Anyone who listens to Baroque music is familiar with the virtuoso lines often assigned to string sections, especially the violins, by the famous composers such as Vivaldi, Corelli, and Handel. If you've ever experienced a Handel opera, you've encountered a similar style of flashy writing for this or that soloist.
Today's piece is a work which hovers at the edge of the common repertoire -- well known to musicians, especially singers, but somewhat less familiar to the general musical public. Familiar it certainly deserves to be! If there's a hindrance to wider performance, it's the fact that the young Handel, in composing this work, sometimes seemed to forget that his singers were not in fact violins.
Handel composed his setting of Psalm 109, Dixit Dominus, in the year 1707 at the ripe old age of 22. It is the first work of Handel's for which an authentic autograph score exists. He wrote this music in Rome, where he had travelled to study and learn from the Italian musicians, the masters of the age.
How well he learned their style can clearly be seen and heard in this virtuoso showpiece, which makes huge demands on soloists, choir, and the string orchestra with continuo. In fact, Dixit Dominus is such a grand and spirited work that it came almost as a shock to me when I realized that there are no wind, brass or percussion parts in it. The large scale of this psalm setting, in nine movements lasting about 35 minutes, makes it a major contribution to the Baroque choral repertoire.
The long opening movement is nothing less than a full-throttle, high-energy concerto grosso for voices and strings. In it, you hear the rapid runs contrasted with a slower, stately cantus firmus set to the words "Donec ponam inimicus". It's followed, by way of contrast, with two gentler solo arias.
The centre of the work is the energetic double fugue on "Tu es sacerdos" and "secundum ordinem Melchizedek" -- sung simultaneously to two quite different themes. Following this comes the monumental triptych of the fast-running fugal "Dominus a dextris tuis", the slower "Judicabit in nationibus", and the vigorous hammerblows of "Conquassabit capita".
All of this energy is then discharged -- partially -- in the beautiful lyrical duet for two sopranos "De torrente in via bibet" with a murmured background from the male chorus. But even this gentler, slower movement is hardly a point of relaxation, as the tension is maintained by the frequent clashing semitones between the two voices.
The final "Gloria patri et filio" matches the opening in scale, and even recalls the cantus firmus from the first movement, now set to the words "Sicut erat in principio" ("As it was in the beginning") -- Handel's joking way of reminding us where we've heard it before! The final vigorous fugue on "Et in saecula saeculorum" maintains its speed and energy clear through to the finish line -- no slow majestic final cadence here! Also, and unusually, it stays firmly in the minor key, a characteristic of so much of the work, right up to the concluding bar.
Like many of my age group, I cut my eyeteeth on David Willcocks' classic 1960s recording with the King's College Choir of Cambridge. Revisiting it this week, in tribute to Willcocks' death after a long and prodigious career, I find it little short of astonishing to hear how nimbly the King's College boy trebles wrap their tongues and voices around such incredibly complex music!
I've heard several recordings since then, and of the more recent versions that have come to my notice the 2001 Philips recording conducted by John Eliot Gardiner is by far the best. Since the arrival of "authentic practice" in Baroque music, Dixit Dominus has far too often been treated to the "anything you can sing, I can sing faster" mode of performance. This, to me, is a huge mistake as the complex figurations of the vocal parts can easily blur into mush. Gardiner strikes the ideal combination of pace and weight, and his Monteverdi Choir clearly enunciate each note in the endless melismatic runs. This is, to me, the textbook example of how smaller ensembles can still communicate the weight and power of the music without sacrificing clarity and precision in the process.
On the classic Willcocks LP, this masterpiece stood alone. Gardiner, in the CD age, has it as one part of a trio of major vocal works, alongside Vivaldi's magnificent Gloria in D major and the then-newly discovered Gloria by Handel, another Italianate virtuoso showpiece for solo soprano with strings and continuo. It would be hard to find a more upbeat and exhilarating program of Baroque sacred music than this one!
Friday 25 September 2015
Thursday 24 September 2015
Dreams of Folly
Imagine a melody and bass line so widely known -- so ubiquitous -- that multiple composers from every nationality in the map of Europe raced to compose arrangements and sets of variations on that melody and bass. If you're thinking of the famous 24th Caprice by Paganini, you're certainly on the right track -- but your timing is out by more than a century. Nonetheless, Paganini's work -- itself a set of variations -- has attracted such diverse composers as Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Lutoslawski, to name only three.
But that track record pales in comparison with the anonymous -- yet obstinately memorable -- Renaissance theme known as La Folia. Its origin is not known. The earliest documentary reference to it comes from Portugal in 1577. Yet it is commonly referred to as Folies d'espagne or Folia di spagna ( "Folia of Spain").
The record of composers basing sets of variations on it is far, far longer than with Paganini's famous Caprice. Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach and Handel are only a few of the best known. Indeed, so many composers took to writing variations on this simple theme (over 150 are known for certain) that multiple whole recordings have been issued, consisting entirely of works which may be called chaconne or ciacona, passacaglia or passacaglie, or even differences -- all based on this one theme.
The tune itself is known by numerous spelling variants: Follia, folia, follie, and folie are all out there. But all refer to the same musical shape.
