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Sacred Songs of Sorrow
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BEST CD OF THE YEAR 2000
International Record Review |
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"A fascinating, emotionally
satisfying and rewarding release" -
BBC Music Magazine |
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In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries a number of English musicians took up employment on the Continent—notably in Germany and the Low Countries—and exerted considerable musical influence on their adopted surroundings. At this time the viol was rapidly becoming highly fashionable in England, so it is not surprising that amongst this musical export were six viol virtuosi: William Brade, Thomas Simpson, Walter Rowe, Daniel Norcombe, Henry Butler and William Young. These violists were much admired for their ability to improvise breathtaking divisions; in addition, in Germany, Brade and Simpson published dances for consorts of viols or violins and thereby helped to foster a general interest in viol consort playing. Furthermore as the Germans had a natural taste for consorts of low instruments, groups of multiple bass viols became popular. As early as 1623 Heinrich Schütz published his Historia der ... Auferstehung ... Jesu Christi, in which he uses four bass viols to accompany the Evangelist. In the preface, Schütz explains how ‘it will be necessary for the four viols to rehearse diligently with the Evangelist. The viols must follow the Evangelist’s words so that he can recite his part with as much flexibility as if he were speaking’; he adds that one of the viols can break up the chords ‘in passaggi ... as is customary and of good effect’. An indication of the viol’s high standing in Germany in the seventeenth century is its frequent appearance in new Lutheran church music.
In Lutheran music the viol became particularly associated with the affect of lamento. This finds its roots in the string accompaniments to Italian operatic laments—a genre which had become much in vogue after Monteverdi’s second opera Arianna. Severo Bonini claimed that every musical household in Italy possessed a copy of Arianna’s lament, as it was eagerly studied as an important sub-genre of the new Italian recitative style. (The operatic lament in turn found its origins in Greek tragedy, particularly in the works of Euripides.) The step from the Italian operatic lament to the sacred German lament is quite easily taken: Monteverdi himself freely transferred his secular techniques to his church music and in 1641 published his contrafactum Pianto della Madonna sopra il Lamento d’Arianna as part of his Selva Morale e Spirituale. Finally a copy of this sacred lament exists in the hand of Matthias Weckmann (c1619-74), a composer closely associated with Lutheran lament and Passion music.
Johann Erasmus Kindermann was described by Printz as ‘a very famous Nuremberg composer and musician in his day’ (Historische Beschreibung, 1690). He was also an important link in the musical culture of the city as a pupil of Johann Staden and teacher of Schwemmer and Wecker, who subsequently taught Krieger and Pachelbel. Like many musicians from Nuremberg he studied in Italy, probably in Venice where he would have come into contact with Monteverdi and Cavalli; later he published music by Carissimi, Frescobaldi and Merula alongside his own. ‘Dum tot carminibus’ is a colourful experiment ‘in stylo recitativo’ from Trauer-Gesänge (1647) with repeated notes and unprepared dissonance; here it has been arranged for four viols in the style of Schütz.1 Kindermann also published much instrumental music. The Symphonia is one of 126 pieces from Deliciae studiosorum (1640-43) for three to five string or wind instruments. The remarkable Drifache Fuga super Christ lag in Todesbanden, Christus der selig macht und Da Jesus an dem Creuze stund is found in his Harmonia Organica of 1645; this collection contains some of the earliest examples of the use of obligatory pedal in Germany and is also some of the earliest German music to be engraved. David Schedlich was by birth a Bohemian but, after marrying a daughter of Johann Stadler in 1631, he entered the heart of Nuremberg’s musical life. As an organist he wrote much funeral music; Herzen- und Trostspruch is typical in its use of imitation.
The Belgian-born Joseph-Hector Fiocco, whose father came to the Spanish Netherlands from Venice, worked in both Brussels and Antwerp and is unique among the composers on this CD in being a Catholic. He was strongly influenced by François Couperin, using his ornaments in his Pièces de claveçin of 1730. His nine leçons de ténèbres are particularly notable and follow a French musical tradition for Holy Week. The Lamentatio Primo du Jeudi Saint opens with a short but poignant instrumental introduction using the typically French texture of parallel thirds on the viols, spiced with Italianate diminished sevenths. Owing to a misunderstanding of the Hebrew technique of reading from right to left, the initial letters—Teth, Jod and Caph—refer to the passages which precede them.
