Antonio Lotti - Vesper Psalms

"During the first third of the eighteenth century Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) doubtless numbered among the most important Italian composers, but today general knowledge of his music hardly corresponds to its true significance. Lotti was born to a musician in Venice on 5 January 1667 and began receiving instruction from Lodovico Fuga (1643-1722) and Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-90) in 1682. Both Fuga and Legrenzi were employed at the Basilica of St. Mark (San Marco), Venice's principal church, and Lotti's career also continued to be closely connected with this church: on 30 May 1689 he was initially employed there as an alto chorister, but soon he was also assisting on the organ, and already on 30 May 1692 he was appointed second organist. On 17 August 1704 he assumed the post of first organist and continued to serve in this capacity for more than thirty years. Together with his duties at San Marco, Lotti wrote sacred music for other Venetian institutions. In addition, beginning in 1693 he composed many operas for the various theaters in Venice; these works became extraordinarily popular and brought him an appointment as music director at the Saxon-Polish court in Dresden for two years. The high point of his activity at the Saxon residence (and at the same time the end of his career as an opera composer) was marked by the premiere of 'Toefane' on 13 September 1719 on the occasion of the wedding of the Saxon Prince Elector Friedrich August and the Archduchess Maria Josepha, a daughter of Emperor Joseph I. On his return to Venice Lotti assumed his customary post and then on 2 April 1736, at the age of almost seventy, was selected as music director at San Marco, after having been unsuccesful in his first bid four years prior to this date. He died in Venice on 5 January 1740.

"Lotti's extraordinary fame as a composer of sacred music originated already during the eighteenth century. In 1770 the English music scholar Charles Burney heard 'a mass sung in four parts, without other instrument than the organ', by him at San Marco. From these years on he was regarded as an outstanding master of the 'a cappella' style. Exponents of reform movements in sacred music during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century celebrated him as 'one of the greatest sacred composers of all time', as a composer who together with Fux and Caldara 'elevated polyphony to new height in the musical focal points of Southern Europe, in Vienna and Venice, by drawing on the pure 'a cappella' style of the sixteenth century' (Vinzenz Goller, 1913). On the basis of such an elevation, Lotti's works in the traditional 'stile antico' gained a certain degree of dissemination, while his large-scale masses, mass numbers and psalms composed in the 'stile concertato' have met with the interest of musicians and musicologists only in very recent years. For example, the so-called 'Missa Sapientiae' met with some notice, and Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, as well as the Dresden church composer Jan Dismas Zelenka had copies of it. Other works of no less importance, however, continue to await their rediscovery today. The trail of this music leads to Dresden, among other places, where Lotti, together with a few outstanding singers, arrived in the autumn of 1717. These Italians were initially engaged for the opera but also assumed responsibility for the performance of sacred music on special occasions. Of their first performance on the Feast of St. Cecilia, the court church chronicler reported in absolutely rapturous terms (in an original Latin text), 'In what here is still an entirely unaccustomed manner the Ialian musicians who have been sent by His Serene Highness the Prince Elector from Venice to Dresden enlivened our church, when in honor of St. Cecilia, within the octave after her feast day, they presented a sung high mass that lasted almost three hours with such a marvelous artistic skill, both with respect to the vocal parts as well as the instruments, as one had never yet heard before in Dresden.'

"The Prince Elector of Saxony Friedrich August I, better known as August the Strong, had converted to the Catholic faith in 1697 in order to be able to present himself as a candidate for election as King of Poland. The sacred music in the Taschenberg opera house redesigned as a Catholic court church in 1708 had occupied a rather modest level until the arrival of the Italians and gained public attention only after their arrival. It is no longer possible to determine which compositions were performed in this church during the two years that Lotti spent there. As music director he may have written his own works for the use of this church or had works copied that had been composed earlier. The scores of the psalms recorded here are extant in the holdings of the Library of the German Land of Saxony - State and University Library in Dresden and are from the court church archive. These works do not belong to the tradition of Catholic church music proper in Dresden (since this tradition formed only later on) but instead very much adhere to proven Venetian models. Of them, the 'Credidi' and 'Laudate Dominum' also later found their place in the repertoire of the court church; they thus represent the Venetian component within the Dresden tradition, a component that would make its influence felt for some two generations.