Some sources hold that the name doesn't really equate with the English word "folly". That just made for a catchy title for this post. It's actually a reference to the compositional technique which gave rise to the many different variants of the tune. The so-called Later Folia (said to have been perfected first by Jean-Baptiste Lully) is the one commonly used in most of the versions, including the ones I've heard.
The key to the matter is the clear, straight-forward bass line. Classical variation technique consists of building your varying melodies and harmonies on the unwavering bass pattern. Think of Pachelbel's famous Canon and you'll understand exactly what I mean. In practise the melody usually takes on a slightly more complex triple-time pattern in the form of a sarabande.
The true fascination, of course, lies in the infinite diversity of the music that composers have managed to coax out of this simple, apparently artless, musical material.
What is it that makes La folia so gripping? I can only speculate. The structure of the tune is of course well-nigh perfect for variation form, because of the neatly symmetrical structure and the ending which returns to its opening point. The clear bass line, using some of the most common intervals, also opens up huge possibilities. In our day, perhaps more so than in Renaissance and Baroque times, the use of the minor key invites thoughts of sadness, mourning or melancholy -- certainly an air of serious thought pervades any music based on this sequential theme.
Of course, I have to admit that for many people a whole programme of variations on the same theme might well be far too much of a good thing. But my personal reaction is that I can go on listening to these multiple versions of La folia for a very long time!
In fact, I first became aware of it as a musical entity when the cable radio network began playing one or two excerpts from a Jordi Savall recording of orchestral versions. One of these, by a Spanish composer, even incorporated the use of castanets! Some time after that, the cable radio broadcast a concerto by Corelli, which included a variation movement based on La folia. Since then, I have certainly become aware of some of the other possibilities floating around out there -- and there are many.
Sadly, that particular recording by Savall is now out of print, but there are certainly other choices available. Just recently I downloaded a harpsichord recording which consists largely (not entirely) of keyboard versions of La folia by multiple hands. I've also acquired a box set of the music of Vivaldi, and found a wonderful set of variations on La folia in one of his Trio Sonatas. With both of these recordings I had the exact same reaction. Having listened through to the end, I promptly repeated the entire program!
If you do follow my lead and look up some of the many versions of La folia, I venture to guess that you may find the tune and bass familiar. Even if you don't, you may very well find these many compositions as compelling and hypnotic as I do.
But that track record pales in comparison with the anonymous -- yet obstinately memorable -- Renaissance theme known as La Folia. Its origin is not known. The earliest documentary reference to it comes from Portugal in 1577. Yet it is commonly referred to as Folies d'espagne or Folia di spagna ( "Folia of Spain").
The record of composers basing sets of variations on it is far, far longer than with Paganini's famous Caprice. Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach and Handel are only a few of the best known. Indeed, so many composers took to writing variations on this simple theme (over 150 are known for certain) that multiple whole recordings have been issued, consisting entirely of works which may be called chaconne or ciacona, passacaglia or passacaglie, or even differences -- all based on this one theme.
The tune itself is known by numerous spelling variants: Follia, folia, follie, and folie are all out there. But all refer to the same musical shape.
Some sources hold that the name doesn't really equate with the English word "folly". That just made for a catchy title for this post. It's actually a reference to the compositional technique which gave rise to the many different variants of the tune. The so-called Later Folia (said to have been perfected first by Jean-Baptiste Lully) is the one commonly used in most of the versions, including the ones I've heard.
The key to the matter is the clear, straight-forward bass line. Classical variation technique consists of building your varying melodies and harmonies on the unwavering bass pattern. Think of Pachelbel's famous Canon and you'll understand exactly what I mean. In practise the melody usually takes on a slightly more complex triple-time pattern in the form of a sarabande.
The true fascination, of course, lies in the infinite diversity of the music that composers have managed to coax out of this simple, apparently artless, musical material.
What is it that makes La folia so gripping? I can only speculate. The structure of the tune is of course well-nigh perfect for variation form, because of the neatly symmetrical structure and the ending which returns to its opening point. The clear bass line, using some of the most common intervals, also opens up huge possibilities. In our day, perhaps more so than in Renaissance and Baroque times, the use of the minor key invites thoughts of sadness, mourning or melancholy -- certainly an air of serious thought pervades any music based on this sequential theme.
Of course, I have to admit that for many people a whole programme of variations on the same theme might well be far too much of a good thing. But my personal reaction is that I can go on listening to these multiple versions of La folia for a very long time!
In fact, I first became aware of it as a musical entity when the cable radio network began playing one or two excerpts from a Jordi Savall recording of orchestral versions. One of these, by a Spanish composer, even incorporated the use of castanets! Some time after that, the cable radio broadcast a concerto by Corelli, which included a variation movement based on La folia. Since then, I have certainly become aware of some of the other possibilities floating around out there -- and there are many.
Sadly, that particular recording by Savall is now out of print, but there are certainly other choices available. Just recently I downloaded a harpsichord recording which consists largely (not entirely) of keyboard versions of La folia by multiple hands. I've also acquired a box set of the music of Vivaldi, and found a wonderful set of variations on La folia in one of his Trio Sonatas. With both of these recordings I had the exact same reaction. Having listened through to the end, I promptly repeated the entire program!
If you do follow my lead and look up some of the many versions of La folia, I venture to guess that you may find the tune and bass familiar. Even if you don't, you may very well find these many compositions as compelling and hypnotic as I do.
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