Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - Mass in C Major

The Mass in C Major, opus 86, is the earliest of a number of works by Beethoven which are both vocal and symphonic. Written in 1807, just after "Fidelio" and several important instrumental and chamber music compositions, the Mass coincides with the period when Beethoven was working on the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.

The first performance was on 13 September 1807 in Vienna, but it was afterwards seldom performed in concerts although Beethoven held the work in high regard. The credit for its real discovery is due to the later Romantics.

Like all compositions of the kind based on the Latin text of the Sunday Mass, strictly determined and consecrated by tradition, Beethoven's Mass is in five parts.

The Kyrie Eleison is distinguished by the spacious magnificence of its epic style. The alternation of the four soloists with the choir recalls certain features of antiphonal singing.

The Gloria In Excelsis pulsates with great impetus and brio; the various sections of the text dictate changes in the character, the tempo, and the dynamics of the music, resulting in a number of individual parts within the framework of the movement.

The Credo incarnates, in a certain sense, the vast amplitude and the splendour of the two preceding movements. It is the central and the largest movement of the entire work, for which reason its development is the most complex. It contains independent episodes which are different in character and mode of expression.

The Sanctus begins with a marvellously lyrical passage immediately followed by a more brilliant section.

The Benedictus, the text of which forms a separate section, re-introduces a more peaceful mood before the powerful and radiant finale.

The Agnus Dei is marked by its quality of inwardness and ends with the theme with which the work began, thus conferring a sense of unity on the whole.

The Mass in C has a clear and powerful structure. More than once there is a free use of elaborate polyphonic combinations evolving out of brilliant and massive chords. Beethoven thoroughly understood the expressiveness and the possibilities of the human voice he used extensively in his compositions. His interpretation of the text is profoundly philosophic and humanistic. Some of the features of this relatively early work prefigure the Missa Solemnis, the monumental contemporary of the Ninth Symphony.


The CD was released by harmonia mundi, CD 1988/P 1972, (AAD). HMA 190109.

Soprano: Emilija Markova
Alto: Lilijana Parachikova
Tenor: Christo Kamenev
Bass: Ivan Petrov

Choeurs Rodina, Orchestre Philharmonique d'Etat de Sofia, Conductor: Constantin Iliev

Track List:

1. Kyrie (4'50")
2. Gloria (9'51")
3. Credo (11'51")
4. Sanctus (12'53")
5. Agnus Dei (7'59")
   

Herbert Howells (1892-1983) - Stabat Mater (Premier Recording)

The Stabat Mater was completed and first performed in 1965. It was the last of a Holy Trinity of large-scale choral works - the others being Hymnus Paradisi and Missa Sabrinensis, the "Mass of the Severn" - which have established Howells as one of the great twentieth-century masters of vocal-instrumental polyphony.

Herbert Howells (1892-1983), composer of the rather unknown masterwork Stabat Mater

The Stabat Mater was his last major work. He was seventy-three, and though he went on producing anthems, motets and canticles for another thirteen years, he never exceeded the stylistic boundaries established by this most complex, concentrated and ambiguous piece.

Unusually for Howells, the inspiration of the Stabat Mater was partially visual: the Pietà of Michelangelo in St. Peter's, Rome (the published vocal score reproduces it on the front cover).
Howells also made a close study of other composer's settings of the text, particularly Stanford's, which he greatly admired (his copy of the vocal score is full of admiring annotations), and kept by him a number of translations.

The Stabat Mater has been rarely performed and is still almost unknown. On a first hearing it can sound unvaried, which could be the reason for its lack of popularity. This impression, however, is misleading: in fact within the obligatory oneness of mood Howells achieves a subtle range of treatments, and marvellous inventions abound:

1) The very opening - two-part counterpoint: austere and severe as can be
2) The start of the second movement, a via dolorosa, the cuius animan gementem: Howells makes the cellos and double basses tune down to the low B, so flodding the scene with a lurid light. The solo tenors enters for the first time "O quam tristis", as if introducing speaking for, even protecting the Mother and rebuking the turba.
3) Moments of supreme choral glory: no other composer makes quite these sounds, as in "vidit Jesum in tormentis" in the "Quis est homo"; at "fac me tecum vere flere" in the "Sancta Mater"; and, assai fervido, the great apotheosis of "Juxta crucem tecum stare" in the same movement.
4) The suggestions of great turbulence, gathering storm, threatening crowds, which lead up to that conflagration in the "Sancta Mater".
5) The crippled march - complete with desultory funeral chimes - which begets the finale. The end is resigned extinction of all light and life.

