directed by Dr. Fredrick Lokken
Email us:
BellevueChamberChorus @yahoo.com
|
directed by Dr. Fredrick Lokken
Email us:
BellevueChamberChorus @yahoo.com |
|
|
|
May 2009: Haydn Fest
Program
Mehrstimmige Lieder
(Part Songs)
Die Harmonie
in der Ehe
(Harmony in Marriage)
Der Augenblick
(The Moment)
Warnung
(Warning)
Der Greis
(The Old Man)
Die
Beredsamkeit (Eloquence)
Excerpts from
The Seasons
Spring
Recitative (trio) – “Behold where surly Winter flies.”
Chorus – “Come, gentle Spring.”
Recitative and Aria (bass) – “At last the bounteous sun.”
“With eagerness the husbandman.”
Summer
Recitative (soprano) – “Lo, now aslant the dew-bright
earth.”
Trio and Chorus – “The sun ascends.”
Aria (soprano) – “O how pleasing to the senses.”
Autumn
Recitative (trio) – “Whate’er the blossom’d Spring.”
Trio and Chorus – “Thus Nature, ever kind.”
Winter
Recitative and Aria (tenor) – “A crystal pavement lies
the lake.”
“The trav’ler stands perplexed.”
Recitative and Aria (bass) – “From out the east.”
“In this, o vain misguided man.”
Recitative, Trio, and Chorus – “Truth only lasts.”
“Then comes
the dawn.”
Intermission
Missa in Bb (“Theresa Mass”)
Kyrie
Gloria
Credo
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Welcome to
Haydn Fest, the finale of our 25th Anniversary Season!
Our program tonight commemorates another momentous anniversary:
the 200th anniversary year (and nearly the
day - May 31, 1809) of the death of one of the giants of the classical
music universe – Franz Joseph Haydn.
Born in 1732 (the same year as George Washington), he died in the
same year that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born…a lifetime
that spanned the height of the Enlightenment period, the beginning of
the decline of the European aristocracy and the birth of democracy with
the American and French revolutions, the rise of the Romantic periods,
and the dawn of the “modern” age.
Haydn was the first important figure
in the musical era now referred to as the Viennese Classical Period,
with Mozart (a devoted friend and supporter) and Beethoven (a later,
somewhat unappreciative student with whom he had a tense relationship)
to follow. Unlike the
tumultuous personal and professional lives of those two younger
colleagues, Haydn’s career was relatively stable and comfortable.
Born in a small Austrian village, he went to Vienna at the age of
eight as a choir boy at St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
After maturity, he worked in various musical capacities which led
to his employment in 1761 by the wealthy Hungarian royal Esterházy
family, with whom he spent the majority of his career at their rural
estates in Eisenstadt, Austria, and Esterháza, Hungary.
Isolated from other composers and trends in music until the later
part of his long life, he was, as he put it, "forced to become
original".
As music director for the royal
family (themselves appreciative musical connoisseurs) for over 30 years,
Haydn received a comfortable salary, and composed several operas, some
sixty symphonies, numerous masses, sonatas, concerti, and hundreds of
shorter pieces, many of which were circulated widely and built for him
an international reputation.
Extended trips to London in 1791-92 and 1794-95 generated some of
Haydn's best-known work, including the
Surprise,
Military,
Drumroll,
and
London symphonies.
Returning to Vienna in 1795, he continued working both for the
Esterhazy family and independently, and turned his attention primarily
to large-scale choral works: his great later masses and oratorios.
Serious illness completely curtailed his compositional activity
for the last seven years of his life.
At the time of his death, “Papa Haydn” was one of the most
celebrated composers across Europe; Mozart's
Requiem
was performed at his memorial
service.
Haydn’s musical genius played a
crucial role in the development of the string quartet and the symphony,
and he left behind a significant body of important choral work, some of
which (all from his final, fully matured compositional period in Vienna)
we explore in this program.
In 1796,
Haydn composed thirteen
Part Songs
for three or four voices with
piano accompaniment. Unlike
most of his music from this period, these charming and witty little
songs were written not upon commission, but purely for personal
pleasure. While most provide
comic commentary on such topics as romance, marriage, excess drinking,
and other foibles of human nature, some take a deeper look at life or
express personal religious sentiment.
All of them display the clever word and mood painting, creative
technique, and marvelous simplicity of a true master.
In his final years, Haydn’s calling card included a line from
Der Greis: "Hin ist alle meine Kraft /
Alt und schwach bin ich" (Gone is all my strength / Old and weak am I).
Die Harmonie in der Ehe (Harmony in Marriage)
O wonderful harmony!
Whatever he wants, she wants, too.
He likes carousing – so does she.
He likes to play cards – so does
she.
He likes to throw money around and
pretend to be an important man;
that’s also her custom.
O wonderful harmony – whatever he
wants, she wants, too!
Der Augenblick (The Moment)
Passion – tenderness – reason –
flattery – concern – tears;
None of these can coerce the favor
of the beautiful lady,
nor procure her hand.
Only a lucky moment brings the lover
his success.
Warnung (Warning)
Friend, I beg you!
Be on guard! Scorpions lurk under every stone.
And there, where it’s dark,
deceivers and schemers are likely to hide.
Der Greis (The Old Man)
Gone is all my strength; old and
weak am I.
Only a little am I refreshed by
jesting and the juice of the vine.
Gone is all my strength, and my red
cheeks have flown away.
