In the Beginning Were the Words

From time to time, we music lovers come across a work which is so uniquely itself that it can't really be compared to any other work we know.  Today's post, on Good Friday, 2016, deals with such a piece, and it's a piece composed unmistakably for Good Friday.

In 1785, Franz Josef Haydn received a most unusual commission from Cadiz in Spain.  A detailed description which he wrote at a later date gives an eye-witness account of the Good Friday service for which this work was written.

In that service, the Bishop of Cadiz pronounced aloud one of the "Seven Last Words", the seven sayings of Christ culled from the varied Gospel accounts of his crucifixion.  He then preached a sermon about that Word.  Following the sermon, he left the pulpit to pray before the altar while an orchestra played a piece of instrumental music suited to the message.  In this manner, the Bishop went through all seven of the Last Words.  Haydn's task was to compose a set of seven orchestral adagios, with an eighth to serve as an introduction to the service, and an instrumental depiction of the earthquake at the moment of Christ's death to conclude it all.

The year after this unique chain of eight slow movements for orchestra was first performed in Cadiz, Haydn arranged it for string quartet for his London publisher.  In that reduced form it became better known.  Then an organist/choirmaster at Passau in Germany set an appropriate text to Haydn's music to create an oratorio.  Haydn heard this work, and approved of both the text and the setting of the words.  However, he resolved to create his own choral setting and this he duly completed eleven years after the initial performance in Cadiz.  Haydn used the same text, but with additions and amendments by Baron van Swieten.  He added an additional interlude for winds only before the fifth Word, and an unaccompanied intonation of each Word by the choir before each related choral-orchestral movement.

Because of the widespread growth of mass choral singing in northern Europe and especially in the British Isles, this became the best-known version during the nineteenth century.  In more recent times, the work has sunk down below many music lovers' horizons, becoming far better known by name than by sound.

What a shame!  When you consider the problem Haydn was asked to solve, his work can be seen as truly masterly.  Not only does he achieve great variety within the unvarying slow tempo, but his handling of both melody and harmony impresses as much as any of his symphonies.  Each Word also adopts a tonal character suited to the meaning of the Word and to the events occurring in the Gospel at the time it is spoken.  It's not going too far to sense the presence of illustrative elements in each of the seven Words.  As well, the melody of each slow movement can be fitted quite neatly to the text of the Word -- plainly Haydn was "setting" the gospel Words to music even before he planned a vocal version of the work!

Each of the slow movements has its own particular beauties.  Sometimes it's the beauty of the melodies that you most notice.  In other cases, the orchestral scoring draws more of your notice.  The cycle breathes an air of tragedy in one sequence, to be as convincingly succeeded by consolation in the next.  Taken as a whole, I find it one of Haydn's finest achievements, not least because he triumphantly surmounted the difficulties of the commission given to him.  

The Terremoto ("Earthquake") which concludes the work sweeps away all the mourning and meditation of the preceding hour in a storm of high-energy arpeggios and fierce cross-rhythms.  The music rages so fiercely that it comes as something of a shock afterwards to realize that this movement lasted less than two minutes!  On the final pages, Haydn calls for his orchestra to play fff, and this may well be the first time such a direction was ever given to musicians.

The greatest blessing of the age of recording is the presence of all three versions.  The original orchestral score is, sadly, the least common of the three but it can be found.  The string quartet version has found more favour recently.  Some years back, a quartet from Ottawa performed it at several summer music festivals, and then laid down a recording.  I was present at their performance in Parry Sound, at the Festival of the Sound, and it was a lovely and moving experience.

The choral version, too, can be found in several recordings.  I'm listening to the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt's 1990 Vienna recording as I write this -- appropriate indeed for Good Friday.

The Seven Last Words is a truly unique and rewarding musical experience, and one that every music lover should seek out -- in whichever form suits them.