MUSIC NOTES by Ian de Massini

The Gospel reading for our morning service on July 11th focusses upon the events leading to the death of John the Baptist, he who had been outrightly critical of Princess Herodias after she had di- vorced her first husband, Herod, in favour of marrying Herod's brother. Herodias then sought re- venge upon John the Baptist, which she did by persuading her daughter, Salomé, to ask for the head of John the Baptist. We are fortunate that western classical music is awash with numerous compos- ers and compositions that are connected, in one way or another, with this dramatic, biblical narra- tive. This morning, the choir, Mark and I will embellish our service with music from an , and from an , both based on the life and death of John the Baptist, as well as music connected with no less than four people who were named after the primary characters in this story. The first of these particular pieces of music to be heard this morning will be an instrumental Prelude, called Grand Choeur, by the French Romantic , Théodore Salomé. Salomé was born and educated at the epicentre of French cultural life, in , but never really amounted to much. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, sharing classes with all the greats, including Saint- Saëns, Bizet, Widor, Franck, and Gounod, but he never won a single Premier Prix (First Prize) for any of his exams. He was one of the Organists for the prestigious church of La Sainte Trinité in Paris, but had to play the inferior Choir Organ there, rather than the famous Main Organ, as his compositions and improvisations were never more than satisfactory. Nevertheless, Mark will hap- pily perform Salomé's jaunty Grand Choeur on Sunday morning with due gusto! The 1st Postlude on Sunday will be a brief extract from a Piano Sonata composed by Jo- hann Baptist Cramer. Born in Mannheim, Cramer was then brought to London as a child, where he worked for most of his musical career, initially as a performer, and then as a music publisher. Cramer's outstanding pianistic skills brought him to the attention of Beethoven when Cramer gave a concert in Vienna, and later, when Beethoven had composed his 5th Piano Concerto, Cramer was given the exclusive rights to publish that work in England; indeed, it's thought that it was Cramer who gave that great Piano Concerto the nickname, The Emperor Concerto, a title that has since been inextricably associated with this masterpiece by Beethoven. The 2nd Postlude, Marche pour la Cérémonie des Turcs (The Presentation of the 'fake' Sultan of Turkey), has a double connection with John the Baptist in that it was composed by Jean- Baptiste Lully for inclusion within staged performances of the comedy play, Le Bourgeois gentil- homme ('The would-be noble'), written by by Jean-Baptiste Molière. French plays in the Baroque era involved more than just speaking; they would also customarily include singing, dancing, and instrumental numbers, much like the English 'masque' of the same period. Its modern equivalents would be the 'musical' and the 'pantomime'. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme was first performed on Oc- tober 14th 1670 before the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord, by Molière's troupe of actors, with subsequent public performances being given at the theatre of the Palais-Royal, in the centre of Paris. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme satirises attempts at social climbing, and the bourgeois personality, poking fun both at the vulgar, pretentious middle-class and at the vain, snobbish aris- tocracy. The title is meant as an oxymoron: in Molière's France, a "gentleman" was, by definition, nobly born, and thus there could be no such thing as a bourgeois gentleman. Interestingly, Molière wasn't his real surname. Born to a prosperous and highly educated family, he was christened with the name of Jean Poquelin, and then, at the age of 19, he became Valet de chambre ordinaire et ta- pissier du Roi ('Valet of the King's chamber, and keeper of the carpets and upholstery'), a position he'd inherited from his father. But within two years of attaining this post, the son rebelled against his father, changing his name to Jean-Baptiste Molière (possibly inspired by a small village of the same name in the Midi near Le Vigan), and began to pursue a career on the stage - Quelle horreur! It was likely that he changed his name to spare his father the shame of having an actor in the family, for actors, although no longer vilified by the state under Louis XIV, were still not allowed to be buried in sacred ground. The life of the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was no less colourful. Born in Florence, his social-climbing family moved to France, then changed their son's name from Giovanni Battista

