Mass in C Minor Performances of Two Academy of St Martin Fine Choral Works from in the Fields Two Masters of the Baroque Era

CORO CORO Vivaldi: Gloria in D Fauré: Requiem Bach: Magnificat in D Mozart: Vespers Harry Christophers Elin Manahan Thomas MOZART The Sixteen Roderick Williams Harry Christophers Resounding The Sixteen Mass in C minor performances of two Academy of St Martin fine choral works from in the Fields two masters of the Baroque era. “…the sense of an ecstatic movement towards cor16057 cor16042 cor16057 Paradise is tangible.” the times Handel: Messiah Barber: Agnus Dei 3 CDs (Special Edition) An American Collection Carolyn Sampson Barber, Bernstein, Catherine Wyn-Rogers Copland, Fine, Reich, Mark Padmore del Tredici Christopher Purves “The Sixteen are, as “…this inspiriting new usual, in excellent form performance becomes here. Recording and a first choice.” remastering are top- notch.” Gillian Keith the daily telegraph notch.” cor16062 cor16031 american record guide Tove Dahlberg Harry Christophers Thomas Cooley To find out more about CORO and to buy CDs visit Handel and Haydn Society Nathan Berg www.thesixteen.com cor16084 ne of the many delights of being of your seat” suspense that one feels in the exquisite ‘Et incarnatus est’ and it OArtistic Director of America’s is well worth that risk. One can never achieve this degree of concentration and oldest continuously performing arts total immersion in the music whilst in the recording studio; whatever mood is organization, the Handel and Haydn set, subconsciously we always know we can have another go at it. Society, is that I am given the opportunity to present most of our concert season at I feel very privileged to take this august Society towards its Bicentennial; yes, the Handel and Haydn Society was founded in 1815. Handel was the old, Boston’s glorious Symphony Hall. Built Borggreve Marco Photograph: in 1900, it is principally the home of the Haydn the new (he had just died in 1809), and what we can do is continue to Boston Symphony Orchestra, but it has perform the music of the past but strip away the cobwebs and reveal it anew. This been our primary performance home recording will be the first of many recorded live by this historic orchestra and since 1900 as well, and it is considered chorus in the equally historic Symphony Hall of Boston. by many, with some justification I would add, to be one of the finest concert The Mass in C minor recording was made possible by a few individuals who halls in the world. It’s that classic ‘shoebox style’ reminiscent of the Musikverein were inspired by the work of the Handel and Haydn Society. Our sincere thanks in Vienna; the acoustics are quite superb and, despite its size – c. 2500 capacity go to all of them. – perfect for playing music on period instruments. Making recordings from live performances has an element of risk; personally, I think this is less so in Symphony Hall, not only because of its amazing sound quality but also because of the physical presence of its audience. In truth, we must cope with the odd “rough edge” but the excitement that is generated from “Christophers led the Handel and Haydn chorus and orchestra in a clear, articulate, performing live along with that natural uninterrupted progression of the music and highly rewarding performance of the Mass in C minor. The overall sound had is reward indeed! One need only take the opening phrase of the whole work, sufficient heft and definition, yet this account felt light on its feet, solemn where called that moment of preparation, the violinists raising their bows to the strings for for, yet also theatrically vivid. The ‘Et incarnatus est’, the work’s most magical moment, the poignancy of that opening bar so evocative of human frailty and the listener in which the soprano soloist is exquisitely showcased with wind trio, was the highpoint, unaware of the powerfully emotional entrance of the chorus and brass a few as of course it should be.” bars later. Add to that, for instance, the frisson of humility and “on the edge Jeremy Eichler / the boston globe 2 3 Mass in C minor, k427 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) ozart composed a total of sixteen frustrations with the indignities of court Msettings of the Mass before he employment came to a head in an angry Mass in C minor, k427 moved to Vienna from his native exchange with the Archbishop and Salzburg in 1781, and only two in the subsequent dismissal from his service, it 1 Kyrie 6.59 remaining ten years of his life, neither was on Vienna’s more sophisticated and of which he completed. The reason worldly surroundings and the life of a Gloria for the imbalance is simple enough; in freelance pianist, composer and teacher 2 Gloria in excelsis Deo 2.11 Salzburg he had been an employee of that Mozart pinned his hopes. 