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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