Saturday 30 April 2016

The Witches' Sabbath -- or is it?

In the Romantic era, there was a tremendous and ongoing fascination in all the fine arts with the whole mythos of "black magic", of evil forces, demonic powers, and the like.  The musical world in particular is thickly covered with works which -- in whole or in part -- deal with this subject matter.
 
Of course, the best-known examples are the numerous works inspired by Goethe's poetic drama Faust -- works whose composers read like a roll-call of musical Romanticism: Schumann, Schubert, Wagner, Liszt, Gounod, and more besides.
 
And then there's the long-standing tradition of the "Witches' Sabbath", a black rite taking place by night in which the demonic powers hold complete sway over the world until daylight returns.  Where else but in this tradition lie the origins of the Anglo-Saxon world's beloved Hallowe'en?  Two very famous works here are the "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath" movement from the Symphonie Fantastique of Hector Berlioz, and the tone poem St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain by Mussorgsky.  
 
I picked the work I'm discussing today precisely because tonight is the night on which the story is set.  The piece in question is Mendelssohn's dramatic cantata Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, and today, April 30, is the feast day of St. Walpurga.  There's a long-standing mythic tradition in German folklore that tonight is the night when all the witches and demons make their revels on top of the mountain called the Brocken in the Harz mountains of northern Germany. 
 
The poem set by Mendelssohn was, interestingly enough, written by Goethe with a musical setting in mind.  It's an intriguingly modern take on the old legend.  Goethe cites the Brocken as one of the final hideouts of the Druids as early Christianity sweeps across Europe.  In the text, the Druids have gathered to celebrate their spring festivals on the first of May.  When they hear that the Christians are coming to attack them, a Druid proposes that they dress as demons and witches and make loud noises to frighten the superstitious Christians away.  In this clever stratagem, Goethe implies, we find the origins of the traditional belief in a witches' Sabbath on the Brocken.
 
The composer Goethe had in mind, Mendelssohn's teacher Zelter, never succeeded in getting the project off the ground, but Mendelssohn certainly did and the resulting 35-minute work is one of the tautest, most incisive choral works he ever composed.  It's been a favourite of mine ever since I first heard an early recording when I was a teenager.  Just once, I've had the privilege of hearing it sung live -- and I hope I will again in the future.
 
The cantata begins with a dramatic overture which is -- for my money -- one of Mendelssohn's most powerful and forceful orchestral movements.  It depicts the winter storms, followed by the slow unfolding of spring over the mountains.  The storm music, which forms the bulk of the overture, transcends the fussy agitation sometimes found in the composer's music, and the fury of the wintry tempest can clearly be felt.  The storm slowly dies away as spring comes over the land, and the music flows directly into the opening recitative and lyrical spring chorus.
 
There's a warning solo sung by an elder Druid woman (mezzo-soprano) with women's chorus, and then a baritone solo (a Druid priest) sings an appropriately solemn and stately invocation.  A light-footed chorus of Druid watchmen take up their places, to an orchestral accompaniment reminiscent of the Midsummer Night's Dream fairy music.
 
This brings us to the centrepiece of the work, and its most hair-raising section.  The bass soloist proposes the deceptive plot, and the people take up their disguises.  To a lively dance accompaniment the chorus sing gleefully of their depiction of the evil forces.  This "demonic" choral movement sweeps us forward in a moto perpetuo of great musical skill and mighty dramatic force for five minutes before dying away.  It makes vivid use of cymbals, bass drum and piccolo -- three instruments that are otherwise very rare in Mendelssohn's output.
 
The priest and chorus of druids then join in their solemn C major chorus of invocation to the Divine Light.  The last dramatic masterstroke of the work is the interruption of the ritual hymn by the agitated tenor solo and male chorus of the terrified Christian guards, imagining that they see hell let loose all around them.  It ends with the various voices singing alternately "Lasst uns fliehn!" ("Let us flee!").  As their voices die away in the distance, the hymn of praise to the Light resumes, bringing the cantata to an elevated and majestic close.  Note, though, that it is not the intruding Christians who sound the final note of triumph but the Druids, voicing their strength in the face of persecution.  Perhaps it was, after all, no coincidence that this poem appealed so strongly to Mendelssohn, baptized a Christian but surely not unaware of his Jewish heritage and ancestry.

Friday 29 April 2016

A Magnificent Musical Joke

Today's work is one that hovers at the edge of the established repertoire -- certainly better known now than at any time since it was composed, yet still an unknown quantity to many music lovers.

This work is a paradox -- a monumental masterpiece composed on a small scale, for a small ensemble, a work which encompasses the melodious, the dramatic, and the stylish, and whose composer was uncertain whether he had created a masterwork or a piece of junk -- at least if we take him at his word.

