Antonín Dvorˇák • Requiem Ilse Eerens – Bernarda Fink – Maximilian Schmitt – Nathan Berg Collegium Vocale Gent – Royal Flemish Philharmonic Philippe Herreweghe Tracklist – p. 5 English – p. 8 Français – p. 13 Deutsch – p. 19 Nederlands – p. 25 Sung Texts – p. 30 Antonín Dvorˇák (1841-1904) Requiem, Op. 89 Ilse Eerens soprano Bernarda Fink alto Maximilian Schmitt tenor Nathan Berg bass Collegium Vocale Gent Royal Flemish Philharmonic Philippe Herreweghe Recording: April 28-30, 2014, deSingel, Antwerp — Sound Engineer: Markus Heiland (Tritonus) — Editing: Markus Heiland & Andreas Neubronner (Tritonus) — Recording Producer, Mastering: Andreas Neubronner (Tritonus) — Liner Notes: Tom Janssens — Cover picture: photo Michel Dubois (Courtesy Dubois Friedland) — Photographs Philippe Herreweghe: Michiel Hendryckx — Design: Casier/Fieuws — Executive Producer: Aliénor Mahy MENU CD 1 INTROITUS [1] Requiem æternam – Kyrie eleison (Soli and Chorus)........................................................10’44 GRADUALE [2] Requiem æternam (Soprano and Chorus)......................................................................04’38 SEQUENTIA [3] Dies iræ (Chorus).......................................................................................................02’28 [4] Tuba mirum (Soli and Chorus) ....................................................................................08’35 [5] Quid sum miser (Soli and Chorus) ...............................................................................06’02 [6] Recordare, Jesu pie (Soli) .............................................................................................07’03 [7] Confutatis maledictis (Chorus)....................................................................................04’42 [8] Lacrimosa (Soli and Chorus) ......................................................................................06’33 Total time CD 1 ........................................................................................................50’49 CD 2 OFFERTORIUM [1] Domine Jesu Christe (Soli and Chorus) ..........................................................................10’52 [2] Hostias (Soli and Chorus) ...........................................................................................10’13 [3] SANCTUS - BENEDICTUS (Soli and Chorus).............................................................05’54 [4] PIE JESU (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Chorus)..............................................................04’19 [5] AGNUS DEI (Soli and Chorus)....................................................................................11’11 Total time CD 2 ........................................................................................................42’33 Collegium Vocale Gent Chorusmaster Christoph Siebert Soprano I Ulrike Barth, Emilie De Voght, Sylvie De Pauw, Magdalena Harer, Chiyuki Okamura, Elisabeth Rapp, Mette Rooseboom, Gunhild Lang-Alsvik Soprano II Annelies Brants, Edwige Cardoen, Inge Clerix, Katja Kunze, Stanislava Mihalcová, Nathalie Seelig, Aleksandra Turalska Alto I Carla Babelegoto, Coline Dutilleul, Ursula Ebner, Aurélie Franck, Sara Gutvill, Gudrun Köllner, Lieve Mertens, Mieke Wouters Alto II Montserrat Bertral, Marlen Herzog, Sofia Gvirts, Katherine Nicholson, Sandra Raoulx, Ursula Thurmair, Sylvia van der Vinne Tenor I Malcolm Bennett, Martin Erhard, David Hernández, Jussi Salonen, Christoph Hierdeis, Dan Martin, João Sebastião, Yves Van Handenhove Tenor II Friedemann Büttner, Patrik Hornˇák, Sören Richter, Florian Schmitt, René Veen, Clemens Volkmar, Baltazar Zuñiga Bass I Julián Millán, Christian Palm, Peter Pöppel, Michael Rapke, Felix Rumpf, Kai-Rouven Seeger, Peter Strömberg, Robert van der Vinne Bass II Philipp Brömsel, Erks Jan Dekker, Stefan Drexlmeier, Georg Finger, Joachim Höchbauer, Philipp Kaven, Matthias Lutze Royal Flemish Philharmonic Concertmaster Wouter Vossen Violin I Eric Baeten, Peter Manouilov, Claire Lechien, Sihong Liang, Mara Mikelsone, Miel Pieters, Christophe Pochet, Natalia Tessak, Lev Adamov, La Ie Lee, Bart Lemmens, Floris Uytterhoeven Violin II Orsolya Horvath, Tamas Sandor, Frederic Van Hille, Xu Han, Liesbeth Kindt, Ilse Pasmans, David Perry, Lydia Seymortier, Marjolijn Van der Jeught, Maartje Van Eggelen, Giorgia Beninati, Luce Caron Viola Ayako Ochi, Barbara Giepner, Rajmund Glowczynski, Wieslaw Chorosinski, Marija Krumes, Krzysztof Kubala, Luis Damian Ortiz Garcia, Bart Vanistendael, Lisbeth Lannie, Neil Leiter Cello Marc Vossen, Olivier Robe, Dieter Schützhoff, Birgit Barrea, Claire Bleumer, Diego Liberati, Maria Mudrova, Paul Stavridis Double bass Christian Vander Borght, Jaroslaw Mroz, Tadeusz Bohuszewicz, Julita Fasseva, Jeremiusz Trzaska, Vadzim Malneu Flute Aldo Baerten, Charlène Deschamps, Peter Verhoyen Oboe Eric Speller, Sébastien