The Stabat Mater was composed against a background of political and personal stress and distress - the Russians' testing of nuclear weapons in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Kennedy assassination in 1963, Sir Winston Churchill's death and state funeral in 1965, the death of Howell's son 25 years ago, was also a powerful presence. All this surely played its part in exacerbating the tension and anguish which pervades the Stabat Mater. It is music of extraordinary desolation and dereliction of spirit. Yet, as all in Howells, agony is ecstacy: sense of loss on the one hand, Beatific Vision on the other.

The CD was released by Chandos, 1994, (DDD). Chandos Chan 9314.

Tenor: Neill Archer

London Symphony Chorus, Stephen Westrop (Chorus Master), The London Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Gennady Rozhdestvensky


Track List:

Stabat Mater for tenor solo, chorus & orchestra

1) Chorus: Stabat Mater Doloroisa (7'54")
2) Chorus, Semi-Chorus, Tenor Solo: Cuius Animan Gementem (10'02")
3) Chorus: Quis Est Homo ? (4'36")
4) Tenor Solo, Chorus: Eia, Mater (4'51")
5) Chorus, Tenor Solo: Sancta Mater (5'51")
6) Chorus, Tenor Solo: Fac Ut Portem (7'43")
7) Chorus: Tenor Solo, Semi-Chorus: Christe, Cum Sit Hunc Exire (10'19")

Jean Gilles (1668-1705) - Messe Des Morts

I'm deeply shocked by the news that a powerful bomb attack occured in Palmanova, Balearic Islands. Police believe the attack was carried out by an ETA cell that came to the island specifically to carry it out and was not based there, it is said.

Please, let there be no harm to the Islands - no terror, no anger, no fear, no hatred, no sorrow. Mallorca is Europe's favourable tourist desination. And please do no harm to the Spanish monarchy. Please no damage to the Holy Cathedral of Mallorca !

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Jean Gilles' Messe des morts may be regarded as the best of all (French) requiem masses.
When the Messe des morts was completed, however, the patrons refused to pay him the agreed sum of ten louis d'or, claiming that the work had grown too elaborate and a performance would be far too expensive. "Gilles was so incensed by this that he claimed: all right ! Then it shall be performed by no one, and I shall be the first for whom it is given !" He would not have long to wait: the composer, sickly since childhood, died on 5 February 1705, barely a month after his 37 birthday, and the Requiem indeed seems to have had its first perfomance at his own funeral.

Probably Gilles and his Messe des morts would then have been forgotten had not André Campra, eight years his senior, whom Gilles had known in their student days, conducted the work and later taken it with him to Paris. There he performed it at the Concert Spirituel, where he became incredibly popular and was given at least 15 more times until well into the 1770s.

With its thouroughly "theatrical" expressive gestures, modelled after Lully's tragédies lyriques, Gilles' Requiem correspondes exactly to the taste and requirements of Parisian musical life. Here and there are passages of "learned" counterpoint, as in the "Domine Jesu Christe" fugue of the Offertorium, but in spite of all the work's depth and loftiness, the predominant mood is one of cheerful lightness. This can be heard in the many passages in triple metre, but even at the very beginning of the Introit, in which the tenor intones his"Requiem" recitative, wholly operatic in style, over a dotted march rhythm. In the Communio, at the end of the requiem, the sorrow predominates again.

After two final, particularly grand performances - in September 1764 in Paris at the memorial service for Jean-Phillipe Rameau, with 180 musicians of the Académie Royale de Musique, and in May 1774 at the funeral of King Louis XV at Versailles - Gilles Requiem went unheard for nearly 200 years. But the work was mentioned and praised in so many sources that it was rediscovered relatively early by the recording medium: in 1958 Louis Frémaux conducted its first appearance on record with the Orchestre de Chambre Jean-Francois Paillard. Philippe Herreweghe's recording for Archiv Produktion was made in January 1981 at the Church of the Carmelites in Ghent and was the first to reflect historical practice , in the musical text itself as well in the performance. Herreweghe used for the recording an older, handwritten copy of the score in the Bibliothèque National de Paris, which presumably represents Gilles' original.

