We have a suggestion for you right now how you and your choir can bridge the corona-enforced pause – and at the same time celebrate the Beethoven’s 250th birthday, which falls in mid-December, in fitting style. For if this event were to be cancelled completely, well, that really wouldn’t do!
Camille Saint-Saëns’ lavishly orchestrated setting of the Requiem calls for no fewer than four harps. This expressive work moves and fascinates listeners in equal measure, including our Chief Editor Uwe Wolf. It has long been a heartfelt desire of his to enable as many musicians as possible to perform this work – including groups with more limited resources at their disposal. For the Saint-Saëns anniversary in 2021, Carus is publishing an arrangement for strings, harp, and orchestra by Klaus Rothaupt.
Mendelssohn tried to put the romantic idea of letting choral songs sound outdoors into practice more than once. In a letter dated July 3, 1839, he described how he had sung with a choir deep in the forest. “How lovely the song sounded, how clearly the sopranos trilled in the air, and what a glow and charm enveloped all the pitches, everything so quiet and furtive and yet so clear – that I couldn’t have imagined … it was magical in the forest solitude, so that tears almost came to my eyes. It sounded like pure poetry.” Learn more about the still little known choral songs of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in this article by Mendelssohn expert R. Larry Todd.
The “Moonlight Sonata” sung as a “Kyrie”, the slow movement from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony as a “Persian Nocturne” for choir – these vocal interpretations of Beethoven’s instrumental works may surprise you, but they will also convince. A tradition of arranging, incidentally, which was already well-established in Beethoven’s time. And every now and then, these arrangements for choir also reveal aspects of the compositions which were previously hidden.
The C Minor Mass KV 427 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a fascinating work. But to speak of “the” Mass is inaccurate, for basically it is no more than a musical torso, with many puzzles and problems, yet full of magnificent music. We look into the intriguing history of its composition and transmission.
Mendelssohn’s colorful setting of Goethe’s ballad “Die erste Walpurgisnacht” (“The First Walpurgis Night”): It is not a biblical story but pagan rituals which form the core of Mendelssohn’s composition based on a ballad by Goethe: the pagans stage a colourful spectacle to frighten off Christians, enabling the former to celebrate their annual Walpurgis Night ritual undisturbed. Goethe’s grotesque yet humorous portrayal of the conflict provided Mendelssohn with a vivid musical raiment.
The St. John Passion was performed under Bach’s direction in Leipzig at least four times, but each time in a different form. And not all versions survive complete, so decisions need to be made for each performance nowadays. Increasingly the 1725 version with the opening chorus “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß” is performed. The omission of “Herr, unser Herrscher” in this performance version is coupled with new discoveries. We hear the part of the evangelist as it was sung back then in Leipzig. In addition, highly dramatic arias such as “Himmel reiße, Welt erbebe” are heard to their best advantage.
It is a repertoire from which quite different programs can be derived – both in terms of length, scoring, level of difficulty (which is moderate in many compositions), but also in terms of fundamental conception: possibilities would be to focus on either a feasible liturgical sequence or a musical exploration of different aspects of the Selva.
The period in which the above-mentioned works were written was a very fruitful phase in Handel’s creative output. He composed the ode Alexander’s Feast in 1735/36, Israel in Egypt and Saul in 1738/39, and Messiah followed in 1741/42. Furthermore, during this period he composed not only the oratorio L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740), but also a further eleven (!) operas, including what is probably his best-known, Xerxes, and – as his very last opera of all – Deidamia in 1741.
Heinrich Schütz probably regarded his last opus as an artistic statement of particular importance: he called it his “Schwanengesang” or swansong. But the work then fell into oblivion for several centuries. The edition in the Stuttgart Schütz Edition offers a unique interpretation of the “Schwanengesang” based on the surviving sources.