"Large-scale psalm compositions played a central role in Venetian sacred music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries both in the Basilica of St. Mark as well in the famous conservatories for girls. Such compositions found their place in the vesper service, during which the opening versicle 'Domine ad adjuvandum me festina', the hymn of the particular feast, and the 'Magnificat' were also usually performed with figural music. In such compositions Lotti and his contemporaries to a great extent followed standardized models in the overall design of their works, and these models for the most part remained unchanged over several generations. The task of the individual consisted not in the invention of completely new possibilities but in the greatest possible original realization of the models set by the tradition. This applies in special measure to the 'Dixit Dominus', which was set very often as the opening psalm of the vespers on all the Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year and in which above all the assignment of the individual verses to choral and solo numbers was by and large set. Only a few of the individual versions realized by Lotti in his composing can be named here: at the beginning the alternation between 'Dixit Dominus Domino meo' (in each case two or three soloists) and 'Sede a dextris meis' (five-part chorus) on various degrees of the main key produces a large-scale entry portal taken up at the end again in 'Sicut erat in principio' ('As it was in the beginning'). Likewise, the ensuing six-part vocal number on 'Donec ponam inimicos tuos' (three altos and three basses), embedded in a simple string accompaniment, hardly finds parallels in the compositions of those times. The solo instruments employed in the individual movements of this composition also contribute not insignificantly to its musical diversity, with the oboe in 'Tecum principium' and the violin in 'De torrente in via bibet' offering two examples. In contrast, the only trumpet is employed only together with the tutti; in this function it was normally reserved for the opening and concluding psalms of a vesper service in Venice. A catalogue of musical compositions of the Catholic court church from 1765 lists not only the complete version but also an abbreviated version, but neither the score nor the part of this latter version are extant. Lotti's original composition was probably too extensive for Dresden circumstances and therefore reworked in keeping with them.

"'Laudate pueri' was almost used as frequently as 'Dixit Dominus' during the course of the church year. In this psalm too settings on the large scale and of many parts were the rule in Venice. In the present composition Lotti limited his vocal and instrumental resources to the use of three solo voices together with an instrumentarium consisting of strings and oboes. Until 'Qui habitare facit' the division of individual verses into contrasting sections so very frequent in the 'Dixit Dominus' is lacking. The center of the composition is occupied by the soprano solo 'Quis sicut Dominus' on the basis of a basso ostinato. Throughout the eighteenth century it of course was possible to use the traditional 'stile antico' not only in the setting of the 'Ordinarium Missae' but also in the setting of psalms. This style is employed rigorously in 'Credidi', a psalm ocurring not in the Sunday vespers but also in the formularies of some feasts of saints as well as on All Saints' Day and Corpus Christi. As a rule each half verse but often also a shorter part is endowed with a musical 'soggetto', and this subject is then led through several voices or through all four of them. Despite the relatively uniform outer course of the setting, here too the composer has the opportunity to emphasize individual words in the texts. At the beginning and end the eighth psalm tone is heard in the soprano part - and in addition, as the words of the text 'O Domine quia ego servus tuus' in the bass - and thus grounds the anchoring of the piece in the traditional practice on a broader level. On the other hand, the use of the 'stile antico' does not automatically mean doing without instruments. In the music archive of the Dresden court church there is an arrangement of Lotti's 'Credidi' by Giovanni Alberto Ristori (1692-1753), who was employed at the Dresden court from the end of 1715, and in this arrangement the strings, oboes and bassoon play together with the vocal parts directly or at the interval of an octave. This performance material offers solid evidence of the further use of the work in Dresden and served as the performance basis in the recording presented here.

"'Laudate Dominum' is the concluding psalm of the vespers of such important feasts as the Epiphany, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. With its length of only two verses together with the doxology, the text hardly offers the composer all that much space for development. As in the opening psalm 'Dixit Dominus', in his 'Laudate Dominum' Lotti included a single trumpet among the instruments. In the Dresden version, which also goes back to Giovanni Alberto Ristori, the trumpet is eliminated and two oboes are added in its stead, among other changes. The recording presented here, however, is based on Lotti's original version.

"Together with many other works, Antonio Lotti's vesper psalms first of all stand for the outstanding role played by Venice in European sacred music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In contrast to Antonio Vivaldi's works, which were composed at the same time or a little while later but today are much better known, Lotti's personal 'signature' is much more strongly marked by adaption to the resources of the human voice. There is one simple reason for this: Lotti began his career as a singer; Vivaldi as a violinist. With his activity as a singer and organist, Lotti from the very beginning had closer ties to the traditional compositional method. Within Venetian church music Lotti's works form the birdge between the traditional and the modern in unique fashion." (Gerhard Poppe, tr. Susan Marie Praeder. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Batzdorfer Hofkapelle, Sächsisches Vocalensemble, Matthias Jung

1. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Dixit Dominus

2. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Donec Ponam

3. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Virgam Virtutis

4. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Tecum Principium

5. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Juravit Dominus

6. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Dominus A Dextris Tuis

7. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Judicabit In Nationibus

8. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Implebit Ruinas

9. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): De Torrente In Via Bibet

10. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Gloria Patri

11. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Sicut Erat In Principio

12. Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109): Et In Saeculorum

13. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Laudate Pueri

14. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Sit Nomen Domini

15. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): A Solis Ortu Usque Ad Occasum

16. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Excelsus Super Omnes

17. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Quis Sicut Dominus

18. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Suscitans A Terra

19. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Ut Collocet Eum

20. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Qui Habitare Facit

21. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Gloria Patri

22. Laudate Pueri (Psalm 112): Sicut Erat In Principio

23. Credidi (Psalm 115)

24. Laudate Dominum (Psalm 116)

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François Devienne - 4 Bassoon Concertos

"Although François Devienne ('The Younger', as is added to his name on some of his compositions) died at the early age of forty-four, he bequeathed to posterity an enormous number of works, at least by today's standards. When he died in Charenton, a Paris sanatorium, on 6 September 1803 (after having suffered from severe mental illness for at least six months), he left behind twelve operas, numerous songs (including revolutionary and patriotic tunes), some thirty solo concertos (most of them for wind instruments), and a vast collection of chamber music. Of course, composition was only one of the areas of music in which he was active. When we moderns recall this fact, we are bound to find ourselves wondering once again how it was that musicians of past epochs found the time to achieve qualitative and quantitative excellence in several areas. Today such areas are recognized as distinct fields of endeavor, and most of us today can only dream of attaining to the same level in one such field.

"Devienne initially served as a flautist and bassoonist in various Paris orchestras. He was the solo bassoonist at the Théâtre de Monsieur beginning in about 1791 and was named Professor of Flute at the national guard music institute in 1791. A few years later, in 1795, the institute became the 'Paris Conservatoire'. Many of Devienne's pupils received first prizes at the conservatory and figured importantly in the musical life of the French capital for decades. One such pupil, Joseph Guillon, was later a member of the famous Reicha Quintet and a professor at the Paris Conservatory.

"Devienne also made a very good name for himself as a composer. He was only twenty-one years olf and still performing with various principal and military orchestras when one of his works was performed in Paris for the first time in 1780. Étienne Ozi, the leading bassoonist of the time, performed Devienne's first bassoon concerto at one of the famous 'Concerts Spirituels' (with the composer's name listed as 'de Vienne'). The Théâtre Montansier staged his first opera in 1790 and 'Les visitandines', the most succesful of his operas, in 1792. The latter comic opera was performed over two hundred times between 1792 and 1797. It thus turned out to be one of the most popular stage works of the revolutionary period and was still being performed in Paris in 1920.

"Devienne's chamber music, solo concertos, and symphonies concertantes deserve special mention among the works of enduring value in his œuvre.

"Devienne's concertos for bassoon and orchestra certainly number among the most important of his works for bassoon, a distinction they share with his quartets for bassoon, violin, viola, and violoncello. Although the quartets have been available in modern printed editions as well as in recorded form for many years, only the 'Concerto No. 1' (under the disparaging/distorting title of 'Study Concerto') and the 'Concerto in B-flat major' (of disputed authorship, a matter to be discussed in greater detail below) have continued to be the only bassoon concertos known to the music world or, more precisely, to the bassoon world. The obscurity of Devienne's bassoon concertos has remained a great mystery to bassoonists, who have not exactly been overwhelmed with good music for their instrument. Perhaps the somewhat confused state of the sources explains why it is not until the present compact disc that there has been a recording of all of Devienne's extant bassoon concertos.

"All the sources speak of four concertos, published between 1785 and 1794. Although we may assume that the works were extant in more than one copy, there are only scattered traces of this in the libraries. The score for the present recording of 'Concerto No. 1' was derived from a copy dating to 1824 in the holdings of the Einsiedeln Monastery Library in Switzerland. Copies of the 1794 first printing of 'Concerto No. 2' were obtained from the British Library in London, and the University of Münster Library kindly allowed us to consult the first printing of 'Concerto No. 4' from 1793. The only material currently known to be extant for 'Concerto No. 3' (F major) is too incomplete to record (e.g., the solo part is lacking).

"Why, then, are there four concertos on this recording? Some decades ago a bassoon concerto of great beauty was published. Over the years no one has succeeded in identifying its composer with absolute certainty, but there is much to suggest that he was none other than François Devienne. When the 'Concerto in B-flat major' came to light in 1983, Max Seiffert, its editor, assigned it to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The manuscript materials from the Bückerberg Library he consulted for his edition are no longer available to us: the library was completely detroyed during World War II. The manuscript in question bore the title 'Concerto in B/Fagotto Principale/2 Violini/2 Oboi/2 Corni/2 Clarini/Viola con Basso/Dal Sig.re Wolfg. Mozart.'