Death knocks at my door; unafraid, I
open to him.
Heaven be thanked!
For my whole life has been a harmonious song.
Die Beredsamkeit (Eloquence)
Friends, water makes one mute; this
we learn from the fish.
But wine reverses this; so we learn
at the table.
For do we not become great orators
when the Rhein-wine speaks through us?
We admonish, quarrel, lecture: but
no one wants to listen to anyone else.
Friends, water makes one mute!
After returning to Vienna from
London, Haydn composed two massive oratorios, inspired by Handel’s
popular examples in the genre.
Die Schöpfung
(The Creation), based on John Milton’s
Paradise Lost, premiered in 1798 and achieved
immediate and continuing success.
The next year Haydn began working on its successor,
Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons), which took two more years, and considerable toll on
Haydn’s health, to complete.
Also an enormous success, its second performance featured Haydn’s
long-time friend and supporter, the Empress Maria Theresa (among other
things the mother of the infamous Marie Antoinette), as the soprano
soloist. (Haydn said she had
“great taste and expression, but a weak instrument.”)
As with
The Creation, the librettist for
The Seasons
was the Dutch-born Austrian
diplomat, music lover, and amateur composer and poet, Baron Gottfried
van Swieten. Based loosely
on another popular English literary work of the time, the drama depicts
the human relationship with a divinely-ordered Nature throughout the
course of the changing seasons.
Told through the commentary of chorus and three soloists
(representing a farmer, his daughter, and a young countryman), the
narrative describes the promise of Spring and first planting; the rising
of the Summer sun and then respite from nature’s heat and storms; the
Autumn harvest and praise of God’s bounty and human industriousness; and
finally the menace of Winter and a traveler caught in Winter’s fury.
The over-arching theme of the work becomes clear in the climactic
final numbers: the cycle of Nature as a symbol of the frailty of human
existence.
Van Swieten first wrote the text in
German, and then translated it back into English for the 1802
dual-language published versions.
Haydn himself was not particularly happy with much of the text,
calling it “Frenchified rubbish”.
Ever since, the critical judgment has been that the oratorio is
great in spite of, not because of, its literary quality. And, indeed,
Haydn’s music is undeniably great: harmonically daring, orchestrally
rich, dramatically exciting, breath-takingly beautiful, full of wit (as
when the tune supposedly whistled by the farmer in the first aria is the
theme from Haydn’s own popular
Surprise
Symphony) and masterful musical skill; all
still evident in our abbreviated, piano-accompanied rendition.
During his final
period of employment by the Esterházys, Haydn was required to compose a
new mass every summer to honor the nameday of Princess Marie Hermengild,
wife of then reigning Prince Nikolaus.
Six such masses were thus written between 1796-1802, which
collectively have come to be known as the composers “late masses”.
Among them are such well known and masterful works as the
Mass in Time of War,
Lord Nelson Mass, and
Creation Mass
(based on themes from the oratorio).
The so-called
Theresienmesse
(Theresa Mass) was the fourth of
these, composed in 1799. Its
now familiar nickname, referring to the Empress Maria Theresa, was not
on Haydn’s original score, but came into common usage, somewhat
mysteriously, fairly soon thereafter.
Scored for solo
quartet, chorus, strings, clarinets, trumpets, timpani, and organ, the
Mass lacks the larger wind ensemble (oboes, bassoons, horns, flutes)
common for larger sacred works of this time.
The drastic reduction of the orchestra may be due to a shortage of wind
players at Eisenstadt in 1798-99.
But Haydn has turned this lack into a virtue, as the
Theresienmesse
shines “with a mellow glow
and…darker hues of the B-flat instruments.” (Wm. Hermann, preface to the
G.Schirmer edition) Though not as frequently performed as its
companions, the
Theresienmesse displays “all the variety, rhythmic
energy and contrapuntal skill of a composer at the height of his
powers." (Program Notes, Somerset Chamber Choir at Wells Cathedral)
We are honored to perform it as the finale of our
Haydn Fest concert.
~~Notes by
Fredrick Lokken
Kyrie
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Gloria
Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth, peace to those of good will.
Credo
I believe in one God, the Father
Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and
invisible.
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the
only begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, light from light, true
God from true God.
Begotten, not made, of one substance
with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who for us and our salvation came
down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit
of the Virgin Mary, and was made human.
He was crucified also for us under
Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in
accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven and sits at
the right hand of the Father,
and will come again glory to judge
the living and dead; his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the
Lord and Giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the
Son,
and with the Father and Son is
worshipped and glorified,
and who spoke through the prophets.
And I believe in one, holy, catholic
and Apostolic Church,
I confess one baptism for the
remission of sins,
and I look for the resurrection of
the dead and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
Sanctus
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your
glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Benedictus
Blessed is the one who comes in the
name of the Lord.
Hosnna in the highest.
Agnus Dei
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins
of the world, have mercy upon us.
About the Guests
Melissa Plagemann has been
praised by audiences and the press for her “clear, burnished
|
In
recent seasons, soprano 
voice” (Tacoma News Tribune) and “attractively expressive mezzo”
(Crosscut Seattle). She performs frequently with the finest
musical organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest, and is rapidly
becoming known for the passion and musical intelligence she brings to
performances on opera and concert stages alike. The Seattle P-I
proclaimed her recent performance with the Auburn Symphony "a powerful
and moving experience." Upcoming performances include the 
Stephen
Rumph