Download About the Music By Christine Gevert The idea for the

About the Music By Christine Gevert
The idea for the program, Remember and Rejoice!, grew out of my ongoing quest for exceptional choral
orchestral Baroque repertoire that is rarely performed. The title alludes to the compositions–a Requiem (Missa
Pro Defunctis) dedicated to the memory and remembrance of a departed loved one, and the festive celebration–
Te Deum–a joyful expression of praise and gratitude. Equally important to me is the remembrance of forgotten
composers and their works. Bringing their compositions to life, means that our contemporary audiences–you–
can can appreciate new repertoire of a very familiar and beloved style: the Baroque.
Pietro Torri and the Missa Pro Defunctis
Pietro Torri (1650-1737) born in Northern Italy, was a well known and well respected organist and composer.
Torri wrote a great number of vocal compositions–among them 30 operas! But he became famous for his
chamber duets, based on the outstanding examples of the Italian composer Antonio Steffani, who might have
been his teacher. The German composer George Frideric Handel 'borrowed' themes and ideas from both of them
for his own Italian duets.
Torri spent much of his career in Germany, mainly in Munich and Hanover. Another famous Baroque composer,
Antonio Fiocco, accompanied Torri to Brussels where he served as a court musician. In his travels, Torri also
came in contact with the French music of Jean-Baptiste Lully.
For four years, early in his career, Torri served as the organist and choirmaster of the Margrave of Bayreuth.
Later he worked for the elector of Bavaria Max Emanuel, whom he followed on his travels to the Spanish
Netherlands and Brussels. The Missa Pro Defunctis (Requiem) was written for Max Emanuel, who died in 1726
in Munich. His son Charles Albert succeeded him to the throne of Bavaria, and that same year became PrinceElector of the Holy Roman Empire as Charles VII, which made Torri a musician at the imperial court.
The score of the Requiem had been lost for a long time, and was only re-discovered in 1929 in Brussels among a
collection of around five hundred manuscripts of sacred music. Then it was only noticed by musicologists, and
was neither performed nor published. After the Cathedral in Brussels underwent a renovation in the 1980s, this
large collection of manuscripts was included in the International Inventory of Musical Sources. Musicians now
started to have access to this material, and so the Belgian Baroque orchestra Il Fondamento with the chorus La
Sfera del Canto under the direction of the Baroque oboist Paul Dombrecht performed the world premiere and
recording of this work in the year 2000. Since the score of the piece has not been published, Crescendo will be
performing from a new edition based off of Dombrecht's transcription of the manuscript made this past spring
by Christine Gevert.
The Requiem is scored for five vocal parts – tutti (Chorus) and soli – strings and two obligato oboes that are
briefly augmented by trumpet fanfares in the Tuba Mirum (call of the trumpet) of movement III. Sequence. This
is music of great flexibility and textural diversity, a technique which Torri may have absorbed from hearing
Lully's Grande Motets during the time he spent in Brussels. However, the style is totally Italianate, ranging from
complex polyphonic choruses, that show a mastery of counterpoint, to contrasting homophonic choral passages.
Of added interest are the affective harmonies, in which dissonances create brief moments of tension that are then
resolved. The transitions between tutti (choral) parts and the numerous solo parts and solo ensemble parts are
very fluid. The lines written for the solo voices are varied and agile, showing at times a touch of gallant style.
They are a true testament to the mastery of Italian melodic writing.
Without a doubt the third movement, Sequence, which starts with the Dies irae (the day of wrath), is the most
dramatic: the rage of the text is reflected in intensely syllabic and fast paced tutti passages, alternating with
stammering rhythms describing the experience of being astounded by death (Mors stupebit). In contrast to that
lie slowly moving, melodic passages for the imploring and hopeful (Recordare, Voca me) parts of the text. The
final Amen of that movement is highly syncopated and lively, and a testimony to the celebratory rather than
mournful character of this piece.
Even though the orchestral interludes are brief, they constitute an important part of the fabric of the piece,
showcasing the element of discourse and dialogue between the voices and the instruments. The Catholic
tradition calls for repetition of portions of the texts in most of the parts of the Mass (for example: Kyrie–Christe–
Kyrie), which creates an ABA-form. This form was later developed into the da capo aria, a staple of Baroque
vocal compositions that culminated in the great vocal works of the eighteenth century.