Lulli to its French equivalent, namely Jean-Baptiste Lully. Later, after Jean-Baptiste had married, he declared himself to be "Jean-Baptiste Lully, escuyer (squire), son of Laurent de Lully, gentil- homme Florentin (a Florentine gentleman)", though latter assertion was patently untrue! Lully liked to accompany performances of his music whilst standing onstage and making loud percussion noises, generated by him hitting the floor with a long staff. Unfortunately, during a performance of his grand Te Deum, celebrating Louis XIV's recovery from surgery, Lully, in his exuberance, acci- dentally banged his staff on his foot, caught gangrene, and died. I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on the French court! Our Gospel reading on Sunday was the prime source of inspiration for the oratorio, San Giovanni Battista, written by the Italian Renaissance composer, Alessandro , and which was first performed on Palm Sunday, in , in 1675. Indeed, at several points in the oratorio's plot, the libretto quotes whole verses from St Mark's Gospel. However, the librettist clearly thought it a step too far for such a sacred oratorio to include verse 22 from St Mark's Gospel chapter 6; When his daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. Dancing on Palm Sun- day would have prohibited, and so the librettist changed the narrative, and has Herod's daughter singing to Herod and his guests, rather than dancing. Today you'll hear the remarkably plangent 'Seduction' Aria from Stradella's oratorio, San Giovanni Battista, during which Herod's daughter sings to her father in an effort to persuade him to accede to her request for the head of John the Bap- tist. Interestingly, at that same dramatic point in this story as narrated in Oscar Wilde's fin-de-siècle French play of 1891 called Salomé, Oscar Wilde remains faithful to St Mark's Gospel, and has the eponymous character entrancing Herod not through singing but through dance. The German com- poser, Richard Strauss, was clearly entranced by Oscar Wilde's powerful but controversial play, with its deeply uncomfortable juxtaposition of biblical narrative, erotic sensuality, and graphic mur- derous narrative, for Strauss set the whole play to music twice over; once using Oscar Wilde's origi- nal French text, and once using a new German translation, with the latter consequently becoming the more widely disseminated. In an even later English translation of Strauss's opera, the music to which Herod's daughter dances to is subtitled, Dance of the Seven Veils, the very first time that that now-famous appellation appears in history. Strauss's dance music here is troubling in that it slides from key to key whilst continually oscillating between overtly seductive harmonies and wild out- bursts of malevolence. I'll be playing my specially-created transcription of this Dance of the Seven Veils upon our amazing, Digital Organ, with its eleven organs from around the world stored in its memory banks. We've been launching one of these eleven organs once every Sunday, starting five weeks ago, and so today we inaugurate our 6th organ, built in A.D. 2000 by the German company, Orgelbau Eisenbarth, based in Passau, and installed in the Church of St Bartholomäus in the town of Friesach, in Carinthia, the southernmost state of Austria. You'll find a photo of this splendid organ, together with an exterior photo of the church's twin towers, at the end of this article. Our choir on Sunday will provide us with an interesting Contrafactum, specially devised by me for this particular service, based upon the beautiful lament upon the death of Christ, Drop, drop, slow tears, with music by , and words by his fellow student at King's College, Cambridge, the poet Phineas Fletcher. With a very slight amendment to Fletcher's famous hymn- text, I hope I've managed to gently deflect the focus of this musical epitaph away from Christ and over to "him who brought the news of Christ, the Prince of Peace". Finally, but by no means least, I bring to your attention the special Reflective Music for this Sunday, which will be provided by Philippa Jones playing her cello once again for us, this time with keyboard accompaniment. Despite the enormous popularity of the piece of music she will play, a piece simply called Air, there are still doubts about its attribution. For nearly a century and a half, this Air has been attributed to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, and it still is, despite the absence of any element linking it with the Italian composer. Since the first known performance of the piece took place in 1749, some scholars consider Vincenzo Ciampi as the most likely author; however, the problem remains open. In particular, the style of the Air seems to follow the style of the Neapolitan school, and not that of the Venetian school which Ciampi belonged to. This Air is, in fact, a tran- scription of a song, the lyrics of which are as follows (in translation): For three long days my Nina

has laid upon her bed, (seriously ill). Louder and louder, sing and play, all you musicians! Awaken my Ninetta, so that she may arise from her slumbers.

St Bartholomäus Church, Friesach, Austria

The AD2000 ‘Eisenbarth’ organ in St Bartholomäus Church, Friesach, Austria