But then, that kind of wavering -- which may have been real or may itself have been a self-mocking joke -- was characteristic of Gioacchino Rossini, one of the most famous composers of opera in the nineteenth century.  Later in life, Rossini abandoned the theatre and turned instead to songs, piano pieces, and other small items -- some of which he published under the title "Sins of my Old Age."

There seems to be some validity to the idea that Rossini was genuinely concerned about his stature in the eyes of God as he felt his older age creeping upon him.  Certain it is that this "last mortal sin of my old age" was prefaced by a letter to God in which he asked forgiveness because his heart was in the right place even if his music wasn't!

So let's have a look at this greatest of his late "sins": the Petite Messe Solennelle or (literally) "Little Solemn Mass".  Scholars remain divided about the title.  Was it a literal description of a work written for a chamber ensemble of singers accompanied by 2 pianos (one of which only doubles in the bigger movements) and a harmonium (a domestic-sized chamber organ)?  Or was it yet another of the composer's little jokes, since this Petite Messe lasts for 90 minutes in performance?

It's been said -- with some justice -- that to perform this mass you need only a piano, a harmonium, a choir of eight and the four greatest solo singers in the world!

I first encountered this work as a young singer, when our church choir at St. George's Church in North Toronto performed it with one piano and organ.  At the time, there was only one recording available, and that was a production of doubtful quality and authenticity (probably pirated at a live concert), presenting the later orchestral version which Rossini was compelled to create himself to block others from doing it for him.  At any rate, it was such a thrilling piece to sing that I have never forgotten that experience.

Today, there are a number of commercial recordings made and more concert recordings available on line, and the original score has almost completely (and rightfully) supplanted the later orchestral adaptation.

So what can a music lover expect to find in this 95-minute "little" mass?  There are movements where the instruments seem to dance in accompaniment to the singers.  There are Italianate operatic solos of the sort you hear in the composer's better-known Stabat Mater -- no shortage of those for Rossini was, first and foremost, a composer for the stage!  There are fugues -- fugues which stretch singers and players alike to the limits, and keep them there for minutes on end.  There is music of solemnity and music of joy.  Through it all, Rossini never loses sight of the fact that he is composing for a private performance in a private chapel.  This is definitely not  the B Minor Mass nor the Missa Solemnis dressed in a vow of perpetual poverty!

The score is littered with Rossinian musical jokes.  One of the best comes at the end of the tenor aria Domine deus, which is in D major.  The music modulates slyly to C major, the dominant of F (which is the central key of the entire Gloria) and then sets up every expectation of a conventional dominant-to-tonic resolution -- but ends instead with a thunderous open octave on the dominant C, leading to a remote and tragic F minor for the succeeding Qui tollis.  Another good instance is found in the weird modulations that jump out repeatedly during the Sanctus.

Where the music is least "petite" is in the gigantic choral fugues which end the Gloria and Credo respectively.  The high-speed, high-energy Cum sancto spiritu of the Gloria in particular winds up with a grandiose peroration in which the music climbs a ladder of rising keys before finally landing back in unadulterated and spectacular F major for the final chords.

The solennelle side is introduced right at the outset by the dark introduction of the Kyrie eleison.  The pianos set up an ostinato rhythmic pattern which continues through most of the succeeding movement, propelling the music ceaselessly forwards.  The polyphonic Christe eleison for unaccompanied chorus, in its simple austerity, looks backward to the Renaissance -- before the Kyrie returns, ushered in by that remorseless ostinato.  

Perhaps the most solennelle movement of the entire score is the instrumental Preludio religioso which precedes the Sanctus.  Normally entrusted to a piano, this can be heard in at least one recording played instead on the harmonium.  Either way, it's a pure piece of ecclesiastical polyphony which can be taken as Rossini's tribute to the polyphonic writing of Bach.

Among the solos, all others take yield pride of place to the mezzo-soprano's E minor Agnus dei (with chorus) which crowns the entire work.  In its place, it inevitably suggests the very different Libera me of Verdi's Requiem  in that the audience can easily forget all about the rest of the performance by the time this final solo is over.  The pianists accompany with a rhythmic motif that to me always suggests a slow-motion tango, of all things.  When the soloist and choir reach the final repetitions of Qui tollis peccata mundi, she keeps ratcheting up the dramatic tension by semitones, high in her range, until the music suddenly erupts into a glorious E major as she sings for the last time the words Dona nobis pacem.  But the composer's dramatic master-stroke comes after the singers have finished, in the reiteration of the doubt-tinged instrumental introduction of the movement, before the pianos and harmonium finally, grandly, finish this "little solemn mass" on an emphatic E major chord.