Thus the work, previously known only in Corrette's extravagant orchestration, with the addition of oboes, horns, trumpets, timpani and drum, and the thick, saturated sound of modern instruments, suddenly appeared in an entirely new sonoric garb - lean and taut, sharply accented, transparent and with intensely brilliant colours.

The CD was released by Archiv Produktion, 1981, (ADD). 471722-2 ABL.

Soprano: Anne-Marie Rodde
Altus: Jean Nirouet
Tenor: Martyn Hill
Bass I: Ulrich Studer
BASS II: Peter Kooy

Collegium Vocale Gent, Musica Antiqua Köln, conductor: Phillipe Herreweghe, played on period instruments.

"Herreweghe has accomplished a profoundly moving performance"

Track List:

1. Introitus (14'12")
2. Kyrie (2'21")
3. Graduale (5'12")
4. Offertorium (9'43")
5. Sanctus (3'57")
6. Agnus Dei (4'00")
7. Communio (4'33")
8. Michelle Corrette (1709-1795): Carillons des morts (4'46")
   

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) - Requiem (1893) in the version for 4 soloists/Mass No. 2 in G major, op. 1

Despite all appearances, Camille Saint-Saens was perhaps correct when he said that Charles Gounod would be remembered principally for his religious music. True, Gounod is currently known almost solely for his operas: Romeo and Juliet, Mireille and the marvelous Faust ... Yet the composer also wrote a considerable number of religious works: masses oratorios, motets, sacred songs as well as numerous sundry compositions in Latin, French and even English !

The composer himself explained the reasons why he felt compelled to compose sacred music in a letter to Charles Bordes: "Palestrina and Bach are church fathers for us, it is important that we remain their sons." In fact, Gounod never ceased to write sacred music, from his early days at the consevatory until his last, dying days. Like Liszt, Gounod was a devout Catholic. Also like Liszt, he was constantly torn between the spirit and the flesh, between the sacred and the profane.

Berlioz, was quick to notice and praise Gounod's early composition "Agnus Dei", predicting a brilliant future for the young student at the Paris Conservatory. Winner of the Grand Prix de Rome at the early age of 21, Gounod described his youth in one word: tenderness. During his stay in Rome he assisted at the religious services at the Sistine Chapel, his first introduction - not without difficulties - to Palestrina's music. Gounod wrote: "(Palestrina's music) is strict, ascetic, horizontal, and calm like the line of the ocean"; he soon could not do without it. The composer's appetite for sacred music soon became insatiable. In Rome he wrote his first mass and an a cappela requiem which he orchestrated later.

Charles Gounod (17 June 1818 - 18 October 1893)

Upon his retun to Paris, Gounod became the music director at the Paroisse des Missions Chapel "on the condition", he emphasized, "that I could follow my ideas: Bach and Palestrina." He was on the verge of being ordained (he already signed his letters "Abbé Gounod"), but, like Liszt, he was able to realize the error of his ways in time. The five years that he spent at the Paroisse des Missions taught him the virtues of a contemplative life, of meditation and prayer. In fact, Gounod composed only sacred music until 1850.

In 1846 he composed a Missa brevis and O salutaris hostia for male voices for a friend; these works became the Mass no. 2 in G major, op. 1 for male chorus and organ. Dedicated to the Sociétés de Paris et du Département de la Seine, the mass was a response to the composer's deep-seated desire to restore the spirit of the liturgy in sacred music. He paly a decisive role toward reaching this goual by regularly personally directing his singers at the end of the Orphéon in Paris as of 1852. His energetic engagement was accompanied by a faith that could move mountains. The Mass in G major already manifests the power of a higher ideal accompanied by occasional Sulpician reverences, their appearance throughout Gounod's works reflecting his times.