"Now Mozart is indeed supposed to have composed three or four bassoon concertos, but we have clear extant evidence for only one of them, KV 191. Until the 1950s it was assumed - despite the uncertainty of the Bückerberg source - that another Mozart bassoon concerto had been found. The lost Bückerberg manuscript was known not to have been in Mozart's hand. In the Mozart annual of 1957 Ernest Hess demonstrated that the 'Concerto in B-flat major' cannot have been of Mozart's authorship [...]. Although limitations of space preclude a complete presentation of Hess's line of argumentation here, he did come to the conclusion that the composer of this magnificent piece was none other than our greatly esteemed Devienne. The evidence for this conclusion is extremely convincing. Hess cited score example to show exact agreements between the concerto and another work by Devienne, the 'Six duos concertantes' for two bassoons. In all its important themes the 'Concerto in B-flat major' draws on material from these duos of 1782. The much greater virtuosity of the bassoon part points more toward a commission for a professional, and Mozart wrote his bassoon concertos for a dilettante, the Baron von Dürnitz. In matters of technique the KV 191 concerto is considerably simpler than Devienner's works for bassoon.

"The only internal evidence against Devienne's authorship is the instrumentation of the concerto. The instrumentation including trumpets and timpani depart from that of the four concertos know to have been composed by Devienne. Moreover, we have no reference to a fifth concerto. Here we should remember, however, that Devienne composed his 'Concerto No. 4' in 1794, almost a decade prior to his death, and was at the height of his career during those years. He thus had more than enough time and every reason to compose another concerto. Perhaps it did not appear in printed form, and thus was not listed in th catalogues of his works.

"The present compact disc offers listeners interested in such matters the opportunity to form their own judgment about the fruit of our labours - about whether we have been justified in including the 'Concerto in B-flat major' as a fifth Devienne concerto and about whether it is indeed not time to retrieve his wonderful bassoon concertos from the darkness and obscurity of the archives." (Eckart Hübner, tr. Susan Marie Praeder. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Slovenský Komorný Orchester, Bohdan Warchal, Eckhart Hübner

1. Bassoon Concerto No. 4: I. Allegro Maestoso

2. Bassoon Concerto No. 4: II. Adagio

3. Bassoon Concerto No. 4: III. Minuetto Con Variazione

4. Bassoon Concerto No. 2: I.

5. Bassoon Concerto No. 2: II. Polonaise

6. Bassoon Concerto No. 1: I. 

7. Bassoon Concerto No. 1: II. Rondo

8. Bassoon Concerto In B Major (Mozart?): I. Allegro Moderato

9. Bassoon Concerto In B Major (Mozart?): II. Romance: Andante

10. Bassoon Concerto In B Major (Mozart?): III. Rondo: Allegro Moderato

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Nicola Porpora - Il Gedeone

"At the mention of the oratorio genre, music lovers automatically think of George Frideric Handel's 'Messiah' set to English texts from the Bible or Johannes Brahms's 'Ein deutsches Requiem.' But neither of these works is an oratorio in the stricter sense of the term. The oratorio, as a genre and the name of a genre, emerged from a number of different forerunner forms in Italy during the second third of the seventeenth century and initially remained by and large an Italian genre. It was not until 1730 that it established itself internationally, and here the oratorio texts of the Vienna court poet Pietro Metastasio played an important role. 

 

"From 1660 to 1730 there had been only one center of oratorio performance outside Italy, albeit a center of great importance: the Habsburg imperial court in Vienna. Up until the time that Maria Theresa became empress in 1740, oratorios — Italian oratorios — had been performed at the Vienna court on a regular basis. (This makes Nicola Porpora's 'Il Gedeone' of 1737 an extremely late work within the context of the Italian oratorios composed and performed in Vienna.) Vienna was also the model for other Catholic courts north of the Alps such as those in Dresden, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Prague, and Warsaw.

A Habsburg emperor, Leopold I, who him-self composed respectable oratorios, stood at the beginning of this Vienna tradition of the Counter Reformation and with a strong Jesuit stamp. His 'Il transito di S. Giuseppe' was per-formed almost every year for two decades beginning in 1680. For the period between 1660 and 1740 we have about 350 oratorios in text form with some two hundred oratorios by composers known by name and a good dozen by anonymous composers in score form. 