3 Laudamus te 4.43 the ruling Prince-Archbishop, latterly as 4 Gratias 1.16 court organist, and the composition and So why, towards the end of 1782, did he 5 Domine Deus 2.40 performance of church music was part begin work on the composition of a new 6 Qui tollis 5.43 of his professional life. Yet circumstances Mass, a work for which he had received 7 Quoniam 3.38 were far from congenial. As far as church no commission? The straightforward 8 Jesu Christe 0.32 music was concerned, Mozart resented answer is that it related to his marriage 9 Cum Sancto Spiritu 3.48 the austerities the Enlightenment- to the singer Constanze Weber and the Credo inspired Archbishop Colloredo had prospective arrival of their first child; bl Credo 3.21 imposed on the duration and musical years after Mozart’s death, Constanze bm Et incarnatus est 7.50 style of the Mass, complaining in a letter told her second husband (and the to the theorist and church composer composer’s first biographer) Georg bn Sanctus 1.38 Padre Martini that ‘a Mass, with the Nikolaus Nissen that the Mass had been bo Osanna 1.51 whole Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, ‘solemnly promised for his wife when her bp Benedictus 4.55 the epistle sonata, the Offertory, the confinement was happily over’. Mozart’s Motet, the Sanctus and the Agnus, must father Leopold had not been present at Total running time 54.10 last no longer than three-quarters of the wedding on 4 August, however, and an hour’. When this and many other by the beginning of 1783 Wolfgang was 4 5 writing to him, apparently in answer to Mass was still uncompleted. Even so, a Salzburg, used to Colloredo’s concise imitation (though, significantly enough, questions about when he was going to performance of sorts – perhaps just the Masses, and where Mozart had once not always finishing them). His new- fulfil a promise to visit Salzburg and new Kyrie and Gloria with the other described the court musicians as found enthusiasm for counterpoint even perform a Mass of thanksgiving: ‘About movements drawn from earlier Masses ‘coarse, slovenly and dissolute’. Clearly had him writing home to request copies my moral commitment, yes, that is right; – was given on 26 October in the Abbey some other stimulus was at work. If the of works by the Salzburg composers […] – I made the promise in my heart Church of St Peter. Constanze sang the surface facts do not appear to represent Johann Ernst Eberlin and Michael and hope to keep it. – When I promised soprano arias. the whole story, then it is to the music Haydn, though it did not take him it, my wife was still single – but as I was that we must look for guidance. long to discover that Eberlin’s, at least, determined to marry her, the promise The Mass in C minor, then, was partly a were ‘far too trivial to deserve a place was easily made. Time and circumstances work of appeasement – an olive branch And indeed the evidence of one’s ears beside Handel and Bach’. The C minor thwarted our journey, as you know; – but in the age-old conflict between parent soon suggests a solution: Mozart had Mass, with its powerful counterpoint as proof of my promise I have the score and child. But that does not explain encountered the music of Bach and and stirring Baroque textures, is his of half a Mass, which is still lying here in everything. Mozart’s mention of a vow Handel. It happened not long after his most grandiose response to this new the hope of completion.’ does not necessarily mean that this arrival in Vienna, when he first came influence. Contrapuntal procedures were was the only impetus for the work, and into contact with Baron Gottfried van soon to be assumed more organically If this sounds just a little unconvincing in indeed the more one looks at it, the Swieten, the court librarian and a keen into Mozart’s stylistic development – the its urgent assurances, like a schoolchild less the Mass seems the sort of piece amateur musician with an influential line continues into the string quartets explaining away some undone piece of a composer might produce simply to taste for what at that time were the dedicated to Haydn, on through the Da homework, then there is good reason. fulfill an obligation, moral or otherwise. rarely heard works of the Baroque. Ponte operas, to climax in the towering Leopold was far from keen on the match This is a work which, if Mozart had Mozart performed regularly at his achievement of the finale of the ‘Jupiter’ his son had made and it seems that finished it, would have rivalled Bach’s private Sunday-lunchtime gatherings, Symphony – but in the Mass they are Wolfgang, who never really escaped his great B minor Mass for scale, lavishly and it was there that he was introduced out in the open, proudly on display.

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