Christian Geist was a German composer and organist resident in Scandinavia. Virtually all his extant compositions date from the time of his employment as organist at the Swedish court, between about 1675 and 1685. Here he worked under Düben, who made a celebrated collection of contemporary music (which is the most important source for Buxtehude’s music). In Es war aber an der Stätte Geist sets St John’s retelling of Christ’s burial and follows it by eight strophic verses commenting on the gospel; the pulsating quavers in the viols’ introduction are a typical German figuration to portray the effect of lamento. De funere ad vitam uses a virtuoso obbligato violin which comments vigorously on the text.
Johann Christoph Bach was the most important member of the Bach family before Johann Sebastian. In 1665 he was appointed organist and harpsichordist at the court at Eisenach, where for a short time Pachelbel was Kapellmeister. His cousin, Johann Ambrosius (father of Johann Sebastian) also worked at Eisenach and it is probable that Johann Sebastian would have first heard the organ played by Johann Christoph. C. P. E. Bach recollected that ‘the aforesaid Johann Christoph, particularly, was strong in the invention of beautiful ideas as well as in the expression of the meaning of the words ... Both on the organ and the clavier he never played in fewer than five real parts’.2
Both Johannes Fischer and Johann Michael Nicolai had connections with Stuttgart. Fischer studied there with Capricornus before spending five years in Paris, from 1665, as a copyist to Lully. He returned briefly to Stuttgart in 1673, but settled in Augsburg shortly afterwards, where he published in 1679 his E-major Lamento entitled Trost-Klang, before taking up appointments in Latvia, Poland, Denmark and north Germany.3 Nicolai was an instrumentalist in the Stuttgart court orchestra from 1655 until his death. He published much instrumental music, including 24 capriccios for four bass viols in 1675. The manuscript Sonata a tre viol da gamba is preserved in Durham Cathedral Library, having been collected by the viol-playing Prebendary Falle on one of his visits to the Continent in the 1690s, when he was chaplain to William III. The sonata shows both Italian and French influence and concludes with a hypnotic Ciaconi.
Lucy Robinson, 1999
1 This technique of arranging, which Schütz calls falsobordono in the Preface to his Historia der ... Auferstehung (mentioned above), straddles both a sixteenth-century practice and the emergent basso continuo technique.
2 There are contradictory attributions for Ach, daß ich Wassers g'nug hätte: C.P.E. Bach's estate catalogue (1790) named Johann Christoph, but a concordance in the Düben Collection of Uppsala University cites Joh. Christoph's father, Heinrich Bach.
3 Fischer's threnody was commissioned by a wealthy Augsburg patron, Raymund Egger, on the occasion of the death of his wife, Anna Katharina.
Footnotes by Kah-Ming Ng
[1] Dum tot carminibus
Dum tot carminibus te lugent undique cives,
atque ferunt moesta tristia metra manu:
Solus ego laeta repeto pia gaudia mente,
atque tuam sortem laudo, proboque novam,
dum vere vivis rutili novus incola coeli,
despicis et misero quicquid in orbe viget:
Cumque piis animis choreas nunc ducis ovantes,
laetaque perpetuae tempora pacis agis.
Gaudia tanta igitur quid moesto carmine plangam?
Aeternum cum te mors properata facit.
While citizens are bewailing you everywhere with so many songs,
And are writing melancholy verses with a sorrowful hand,
I alone am returning to gentle joys with a cheerful heart,
And I commend your fate and I approve your new situation,
Since you now truly live, a new inhabitant of the glittering heavens,
Disdaining whatever flourishes on the wretched earth,
While with the blessed souls you now lead triumphant dances
And pass your time in the happiness of perpetual peace.
Why should I lament such great joys with a melancholy song?
For a speedy death has given you eternal life.
[3] Lamentatio prima
Cogitavit Dominus dissipare murum filiae Sion: tetendit funiculum suum, et non averit manum suam a
perditione: luxitque antemurale, et murus pariter dissipatus est.