 

"Of the composers, sixteen (including Nicola Porpora) are represented by one oratorio, eleven by two oratorios, and five by three such works. Only those composers who were employed at the Vienna court or maintained close ties to it composed four or more oratorios for performance in Vienna. Oratorios composed elsewhere were 'importedo' mainly from Rome, Bologna, and Venice. It is note-worthy that three of the oratorio composers are known to have been women: Caterina Grazianini and Maria Margherita Grimani are represented with two oratorio premieres and Camilla de Rossi with four. 

 

"The oratorios composed during the great days of the Italian oratorio between 1660 and 1740 by and large exhibited a stable form. The libretti were in two parts and had four hundred to five hundred verses. Usually one character, a figure from the Old Testament, New Testament, or the lives of the saints, stood at the center of the action (and was named in the title), and there were four or five more solo vocal parts. The chorus was employed only sporadically, usually at the end of the two parts and in a very conventional way. The oratorio genre as a whole, especially in comparison to the contemporary opera and (secular) cantata, bore conservative traits. This had to do, especially in Vienna, with the special performance circumstances of the oratorio. At the Habsburg court oratorios were performed first and foremost during Holy Week, during a period in which sorrow and a minimum of musical means constituted the proper tone. In Vienna and else-where oratorios were intended as extraliturgical court devotion, even when they were performed in the court chapel or integrated into the Holy Week liturgy. Unlike what was frequently the case with the opera, they were not subject to public competition or to the pressure to make a profit. These factors played a major role in the shaping of the oratorio style. 

 

"The history of the oratorio was like that of the opera, however, in that the librettists played a role at least as important as that of the composers and often had a decisive influence. In Vienna two court poets brought about enduring changes to the oratorio text: the Venetian Apostolo Zeno (1668-1750, at the Vienna court during 1718-29) and the already mentioned Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782). We know of sixteen libretti by Zeno for what he called 'drammi sacri,' from the years after 1719. The designation 'sacred dramem' meant that Zeno aimed at approximating the form of the oratorio to the drama, to the tragedy, especially to Jean Racine's religious dramas ('Esther' and 'Athalia'). He derived his subject matter exclusively from the Bible and made an effort not to expand this biblical material with invented stories, figures, and episodes. This led to the drastic reduction in the number of oratorios about the lives of the saints in Vienna. 

 

"Pietro Metastasio, the most important Italian dramatic poet of the eighteenth century, had an even more lasting influence. He was the idol of his times and held the post of Vienna court poet beginning in 1730. Between 1730 and 1740, at the time when Porpora wrote his 'll Gedeone,' Metastasio wrote seven oratorio libretti, which, like his opera texts, were submitted to multiple musical settings by numerous composers. It was through Metastasio, not only through the composers, that the oratorio genre gained the status of an international form. 

 

"The life of Nicola Porpora, who was born in Naples in 1686 and died in the same city in 1768, was linked in many ways to Vienna and to the Vienna court poet Metastasio. Porpora set 'Angelica' and 'Gli orti esperidi,' two of Metastasio's early poems intended for musical settings, as serenate for the birthdays of the emperor and empress in the then Austrian Naples in 1720 and 1721. During this time Porpora must have enjoyed the patronage of the Vienna court, perhaps through his employer, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, who himself rendered services to the Austrian monarchy. Between 1725 and 1743 Porpora wrote eight operas to texts by Metastasio and during his early period three or four operas to texts by Zeno. Porpora received his first commission for an opera for Vienna in 1714; it was entitled 'Arianna e Teseo,' set to a text by Pariati, and intended for the emperor's birthday. In 1718 his 'Temistocle' to a libretto by Zeno was premiered at the Vienna court theater on the occasion of the emperor's birthday. Nevertheless, Porpora's rise to fame as an opera composer followed not in Vienna but in Rome and Northern Italy. He settled in Venice in 1726 and then went to London in 1733 at the invitation of the Opera of the Nobility, Handel's rival in the opera business in the English capital. He left England in 1736 —before the Opera of the Nobility, like Handel's opera company, went bankrupt — and returned to Naples. He did not assume a permanent post there again at the Conservatorio di S. Maria di Loreto until July 1, 1739.

"When Porpora wrote the oratorio 'Il Gedeone' for Vienna in 1737, he was a 'free man' who was looking for a job. And, as chance would have it, the Vienna court music director Antonio Caldara had died on December 28, 1736! As one might assume owing to his personal acquaintance with Metastasio, Porpora did not seek in vain for support from him. 'Il Gedeone' was a sort of 'oriol piece' in which Porpora was supposed to show what he could do as a composer. He overlooked the fact, however, that he was supposed to compose a conservative oratorio for Holy Week corresponding to the models of the court composers Caldara and Fux. It is surprising (or perhaps was part of his strategy?) that Porpora did not set a text by Metastasio. 