Vanlerberghe, Dimitri Mestdag Clarinet Nele Delafonteyne, Ria Moortgat, Benoît Viratelle Bassoon Graziano Moretto, Bruno Verrept, Tobias Knobloch Horn Eliz Erkalp, Koen Cools, Zachary Cramer, Morris Powell Trumpet Alain De Rudder, Rudy Moercant, Luc Van Gorp, Steven Verhaert Trombone Harry Ries, Francisco Jose Leal Velada Couto, Roel Avonds Tuba Bernd Van Echelpoel Timpani Pieterjan Vranckx Percussion Manuel Martinez Navarro Harp Samia Bousbaïne Organ Peter Van de Velde MENU ENGLISH DEATH COMES TO LIFE Dvorˇák’s Requiem We are convinced – and it won’t be too long in coming – that the covetous Germans will be writing about our highly gifted Dvorˇák: “unser Dworzak”!! Dalibor, a Czech nationalist periodical, could see the writing on the wall in 1880: the music the young composer was unleashing on the world was so blisteringly irresistible that Vienna would soon market it as “Germanic” art. Their concern that Dvorˇák’s characteristic sound would be smothered by the German or Viennese elite’s praise was well founded. His gift for spontaneous folk-inspired melodies had been noticed a few years earlier by no less a figure than Johannes Brahms, who had recommended a few of the young composer’s duets to his publisher, Fritz Simrock: ‘If you play [the songs] through, you will, as I was, be delighted by them, and, as a publisher, by their piquancy in particular. […] In any case he is very talented’. When Simrock did publish the duets, he decided he would only print the sung texts in German, much to Dvorˇák’s annoyance — he had hoped that the collection would make a lasting Czech contribution to the genre. In other words, Dalibor’s reviewer appeared to be correct: here was a Czech composer being paraded as a cultural ambassador of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Dvorˇák had been introduced to Vienna by members of the German-speaking cultural elite, the Bildungsbürgertum, enjoying Brahms’ support and finding an eager defender in the music critic Eduard Hanslick. His music fitted perfectly into the picture of Viennese musical culture: it was clever and well-crafted, boasted graceful melodies, elegant harmonies, and demonstrated a deep, classical understanding of form. Logically enough, then, the pieces he composed on a state stipend between 1874–1878 are all “Germanic” in character: the Serenade for Strings, Op. 22, the Fifth Symphony, Op. 76, the Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 26 and the Stabat Mater, Op. 58. All the same, however, the relationship between Dvorˇák and his Viennese audiences would turn sour. Dvorˇák made his appearance in the imperial capital just as demand for art of a “German” nature was taking off in a new direction. For a long time, Vienna had been a city whose concert-goers were highly educated and influential members of the urban elite. In their eyes, Germanic identity was not bound to race or ethnicity, but to a set of shared cultural values. ‘One did not have to descend from a German family to be a German’, as the historian Pieter M. Judson puts it. ‘One had to adopt the cultural values which signified Germanness.’ In other words, a strong command of the Viennese classics was enough for a composer to be considered German, and Dvorˇák, with his stylish compositions, matched the image of the culturally assimilated outsider perfectly. 8 After Simrock had published his duets, Dvorˇák was commissioned to write a number of “Slavic” dances for piano. The popularity of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances had given the publisher a hunch that their success could be repeated, and the gamble paid off: Dvorˇák’s Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, flew off the shelves, and in no time the young Czech composer was an international celebrity. On the other hand, his commercial success also earned him an overtly “Slavic” reputation, and the Slavonic Rhapsodies, Op. 45, and the Czech Suite, Op. 39, that followed only cemented the growing tendency, both at home and abroad, to view him as a “foreign” composer. The issue of Dvorˇák’s musical identity became even thornier when an acrid language dispute flared up around 1880. In response to the grand paternalism of the Viennese liberal elite, the Czech bourgeoisie in particular was laying a greater emphasis its own social and cultural identity. The conflict took a fateful turn when a new language ordinance sowed confusion about the appropriate administrative language of Bohemia and Moravia. A German-speaking minority was greatly outnumbered by bilingual non-Germans who spoke both German and Czech. When Bohemian politicians declared that Czech should become the territory’s landesübliche Sprache (customary language), Vienna interpreted the gesture as political provocation. In response, the liberal ideology of “Germanness” grew steadily narrower and more nationalistic,