Lux Æterna Ein Salzburger Requiem

Lux Æterna Voces Suaves Ein Salzburger Requiem Concerto Scirocco Stefano Bernardi English P. 2 dEutsch P. 8 Fr a nçais P. 14 italiano P. 20 tExts / tExtE / tExtEs / tEsti P. 30 tr ack list P. 46 Menu An Italian Kapellmeister for the new Salzburg Cathedral by Eva Neumayr At the Salzburg court, ruled by a Prince-Archbishop who was the first among the German-speaking archbishops to hold the title of “Primus Germaniae”, sacred music was traditionally of more impor- tance than its secular counterpart. It was the Salzburg Cathedral which, as “God’s Audience Hall” was of great representative impor- tance, even before the Residenz. Eva Neumayr is Director of Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (1559−1617) studied the Music Collection at the at the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, where he experienced the Archiv der Erzdiözese Salzburg splendour of the Mass celebrations, which he evidently used as an ex- and research associate at the ample for Salzburg. In 1597, in his “Fundation einer neuen Chormusik” Stiftung Mozarteum; as such, he set forth the conditions under which choral music could satisfy she mostly focuses on the the demands of a Metropolitankirche. Around this time, the Venetian manuscripts in the collection. 2 polychoral style had found its way to Salzburg. Wolf Dietrich von Rait- Her main research field is the enau could unfortunately not enjoy the results of the innovation in his music of the Salzburg cathedral. cathedral: the roof of the old Münster burned down in 1598 and the She co-authored Musik am cathedral subsequently had to be demolished. The foundations of the Salzburger Dom. Repertoire new cathedral were laid down under the rule of his successor, Markus und liturgisch gebundene Sittikus von Hohenems (1574−1619) but only inaugurated in 1628 by Praxis zwischen hochbarocker Prince-Archbishop Paris Lodron (1586−1683). Even if secular music Repräsentation und Mozart-Kult had come to the fore under his predecessor Markus Sittikus, Paris (Wien: 2018, Hollitzer) and the Lodron also took over a well-trained court chapel, together with a ca- related Thematischen Katalogs thedral choir: the latter counted around 20 members: twelve singers der musikalischen Quellen der for sacred music (Domchorvikaren) and eight for secular repertoire Reihe A of the Dommusikarchiv. (Domchoralisten). In addition there were the boy choristers, who She has worked on various sang the upper voice. Pietro Bonamico (Peter Guetfreund, ca.1579- publications regarding the ca.1625) had been Hofkapellmeister since 1608. Although Prince- Salzburg Requiem tradition Archbishop Paris Lodron succeeded in keeping Salzburg for the most and its settings, notably by part out of the troubles of the Thirty Years’ War, war and pestilence Luigi Gatti (1740-1817), Johann had taken their toll among musicians. Moreover, at the time of Pietro Ernst Eberlin (1702-1762) and Bonamico’s death in 1625, the new cathedral was close to comple- Wolfgang Amadè Mozart. Menu English tion: a new musical director was therefore urgently needed. Stefano Bernardi (1577−1637) was thus appointed, at the latest in 1627, one year before the inauguration of the new cathedral. Born in Verona around 1577, Stefano Bernardi attended the “Gymna- sium acolythorum” as a cathedral boy chorister: here he was a student of Ippolito Baccusi, who would later include two compositions by his former student in his second book of madrigals in 1605. From 1603 onwards, Bernardi worked in Verona cathedral and at the “Accademia Filarmonica”. He moved to Rome in 1607: there, he became maestro di cappella at S. Maria dei Monti. He had received the minor orders already in Verona, and upon his return to his native city in 1611, he took over as successor to Giovanni Felice Anerio as director of cathedral music and education at the school of acolytes; from 1616 he also took over the position of maestro di musica at the eminent “Accademia Filarmonica”. In 1622 Bernardi entered the service of Archbishop Carl von Österreich (1590-1624), Bishop of Breslau and Brixen; in the same year he was made Hofkappellmeister in his employer’s residence, Neisse (known 3 today as Nysa). Whether he was a member of the court in 1624 when Carl, viceroy-elect of Portugal, died in Madrid is a matter of speculation. In any case, Bernardi was called to Salzburg in 1627 as part of the prepa- rations for the inauguration of the new cathedral. As a Doctor of both Laws, he obtained a generous sinecure from the Schneeherrnstift. At the festivities for the inauguration in 1628 “he distributed a great number of his musicians on the choirs”, reported university rector Thomas Weiss in his Dedicatio Salisburgensis in 1628. Weiss describes twelve choirs, “positioned on marble ledges, known as oratorien”,which were full of “Crumhorns, Lutes, Trombones, Pipes, Zythers and all kinds of musical instruments”. Another chronicler summed up his impressions thus: “They then held the Te Deum Laudamus, in the cathedral, in which there were on all choirs all sorts of musical instruments, and organ-playing and singing so graceful and joyful, that I think it would not be more beau- tiful and joyful in Heaven”. The pieces by Bernardi performed on this oc- casion have unfortunately been lost, as neither any piece in which the number of voices exceeds eight, nor a Te Deum have reached us. It is 4 English however to be assumed that most of the pieces written for this major celebration were composed by Stefano Bernardi. Apart from managing the musical accompaniment for the inaugural festivities for the cathedral in 1628, Bernardi’s main responsibility was to create a repertoire for the new cathedral, and therefore also to com- pose new works. It is currently impossible to know for certain why there was a paucity of repertoire from the old cathedral at the time, and whether this was due to the fire or to eliminatory measures. In any case, a copyist, Georg Moser, was employed in order to compile the choirbooks: he had worked previously in Innsbruck and Brixen, and eventually moved from the Salzburg to the Viennese court, when he was refused a permanent job in the former. 27 of the 31 preserved codices of the Salzburg cathedral are copied in his hand. Stefano Bernardi’s church music has been transmitted to us in three choirbooks in Salzburg, compiled in 1629, 1630 und 1631. The first contains masses, the second compositions for the Offertorium and the third Magnificat settings and responsories. A good number of 5 the works contained in these choirbooks had already been printed at the time of their compilation, among which the Missa Primi toni, the Missa Tristes erant Apostoli, Missa Il bianco e dolce cigno and the Missa pro defunctis for 4 voices, along with the motet “Adora- mus te Christe” and the responsory “Libera me de morte”. For these works, Bernardi could use the partbook prints as models. Pieces composed for and in Salzburg are probably the Missa Octavi toni and Missa Praeparate corda vestra, the 5-part Missa La tra quei fiori, as well as the 6-voice Missa pro defunctis along with the 6-voice responsory “Libera me [...] de morte”. This Requiem à 6 was also included by Georg Moser in two Viennese choirbooks, albeit without the mention of the author’s name. For the works composed in Sal- zburg, Bernardi was undoubtedly strongly inspired by the cathedral church, constructed for the polychoral style, with its musicians’ gal- leries—of which, however, only the two closest to the altar had been completed by the time he was working in Salzburg. The 55-year old Bernardi was ordained as a priest in 1632; just two years later he left the city and returned to Verona, where he died in 1637. The reasons for his departure are unclear, but are speculated to be the pestilence, which had broken out in Germany in 1634, and the limitations of musical life, which, even in Salzburg, a city that had remained neutral during the Thirty Years’ War, made themselves felt. Settings of the Requiem were sung in the 17th and 18th centuries not only for funeral masses, but also in the frequent “Jahrtagen”, commemora- tive services held on the anniversary of the death, as well as for the service on All Saints’ . Each of these occasions had their own form, though the textual differences did not affect the composed text: Bernardi’s requiem settings could have been used for any of these celebrations. The court chapel and cathedral choir were only responsible for the musical accompaniment of Jahrtagen and funerals in exceptional cases: only Requiem masses for prince-archbishops, princes and crowned heads took place in the Metropolitankirche, upon orders of the Prince- Archbishop. All other funerals were celebrated either in the Stiftskirche St. Peter or in the Kirche St. Sebastian on the Linzergasse, one of the 6 main churches in the city’s parish, where both municipal graveyards were found. The musical structuring of these funeral masses was car- ried out by singers who were hired and paid for by the family of the dead: in the 17th century they were mainly singers from the Domchorali- sten and the St. Petrischen Sänger, who in these occasions could earn some additional income to their basic salary: later also the Stadtpfar- rmusikanten. This also explains why Bernardi’s Requiem à 6 was not only copied in large choirbook format, but also in a smaller, portable choirbook, in which other necessary responsories for the funeral mass are transcribed in addition to both Requiem settings. The soprano voice in Bernardi’s time was sung by boy choristers; the alto was sung by castrati or falsettists.

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