Deeply moved by the death of his grandson Maurice, Gounod took up his pen once again in his old age. He wrote the first measures of his Requiem for soloists, chorus and orchestra on 21 March 1891 and completed the work at the beginning of 1893. The aged composer did not live to hear the Requiem's premiere during Holy Week in 1894. The work was performed again in October of the same year in a ceremony which served as a sort of official tribute in the presence of Gounod's family, representatives from politics and numerous well-known musicians including Ambroise Thomas and Giuseppe Verdi.

Henri Büsser, Gounod's devoted and zealous student, prepared a number of different version of the posthumous Requiem. Büssers's last edition is the version that is used for the CD: the four soloists and chorus are accompanied by a string quartet, harp and organ.

On the morning of 15 October 1893, Gounod, although feeling fatigued, went to church with his faithful companion Henri Büsser. After lunch he sat down to put the finishing touches on the piano arrangement of the exquisite Benedictus .... his wife found him with is head, "held up by his pipe resting on the table," bent over the open score of the Requiem. Gounod never regained consciousness; he died three days later on the morning of 10 October witha crucifix in his hands.


The CD was released by claves digital, 1993 (DDD). Claves CD 50-9326.

Soprano: Eva Buffoni
Alto: Irène Friedli
Tenor: Ruben Amoretti
Bass: Alain Clément

Quatuor Sine Nomine, Organ: Francois Margot, Choeur de Chambre Romand, conductor: André Charlet

Mass no. 2: Chorale du Brassus, organ: Francois Margot, conductor: André Charlet

Track List:

1. Introit and Kyrie (6'00")
2. Dies Irae (14'30")
3. Sanctus (1'28")
4. Benedictus (3'46")
5. Pie Jesu (3'34")
6. Agnus Dei (6'38")

Mass no. 2 for male chorus & organ in G major, op. 1:

7. Kyrie eleison (5'47")
8. Gloria (5'52")
9. Credo (8'44")
10. Sanctus (1'39")
11. O Salutaris (2'51")
12. Agnus Dei (4'50")

Giuseppe Verdi - Ave Maria, sung in Italian

The Ave Maria for female voice and strings was performed at La Scala 1880. The words are attributed to Dante.

Download: Verdi - Ave Maria (WMA VBR 176 kbit/sec) from the CD "Sacred Works - Messa Solenne"

Lyrics: Ave Maria (in Dante's translation)

Ave Regina Vergine Maria (Hail Queen, Virgin Mary)
Piena Di Grazia: Iddio È Sempre Teco: (Full Of Grace: The Lord Is Always With You:)
Sopra Ogni Donna Benedetta Sia. (Above All Women, May You Be Blessed.)
E'l Frutto Del Tuo Ventre, (And Blessed Be The Fruit Of Your Womb,)
Il Qual Io Preco Che Ci Guardi Dal Mal, Cristo Gesù, (Christ Jesus, To Whom I Pray, That He May Keep Us From Evil,)
Sia Benedetto, E Noi Tiri Con Seco. (And Draw Us After Him.)
Vergine Benedetta, Sempre Tu (Blessed Virgin, Always)
Ora Per Noi A Dio, Che Ci Perdoni, (Pray For Us To God, That He Might Forgive Us,)
E Diaci Grazia A Viver Sì quaggiù, (And Give Us Grace So To Live Here Below)
Che'l Paradiso Al Nostro Fin Ci Doni. (That He May At The Last Welcome Us Into Paradise.)
Ave Maria, Ora Per Noi A Dio, Ora Per Noi. (Hail Mary, Pray For Us To God, Pray For Us.)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) - Mass in E-Flat Major, D 950

Prior to 1825, Schubert's forays into the field of the Latin Mass had been more or less conventional affairs, but in his sixth and final Mass, written during the last months of his life in 1828, he struck out in a totally novel direction in setting the Latin text to music.

In none of his Masses, including the four early settings of 1814 to 1816, was he willing to exclude the idea of a wholly personal profession of faith in spite of his debt to traditional models, but opted instead for solutions that strike the modern listener as more than a little surprising and suggest a critical attitude to the articles of faith.

