VIVALDI the Sixteen’S Familiar Virtues.” Bbc Music Magazine Gloria
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CORO CORO The BACH Collection cor16072 “Superlative, demonstrating all VIVALDI The Sixteen’s familiar virtues.” bbc music magazine Gloria The HANDEL Collection cor16080 BACH “Overall, this disc ranks as The Sixteen’s Mass in G major most exciting achievement in its impressive Handel discography.” gramophone on Coronation Anthems The Sixteen To find out more about The Sixteen, concert tours, and to buy CDs visit HARRY CHRISTOPHERS www.thesixteen.com cor16162 ach, Handel and Vivaldi: simply accentuates Bach’s genius. Whilst Vivaldi evokes sheer beauty and surely the three greatest simplicity in his aria Domine Deus with that tender oboe solo in conversation with composers of the baroque the soprano, Bach treats us to a highly ornamental Quoniam where oboe and tenor Bera and without doubt the most create a dialogue of word painting in abundance. versatile. On this album we get a glimpse of their very different and Not to be outdone, Handel also plagiarised not only other composers’ works but, contrasting approaches to sacred like Bach, his own as well. Much of his oratorio Esther is borrowed from his earlier music: the Catholic effervescence Borggreve Marco Photograph: works, but the Grand Chorus which closes Esther is something of a rarity. First and of Vivaldi, the majesty and foremost, it is one of the longest choruses Handel ever wrote, coming in at close dramatic perspicacity of Handel on ten minutes in length; in actual fact, it is not so much a chorus but a verse- and the indisputable Lutheran anthem of rejoicing conceived on the grandest scale possible. genius of Bach. Three composers, three highly individual voices, all of whom call on the There can be few more popular versatility and emotional diversity of their performers. What a wonderful legacy sacred works than Vivaldi’s the Baroque era has left for us to enjoy and revel in today. Gloria, sparking, simple, yet very effective. Exquisite solo writing abounds, be it the pastoral nature of Domine Deus with its tenderly beautiful oboe obligato or the energetic strings excitedly accompanying Qui sedes. All this is far removed from the complexity of Bach’s Lutheran Mass. However, just as Vivaldi has adapted part of his Gloria from another Italian composer’s work, Bach plagiarises himself. He transforms the opening chorus of Cantata 79 from a joyous ceremonial processional with triumphant horns and insistent drum to a graceful, almost madrigalian, Gloria; horns are transferred onto the upper voices with a delicacy and precision that 2 3 1 Kyrie Chorus 4.23 ne might well wonder why in the church calendar, recycling and BACH 2 Gloria Chorus 5.06 Bach, a composer whose life revising choice movements into more Mass in G major O (BWV 236) 3 Gratias Bass 5.04 and work aligned him so closely with universal vessels such as the Mass must 4 Domine Deus Soprano & Alto 4.09 the Lutheran church, should have have seemed a good way of extending 5 Quoniam Tenor 5.03 written settings of the Latin Mass. Yet their longevity. The Mass in G major 6 Cum Sancto Spiritu Chorus 3.51 the Lutheran liturgy did allow for the adapts music from four cantatas use of the Mass, even if customarily it composed between 1723 and 1726, was only the Kyrie and Gloria sections starting with a serious fugal Kyrie and 7 Overture: Andante and Larghetto 4.39 HANDEL that would receive settings for voices a joyful Gloria brilliantly re-imagined 8 Grand Chorus: The Lord our enemy has slain 11.02 Esther and instruments. Bach composed five from a movement in which the willowy (HWV 50, 1718 version) of these ‘Lutheran Masses’ during the opening lines for sopranos and altos 1730s, one of which later formed the were originally written for horns. Three VIVALDI 9 Gloria in excelsis Deo Chorus 2.23 first half of his great full-length Mass contrasted solo numbers follow, and Gloria in G major bl Et in terra pax hominibus Chorus 4.53 in B minor. ‘Composed’ may not be the work ends with a joyful chorus (RV 589) bm Laudamus te Soprano I & II 2.13 the most appropriate word, however, for which Bach supplied a brief but bn Gratias agimus tibi Chorus 0.27 for almost all the individual numbers imposing new introductory section. bo Propter magnam gloriam Chorus 0.54 in these Masses are adaptations of bp Domine Deus Soprano I 3.31 movements from Bach’s own church Although it was as a composer of bq Domine Fili unigenite Chorus 2.12 cantatas. As Kantor of St Thomas’s Italian opera that Handel first arrived br Domine Deus, Agnus Dei Alto & Chorus 4.08 in Leipzig from 1723, he produced at in London in 1710, a brief period in bs Qui tollis peccata mundi Chorus 1.04 least three annual cycles of German- 1718-19 