Teth. Defixae sunt in terra portae ejus: perdidit, et contrivit vectes ejus: regem ejus et principes ejus in
gentibus: non est lex, et prophetae ejus non invenerunt visionem a Domino.
Jod. Sederunt in terra, conticuerunt senes filiae Sion: consperserunt cinere capita sua, accincti sunt ciliciis, abjecerunt in terram capita sua virgines Jerusalem.
Caph. Defecerunt prae lacrimis oculi mei, conturbata sunt viscera mea: effusum est in terra jecur meum super contrione filiae populi mei, cum deficeret parvulus et lactens in plateis oppidi. Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum, Deum tuum.
The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of
the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
Teth. Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
Jod. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Caph. Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
Jerusalem, turn to the Lord your God.
[5] Herr Jesu Christ
Herr Jesu Christ, mein Trost und Freud,
ich wart auf dich zu jeder Zeit.
Komm wenn du willst, ich bin bereit,
führ mich zur ewigen Seligkeit.
Lord Jesus Christ, my comfort and joy,
I await thee night and day.
Come to me when you wish, I am prepared;
lead me to eternal bliss.
[7] Es war aber an der Stätte
Da nahmen sie den Leichnam Jesu, der abgenommen war, und wikkelten ihn in ein rein Leinwand und bunden ihn mit reinen Tüchern, und mit Specereien wie die Juden pflegen zu
begraben.
Es war aber an der Stätte, da er gekreuziget ward, ein Garten, und in dem Garten ein neu Grab, das war Josephs, welcher er hatte lassen hauen in einen
Felsen, in welches niemand geleget war.
Daselbst hin legten sie Jesum um des Rüsttags willen der Juden, daß der Sabbath anbrach und das Grab nahe war und wältzeten einen großen Stein für die Tür des Grabes und gingen
davon.
1. O Traurigkeit! O Herzeleid! Ist das nicht zu beklagen? Gott des Vaters einig Kind wird ins Grab
getragen.
2. O große Not! Gott selbst liegt tot. Am Kreuz ist er gestorben, hat dadurch das Himmelreich uns aus Lieb
erworben.
3. O Menschenkind! Nur deine Sünd hat dieses angerichtet, wie du durch die Missetat warest ganz
vernichtet.
4. Dein Bräutigam, das Gotteslamm, liegt hier mit Blut beflossen, welches er ganz mildiglich hat für dich
vergossen.
5. O süßer Mund! O Glaubensgrund! Wie bist du so zerschlagen. Alles, was auf Erden
ist, muß dich ja beklagen.
6. O lieblich Bild, schön, zart und mild, du Söhnlein der Jungfrauen. Niemand kann dein heißes Blute sonder Reu
anschauen.
7. Hochselig ist zu jeder Frist, der dieses recht bedenket, wie der Herr der Herrlichkeit wird ins Grab
gesenket.
8. O Jesu du mein Hilf und Ruh. Ich bitte dich mit Tränen: Hilf, daß ich mich bis ins Grab möge nach dir
sehnen.
They took the body of Jesus, which had been taken down, and wrapped it in a pure linen cloth, and shrouded him with clean strips and spices according to Jewish burial customs.
Now at the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb belonging to Joseph, who had it hewn out in the rock, and which was as yet unused.
There, because the tomb was near at hand and it was the eve of the Sabbath, they laid Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the
sepulchre, and departed.
1. O sorrow! O woe! How can we not bemoan the death of our Lord's only child?
2. What great misery! Our Lord himself lies dead. He died on the cross, and out of love gains for us paradise.
3. O mankind! Only your sin is to blame for this; as you were destroyed through the betrayal.
4. Your bridegroom, the lamb of God, lies here in his blood, which he willingly shed for you.
5. O sweet mouth, fount of faith. How you are crushed. All that is on earth will mourn you.
6. O lovely image, beautiful, tender and sweet, son of the Virgin. No one can behold your fresh blood without remorse.
7. Blessed for evermore is he who reflects on how the Lord of Glory is lowered into the grave.
8. O Jesus, my succour and my repose, I entreat you with my tears: help me, that I may yearn for you until the day I die.