Sources: Johan Eekelo (liner notes to Il Fondamento's recording “Pro Defunctis”), George Peabody (review of Il Fondamento's recording
“Pro Defunctis” on Amazon.com), wikipedia.org
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, Bist du bei mir and Te Deum
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749) grew up in Schwarzenberg, Saxony. In the early 1700s he was a
student of theology in Leipzig and of music with Melchior Hoffmann, the musical director of the Neukirche. He
studied, worked and composed in Wrocław (Breslau), Poland and Halle. During an eighteen-month trip to Italy,
in 1713, he met Antonio Vivaldi in Venice, and became acquainted with the latest musical tastes. After working
for three years in Prague, he was briefly the court Kapellmeister in Bayreuth and Gera. In 1719 he married and
the next year took up an appointment in Gotha, where he worked until his death as a court musician for the
dukes Frederick II and Frederick III of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, composing a cantata each week.
Even though he is mostly unknown today, Stölzel was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the greatest
composers of his time. Lorenz Christoph Mizler, scholar, composer and student of Johann Sebastian Bach, rated
him as great as Bach himself. Johann Mattheson, renowned baroque composer and music writer, reckoned him
among “the level-headed, learned, and great music masters” of his century. Stölzel was an accomplished writer in
German and wrote many of the poetic texts for his vocal works. Some pieces by him are included in Johann
Sebastian's Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach—a collection of musical pieces presented to his second wife,
Anna Magdalena. This is the case of the famous Aria for Soprano and Basso Continuo Bist du bei mir (If you
are with me) performed today. For many years it was falsely attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, until the score
was rediscovered in the year 2000 in the Kiev Conservatory. It is part of one of Stölzel's lost Operas: Diomedes,
which was performed in Bayreuth on November 16, 1718. The original opera score is lost. The aria may have been
transcribed and set by J.S. Bach as a solo aria appropriate for his wife's voice, and she may also have had to do
some of the copying. No one will ever know how the actual transmission occurred.
New scholarship has also shown that Johann Sebastian Bach performed at least two complete cantata cycles by
Stölzel— over one hundred cantatas spanning a period of two years—and at least one Passion.
After Georg Philipp Telemann, Stölzel was one of the most prolific composers of his day. He wrote eighteen
music dramas (among them five operas), several oratorios and masses, many motets and at least seven Passions,
in addition to countless orchestral and chamber music works and twelve complete cantata cycles, which brings
the total number of cantatas written by him well over 1,200!
Stölzel spent most of his career as court composer in Saxe-Gotha. Unfortunately, a large portion of his
substantial work was never engraved and published, and has been lost due to the poor oversight by his successor,
Georg Benda (1722–1795), who discarded most of it as unusable and out of fashion. In 1778 Benda wrote: “...
Only the best works of my predecessor, which could be used even today for church music, are saved, because
already a long time ago I separated them from useless junk and kept them in my own house.” Still, a significant
number of his pieces survive in copies requested by the nearby court at Sondershausen.
Among these is a German Te Deum, setting Martin Luther's translation of the traditional text. The Te Deum
(Thee, O God, we praise) is a festive hymn, used to praise God on special occasions, such as the election of a
Pope, the proclamation of a treaty of peace, the dedication of a church or a royal coronation. Stölzel possibly
wrote it in 1717 when he was commissioned to produce music for the 200th anniversary celebration of the
Lutheran reformation in Bayreuth. The text is grouped in four parts: 1. The whole creation praises the Trinitarian
God 2. The church praises the Trinitarian God 3. Praise to Jesus Christ 4. Petitions. Luther's chorale tune of the
Te Deum (here the opening notes)
is loosely based on the Gregorian chant of the ancient hymn of praise:
Stölzel follows his tune in several of the movements of the piece, and uses the antiphonal structure of
soloist/cantor alternating with choir/congregation. The other movements are all choruses with orchestra and in
contrasting styles: the stile antico (old style), in which the voices imitate melodic lines in slowly flowing
contrapuntal lines, and the stile moderno (modern style) which features a dialogue between voices and
instruments and uses melodies that contain more movement—such as greater alternation of skips and steps and
more complex rhythms—to express the rhetoric of the text.
The whole work is build with astounding symmetry:
Opening Chorus: full orchestra (introductory chant is part 1 of the chorale tune )
Chorale Soprano/Choir: solo violin, pizzicato strings, part 2 of chorale tune
Chorus (slow Fugue)
Chorale Tenor/Choir: no brass & timpani, part 2 of chorale tune
Chorus (fast Fugue, dance character)
Chorale Soprano (centerpiece): no brass & timpani, part 2 of chorale tune
Chorale Tenor/Choir: full orchestra, part 2 of chorale tune
Chorus (slow Fugue)
Chorale Soprano/Choir: solo oboe, pizzicato strings, part 3 of chorale tune
Chorus (slow Fugue): no brass & timpani
Final Chorus: full orchestra
Sources: Bach Cantatas Website–Newsletters (Year 2010), wikipedia.org, Christian Ahrens (liner notes to “Christmas Oratorio and Gospel Cantatas bei G.
H. Stölzel recodring)
© Crescendo, 2015