as resident composer to the bt Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris Alto 2.07 language cantatas for Sunday services, Duke of Chandos at his country house bu Quoniam tu solus sanctus Chorus 0.46 but with many of them related to at Cannons, near Edgware, became Total Running Time: 70.47 cl Cum Sancto Spiritu Chorus 2.49 specific (and often obscure) occasions a significant step on his subsequent 4 5 route to English oratorio, for it was years, but his sacred output has long The Gloria is in twelve sections, number of occasions well able to write there that he first experimented with been better known, with one work beginning with what has become fugues, he was happy here to borrow dramatic music in English. Esther in particular securing a place among one of the most familiar passages one from a Gloria by his fellow Venetian, is the second of two ‘masques’ he the most popular of all Baroque of Baroque sacred music: stamping Giovanni Maria Ruggieri. Whether out composed at Cannons (the first choral compositions. The well-known orchestral octaves and ‘Gloria in of laziness or simply acknowledgement was Acis and Galatea) and sets an Gloria, like many of his sacred works, excelsis Deo’ joyfully declaimed of his own imagined limitations, he anonymous text in which the bravery probably dates from the period after by the choir. This is followed by an certainly chose well. of the eponymous Jewess, married to 1713 when Vivaldi was temporarily in appropriately contrasted, gently the Persian king, prevents a massacre charge of vocal music at the Ospedale throbbing but harmonically teased-out © Lindsay Kemp, 2017 of her people. The Overture is for the della Pietà, the Venetian foundling ‘Et in terra pax’, and then nine more most part a somewhat subdued scene- hospital famed for its all-female delightfully varied movements, among setter, though it strikes an ultimate choir and orchestra which employed them the light-footed ‘Laudamus te’ note of optimism that is vindicated in him as its violin teacher and maestro for two sopranos, the sweetly lilting the work’s final chorus, ‘The Lord our de’ concerti. Strangely, Vivaldi set his soprano-oboe duet for ‘Domine enemy has slain’, cast in the form of a choruses out in the normal four-part Deus, rex coelestis’ (a fine example of massive celebratory anthem. scoring for sopranos, alto, tenors and Vivaldi’s deceptively artless elegance), basses, which leaves us to ponder how a moving slow aria for mezzo-soprano We think of Vivaldi primarily as a they could have been sung by an all- dialoguing with solo cello and chanting composer of instrumental music, but female choir. Whatever the answer is chorus at ‘Domine Deus, Agnus Dei’, in fact he was hardly less active as to that, Vivaldi either intentionally or and a cleverly filleted reprise of the a composer for the voice. True, his unintentionally left open the possibility opening music at ‘Quoniam tu solus 20-or-so surviving operas (at least of performance by a standard choir – sanctus’. The work closes, unexpectedly 20 more have been lost) have only the way, indeed, in which these works for Vivaldi, with a fugue. In fact, while begun to be heard again in recent are usually presented today. the composer showed himself on a 6 7 TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS 4 Domine Deus duet: Grace Davidson soprano, William Purefoy alto Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, qui tollis peccata mundi, who takes away the sins of the world, Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750) miserere nobis. have mercy on us. Qui tollis peccata mundi, You who takes away the sins of the world, Mass in G major (bwv 236) suscipe deprecationem nostram. receive our prayer. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, You who sits at the right hand of the Father, 1 Kyrie chorus miserere nobis. have mercy on us. Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christe eleison. Christ, have mercy upon us. 5 Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy upon us. Quoniam aria: Jeremy Budd tenor Quoniam tu solus sanctus, For you alone are the holy one, tu solus Dominus, You alone are the Lord, 2 Gloria chorus tu solus altissimus You alone are the most high Jesu Christe. Jesus Christ. Gloria in excelsis Deo, Glory to God in the highest. et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. And on earth peace to men of good will. Laudamus te, benedicimus te, We praise you, we bless you, adoramus te, glorificamus te. we worship you, we glorify you. 6 Cum Sancto Spiritu chorus Cum Sancto Spiritu With the Holy Spirit in gloria Dei Patris, amen. in the glory of God the Father, Amen. 3 Gratias aria: Eamonn Dougan bass Gratias agimus tibi We give you thanks propter magnam gloriam tuam.