 

"Porpora was certainly in Vienna for the premiere of 'Il Gedeone' on March 28. When he was unsuccessful in his bid, he returned to his native Naples and resided there from 1739 to 1741. We then find him in Venice and beginning in 1747 at the Dresden court, a center of the Italian opera. It was there that Porpora re-encountered Johann Adolf Hasse, who had been his pupil in 1722. (His other pupils included Farinelli and Caffarelli, the two most famous castrati of the time.) It was not until 1752 or 1753 that Porpora, with a handsome Dresden pension, settled in Vienna. Here he taught song to Wilhelmine, the mistress of the Venetian ambassador Pietro Correr, and to Metastasio's protegée Marianna Martinez. It was probably also Metastasio who introduced Porpora, then a European celebrity, to the young Joseph Haydn. Haydn became Porpora's servant, pupil, and piano accompanist in voice instruction. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Saxony meant that Porpora lost his Dresden pension in 1757. His financial situation became increasingly precarious until he found new employment in Naples in 1757-60. He had grown old during a time of fundamental new musical developments and was a witness to another epoch, namely to the first, still 'baroque' third of the eighteenth century. Unlike Leonardo Vinci, Leonardo Leo, or Pergolesi, Porpora did not become a composer of the second third of the century, when the foundation was laid for the 'classical' styles in the opera and instrumental music in Italy as well as in Vienna. He spent the last years of his life in abject poverty in the city of his birth, where he died in 1768. 

 

"The libretto of 'Il Gedeone' is by an 'A. Perrucci.' Owing to the relatively early year of his death, it is uncertain whether the author was Andrea Perrucci (1651-1704), a well-known librettist and theater theorist who was active in Naples. On the other hand, Porpora's composition teacher Francesco Mancini set another oratorio libretto by a Perrucci in Naples in 1733 ('II zelo animato dal gran profeta Elia'), and it was based on a text published by Andrea Perrucci in 1691. The text of 'La Debbora profetessa guerriera,' an oratorio of 1691 by the Neapolitan Giuseppe Vignola certainly stems from Andrea Perrucci, and in 1701 the same composer, in his 'Il Gedeone geroglifico,' turned to the material that Porpora would use decades later. 

 

"In form and content the libretto set by Porpora is a text corresponding to the fundamental principles of Zeno's oratorio texts but hardly approximating Metastasio's verbal artistry. The story is derived — without major additions — from Judges 6-8 in the Old Testament, and Gideon [alto castrato], an Israelite liberator chosen by God from the period around 1100 B.C.E, stands at its center. Other characters include his father Joas (the biblical Joash) [bass], his wife Sichemi [soprano] (in the oratorio his only wife, in the Bible his concubine in Shechem, who bore him one of his seventy sons), and Gideon's retainer Fara [alto]. The opposition is represented by the commander Oreb [soprano castrato], a prince of the Midianites named in the Bible, and his officer Silve [tenor]. The poetic text is clearly divided into sixteen recitatives, twelve arias, three choruses (two of which form a remarkably full and lavish conclusion to the two parts), and the instrumental pieces introducing the two parts, an lntroduzione and a Sinfonia. Gedeone's father Joas and Sichemi sing three arias each, Gedeone himself (and his rival Oreb) only two arias, but they are particularly extensive. The two minor characters Fara and Silve are assigned one aria each. Celestial or allegorical figures hardly appear at all, and this too corresponds to Zeno's theories. The biblical angel who commissions Gideon to save Israel and to destroy Baal's altar does not sing in the oratorio. Joas's second aria has been eliminated from the present recording, and some secco recitatives and the concluding chorus — which is monumental enough anyway — have been abridged. 

 