Displays of mere magnificence were never an end in themselves even in the Mass in A-flat major, which he wrote between 1819 and 1822, and revised in 1825. Although this last-named work was also designed to impress the imperial court, where he hoped to obtain the position of deputy Kapellmeister, there is no denying the very real sense of consternation that Schubert must have felt when working out the musical material, while the emphasis given to certain textual details is utterly individual and far removed from the everyday practices of the period, at least as they affected sacred music.

The E-flat major Mass is meant to inspire fear rather than prepare its listeners spiritually and, in keeping with tradition, put them in the right frame of mind for the Sacrifice of the Mass.


The CD was released by Sony, 1995 (DDD). SK 66255.

Soprano: Benjamin Schmidinger (Wiener Sängerknaben)
Alto: Albin Lenzer (Wiener Sängerknaben)
Tenor: Kurt Azesberger
Tenor: Jörg Hering
Bass: Harry van der Kamp

Organ: Arno Hartmann

Wiener Sängerknaben, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Conductor: Bruno Weil

Track List:

1. Kyrie (5'13")
2. Gloria (12'17")
3. Credo (13'53")
4. Sanctus (2'54")
5. Benedictus (4'51")
6. Agnus Dei (8'15")
   

Zbigniew Preisner (b. 1955) - Requiem For My Friend (Requiem Dla Mojego Przyjaciela)

Zbigniew Preisner is Poland's leading film music composer and is considered to be one of the most outstanding film composers of his generations.

Among many recent awards and citations Preisner received the Silver Bear from the Berlin Festival in 1997, two Césars from the French Film Academy - one in 1996 for Jean Becker's Elisa, and one in 1995 for Three Colours Red - and three consecutive citations as the year's most outstanding composer of film music in The Los Angeles Critics Association Awards of 1991, 1992 and 1993. Preisner is a member of the French Film Academy and in 1992 he received the Award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs for outstanding achievements in the presentation of Polish Culture abroad.

Requiem for my friend is Preisner's first large-scale work specially written for recording and live performance.

"Once we had a joint conception to create a concert telling a life story. The premiere was planned to take place on the Acropolis in Athens. It was intended to be a large event, a hybrid of a mystery play and opera. Krzysztof Kieslowski would be the director, Krzysztof Piesiewicz was responsible for the script, and I was planning to compose the music. Once, we thought it might be the first of a series of musical performances, to be developed in various interesting places around the world in the next few years. But it was life that authored a different ending: Krzysztof Kieslowski died on 13th March 1996.

The first part of the Requiem for my friend is meant as a farewell to Krzysztof Kieslowski. I dedicate this music to him." Zbigniew Preisner

(The text is taken from the booklet of the CD)

The Requiem for my friend is one of my favourite Requiems. Thank you for this masterwork.

The CD was released by ERATO, 1998 (DDD). 3984-24146-2.

Soprano: Elzbieta Towarnicka
Countertenors: Dariusz Paradowski, Piotr Lykowski
Tenor: Piotr Kusiewicz
Bass: Grzegorz Zychowicz
Additional Tenor: Mariusz Koluch
Voice: Dorota Slezak

Varsov Chamber Choir, Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, Organ: Jan Szypowski, Conductor: Part One - Roman Rewakowicz, Part Two - Jacek Kaspszyk

Part One recorded in Warsaw Cathedral and the Emaus Church in Cracow (Dec 1997), Part Two recorded and mixed in Studio S2/S4, Polish Radio, Warsaw (Feb. 1998) and in the Emaus Church in Cracow (Dec 1997 and Feb 1998)

Track List:

1. PART ONE: REQUIEM - Officium (3'46")
2. Kyrie Eleison (6'12")
3. Dies Irae (4'51")
4. Offertorium (3'19")
5. Sanctus (2'51")
6. Agnus Dei (1'49")
7. Lux Aeterna (1'56")
8. Lacrimosa (3'24")
9. Epitaphium (3'03")
10. PART TWO: LIFE - The Beginning - Meeting (5'18")
11. Discovering the world (2'50")
12. Love (2'24")
13. Destiny - Kai Kairos (9'43")
14. Apocalypse - Ascende huc (2'18")
15. Veni et vidi (2'45")
16. Qui erat et qui est (4'26")
17. Lacrimosa - Day of tears (4'03")
18. Postscriptum - Prayer (3'16")