[9] Ach, daß ich Wassers g’nug hätte
Ach, daß ich Wassers g’nug hätte in meinem Haupte und meine Augen Tränenquellen wären, daß ich Tag und Nacht beweinen könnte meine Sünde!
Meine Sünde gehen über mein Haupt, wie eine schwere Last sind sie mir zu schwer
worden, darum weine ich so und meine beiden Augen fließen mit Wasser.
Meines Seufzens ist viel, und mein Herz ist betrübet, denn der Herr hat mich voll Jammers gemacht am Tage seines grimmigen
Zorns.
O, had I but tears enough in this head of mine, and that mine eyes were springs of tears, that by day and night I might lament my transgressions!
For my sins are o’ertop my head like a heavy burden, my sins heavily weigh, wherefore do I weep full sore and both mine eyes run down with water.
My sighing is deep, and my heart is vexed, for the Lord hath stricken me with anguish on the day of his awesome wrath.
[11] De funere ad vitam
Alleluia.
De funere ad vitam, de morte ad triumphum exurgis, resurgis, dulcissime Jesu,
En caro mortalis fit panis vitalis.
Mors ipsa frumenti dat vitam edenti.
Alleluia.
Resurgis, dulcissime Jesu.
De funere ad vitam, de morte ad triumphum, de monumento in sacramentum surgis.
Exulta, laetare.
Triumpha praeclare.
De tumulo surge, consurge, resurge.
Tam caro mortalis dat vitam edenti. Mors dura frumenti fit panis vitalis.
Alleluia.
Alleluia.
From burial to life, from death to triumph you arise, you rise again, sweetest Jesu.
Behold, mortal flesh becomes the bread of life.
The very death of the grain gives life to whoever eats it.
Alleluia.
You rise again, sweetest Jesu. From burial to life, from death to triumph, from the tomb to the sacrament you rise.
Exult, rejoice,
Triumph exceedingly.
Rise, arise, rise again from the tomb.
Thus mortal flesh gives life to whoever eats it. The harsh death of the grain produces the bread of life.
Alleluia.
| Title Page Programme Notes Commentaire Kommentar Reviews Credits Charivari Agréable |
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| Release date: | 17th April 2000 | |
| Order code: | SIGCD018 | |
| Barcode: | 635212001820 | |
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| 1 | Johann Erasmus Kindermann: ‘Dum tot carminibus’ from Trauer-Gesänge, 1647, ‘In stylo recitativo’ | [2:26] |
| 2 | Johann Erasmus Kindermann: ‘Grablied Symphonia’ | [2:44] |
| 3 | Joseph-Hector Fiocco: ‘Lamentatio Prima du Jeudi Saint’ | [12:52] |
| 4 | J. E. Kindermann: ‘Symphonia’ from Deliciae Studiosorum, III/10, 1643 | [1:31] |
| 5 | David Schedlich: ‘Herzen- und Trostspruch: Herr Jesu Christ’ | [2:33] |
| 6 | J. E. Kindermann: ‘Symphonia’ (seconda volta) | [1:32] |
| 7 | Christian Geist: ‘Es war aber an der Stätte, da er gekreuziget ward: O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid’ | [11:55] |
| 8 | J. E. Kindermann: ‘Drifache Fuga super Christ lag in Todesbanden, Christus, der selig macht und Da Jesus an dem Creuze stund’ | [1:35] |
| 9 | Johann Christoph Bach: ‘Ach, daß ich Wassers g’nug hätte’ | [6:47] |
| 10 | Johann Fischer: ‘Trost-Klang: Lamento’ | [4:08] |
| 11 | C. Geist: ‘De funere ad vitam: Alleluia’ | [8:34] |
| 12 | Johann Michael Nicolai: ‘Sonata a tre viol da gamba’; Adagio - Allegro - Adagio - Allegro - Adagio, Aria, Courante, Giga, Sarabanda - [Variatio] | [9:31] |
| 13 | - Ciaconi | [5:31] |
| Total running time: | [72:18] | |
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