"At the beginning of the second third of the eighteenth century, opera composers like Leonardo Vinci, Leonardo Leo, Johann Adolf Hasse, and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi brought about a fundamental change in musical style in Italy. The encounter with Metastasio's libretti led to a turning away from the baroque pathos of the slow aria and coloratura splendor of the allegro aria and from the dominance of counterpoint to emotionally stirring character, cantability, and the clear recital of the text with clear periodization of the musical phrases and a modest orchestral accompaniment supporting the vocal parts. Within a few years (Bach and Handel still had twenty years to live) a fundamentally new musical idiom came about, an idiom long designated as 'preclassical.' Bach and Handel were not the only two who would did not participate in this decisive stylistic development; Nicola Porpora would also have to be included among their company. In Vienna, however, the oratorio composer Porpora met with an oratorio tradition that not only was entirely and fully obliged to a 'baroqueo' idiom but also employed this old idiom conservatively in the field of the oratorio. Caldara and Fux both employed an 'eruditeo' emphatically contrapuntal-linear writing style in sacred music in general and in the oratorio. To be sure, Porpora himself had been instructed in 'stricto' polyphonic composition in Naples, and the concluding choruses of the two parts of 'Il Gedeone' leave not the slightest doubt about his ability to compose stupendous choral fugues in a manner that we would associate with Handel. Here the measured and serious tone of the choral polyphony of Fux and Caldara was at most one means of design among others. Porpora wanted to show what he could do and put his artistry on display, and reserve and economy were the least appropriate means for doing so. And so it is that 'Il Gedeone' makes a grand display of the brio and imaginative wealth of a genuine theater musician who served up lavish coloraturas and effective trills for the warbling of his vir-tuoso singers and let the castrato part in Gedeone's two arias indulge in concert splendor with oboes and even a solo trumpet (during Holy Week, when this instrument was supposed to keep its silence!). The alto castrato Pietro Casati, who was also active as a composer in Vienna), sang the part of Gedeone; La Pisani, the soprano, was the first Sichemi; and the court singer Praun sang the role of Joas. Vivaldi's concerto style, which had long since made its way to Naples, left clear traces on Porpora's string part, with its dense texture and constant motion. 

 

"This music by Porpora was just as foreign to the Vienna oratorio tradition as it was to the new gentle tones in the Italian operas and oratorios of those years by Leonardo Vinci, Leonardo Leo, Hasse, or Pergolesi. Nowhere is the dramatic impetus of Porpora's music so audible as in the no less than nine accompagnato recitatives with orchestral accompaniment. Here one should pay particular attention to how he works with string tremoli in the accompagnato before the second chorus, the siciliano chorus, and how the thematic design of the chorus together with the pastoral oboes in already anticipated in the recitative. At the same time, the thoroughly traditional delineation of the form (though there are already two-part arias along with the da capo arias that then represented the norm) and compositional technique with fundamental basses proper can no less not be overlooked.

"The dramatic style of this music does not follow as a matter of course from the libretto. The story of Gideon consists of divine calling, battle, and victory. Joas's fatherly warmth and Sichemi's fear counterpoint Gedeone's confident faith, which also makes him certain of victory. But tenderness, trembling, and grief could not find a place in this oratorio, which comes across like a splendid opera for a gala court occasion. 

 

"Porpora did not achieve the goal that he hoped to achieve with 'Il Gedeone' in Vienna, but he went down in grand style. Paradoxically, the very elements of this dazzling, captivating music that sealed his doom in Vienna in 1737 made the first new performance of this work in our time by the Wiener Akademie in the Hofburgkapelle a rousing success in more ways than one." (Jürg Stenzl, tr. Susan Marie Praeder. From the liner notes.)

 

Performers: Vokalensemble Nova, Wiener Akademi, Martin Haselböck, Kai Wessel, Ulf Bästlein, Linda Perillo, Henning Voss, Jörg Waschinski, Johannes Chum

1.1. Parte I: Introduzione

1.2. Parte I: 'Principe A Te Ritorno Apportatore'

1.3. Parte I: 'Quasi Locuste Che Intorno'

1.4. Parte I: 'Ma Forse Disperati'

1.5. Parte I: 'Quell'aura Lusinghiera'

1.6. Parte I: 'Padre Non Più Vana'

1.7. Parte I: 'Tu Se'il Minore De Toui Fratelli'

1.8. Parte I: 'Signor Del Popol Tutto'

1.9. Parte I: 'Mi Vegga, Oh Dio'

1.10. Parte I: 'In Qual Dubbio D'affetti'

1.11. Parte I: 'Di Nemico Sangue Il Campo'

1.12. Parte I: 'Odo Le Strida, Già Vaggo Il Volto'

1.13. Parte I: 'Oh Dio, Che Troppo Sono Potenti'

1.14. Parte I: 'D'una Dolce Speranza'

1.15. Parte I: 'Cadranno I Lupi Fieri'

1.16. Parte I: 'A Quella Omnipotente Man'

1.17. Parte I: 'Signor, Le Tue Minacce Noi Provammo'

 

