are most active in the domain of baroque music. Concentrated on a chamber repertoire, they often perform with
renowned soloists, appearing at Polish and European music festivals.
In 2007, with soprano Karolina Brachman, Parnassos recorded their first album featuring music by German composers
from the 17th and 18th centuries.
To make their second disc with the first five Rosary Sonatas by H.I.F.Biber the group was invited in 2009 by Rector of
the Parish of St.Stanislaus in Suszec, fr. Krzysztof Winkler.
This album by the Camerata Silesia ensemble is their newest offering to music lovers.