2.1. Parte II: Sinfonia

2.2. Parte II: 'Sichemi Perche Mai Lui'

2.3. Parte II: 'L'alte Strida'

2.4. Parte II: 'Ove' Son Giunto, Ohime Infelice'

2.5. Parte II: 'À Pur Vinto, O Sorte Barbara'

2.6. Parte II: 'Alfin Sè Giunto Al Varco Dallo'

2.7. Parte II: 'O Beato Fortunato'

2.8. Parte II: 'Che Fia Di Gedeone?'

2.9. Parte II: 'Lodi Al Dio Delle Vittorie'

2.10. Parte II: 'Non Le Mie'

2.11. Parte II: 'Cogliete, Amici, Il Frutto Di Vostra Fede'

2.12. Parte II: 'M'abbondano Le Lagrime Per Doppia Gioia'

2.13. Parte II: 'Chi Nel Signor Confida Non Perisce In Eterno'

 

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Johann Baptist Vanhal - Two Symphonies; Cello Concerto

"Johann Baptist Vanhal [...] numbers among the most productive composers of the eighteenth century. According to the current count, he composed at least seventy-seven symphonies, some sixty solo concertos, several hundred works for chamber ensembles and just as many works for piano, and in the category of liturgical music fifty-one masses and many more than a hundred shorter sacred vocal works. According to the Vanhal scholar Paul Bryan's tentative estimate, the total number of his works is to be reckoned at 1,377. If one can believe what early witnesses stated about the extent of his overall oeuvre, then some works exceeding this number must have been lost. The lexicographer Gottfried Johann Dlabacẑ (who knew Vanhal personally), for example, spoke of the existence of a hundred symphonies in his 'Künstler-Lexikon für Bömen' published in 1815. But Vanhal quite early made a name for himself not only with the overwhelming quantity of his works but also with their quality. Already in 1772, when Vanhal was thirty-three years old, the English music historian Charles Burney noted in his travel journal during his trip throughout Europe that he would not hesitate to name Vanhal's symphonies 'among the most complete and perfect compositions, for many instruments, which the art of music can boast.'" (Bert Hagels, tr. Susan Marie Praeder. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Camerata Schweiz, Howard Griffiths, István Várdai

1. Symphony In C Major: I. Allegro
2. Symphony In C Major: II. Cantabile
3. Symphony In C Major: III. Allegro Molto
4. Cello Concerto In C Major: I. Allegro Moderato
5. Cello Concerto In C Major: II. Adagio
6. Cello Concerto In C Major: III. Finale. Allegro
7. Symphony In E Minor: I. Allegro Moderato
8. Symphony In E Minor: II. Cantabile
9. Symphony In E Minor: III. Menuetto Ma Un Poco Allegretto
10. Symphony In E Minor: IV. Allegro

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Ignaz Joseph Pleyel - Clarinet Concertos Nos. 1 & 2; Sinfonia Concertante

"The fact that Pleyel, like Haydn, paid tribute to the principle of experimentation is reflected in the first work on our recording. [...] [It] is doubtless one of his superior compositions. Jost Michaels ranks it as the most important clarinet concerto prior to Mozart. It is interesting to hear how Pleyel makes his way through the concerto with his simple initial theme; the path leads by way of an emotionally rich slow movement and in keeping with dramaturgical logic issues in the virtuoso release of the rondo. During the course of this work he exploits the whole palette of the clarinet. 

"The second Clarinet Concerto, very close to Mozart in its second movement, owed its composition to similar circumstances, to be specific, to the marketing of an already successfully tested basic idea For several instruments -in this case of a cello concerto - with Pleyel himself doing the marketing. What came first, the chicken or the egg, is a question that I would prefer to leave up to scholarship. It should be noted, however, that in the concluding movement of this concerto Pleyel designs the equivalent of an opera scene with cadences by Reimund Griesbacher, a recitative, and a seeming concluding stretta. Griesbacher, the director of Prince Großalkowitz's wind ensemble in Preßburg and Vienna around 1796, was renowned as a superb concert instrumentalist on the clarinet. 

"The Sinfonia Concertante arose in Pleyel's Paris circle of friends, represented by the Gebauer family, whose members often prevailed upon him to arrange older works for them, with these works then being published by them under his trademark name. The double concerto in all likelihood was published in this way with the author's approval." (Dieter Klöcker, tr. Susan Marie Praeder. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Sebastian Tewinkel, Dieter Klöcker, Sandra Arnold

1. Clarinet Concerto No. 1 In B-Flat Major: I. Allegro
2. Clarinet Concerto No. 1 In B-Flat Major: II. Adagio
3. Clarinet Concerto No. 1 In B-Flat Major: III. Rondo
4. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 In B-Flat Major: I. Allegro Vivace
5. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 In B-Flat Major: II. Adagio
6. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 In B-Flat Major: III. Rondo
7. Sinfonia Concertante In B-Flat Major: I. Allegro
8. Sinfonia Concertante In B-Flat Major: I. Allegro

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