The Year of the Rabbit

What will the Year of the Rabbit bring? While the year of the Tiger that precedes it can be a time of war and violence (and indeed, 2022 was a year full of war and destruction), will the Year of the Rabbit bring peace and prosperity back to us? In Japan and China, anyway, the rabbit is considered as a lucky animal and as sign of peace.

[Ukiyo-e by Utagawa Toyokuni, 1819, of a hare writing a wish for the New Year]

In Japanese, "rabbit" is "usagi (兔)." Usagi can also mean "hare", but hares are different animals (they have a larger size, longer ears, and longer hind legs) and there is a specific word for hares as well, "no-usagi." But as they are often confused in folklore in Japan, below we will speak about both rabbits and hares.
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The Rabbit is the fourth in the sequence of twelve zodiac animals, and the Year of the Rabbit is associated with the Earthly Branch symbol 卯 (pronounced "bo" or "u").

In the Chinese Zodiac, the rabbit (hare) represents longevity, discretion and good luck. People born under the sign of the Rabbit are believed to be friendly, intelligent, cautious, skillful, gentle, and quick. They dislike fighting and like to find solutions through compromise and negotiation. On the negative side, Rabbit people have the potential to be superficial, stubborn, melancholy and overly-discreet.

[Japanese hare]

The Japanese rabbit, a native species with gray or brown fur that turns white in winter in snowy areas, is an endemic species. Rabbits already existed in considerable numbers in the Jomon period (14000 BCE - 1000 BCE), as rabbit bones have been excavated from shell middens in various regions from that time.

Because rabbits have a large habitat, are diurnal, reproduce at a high rate, and are easily seen by people, they are familiar animals and have been anthropomorphized and used as motifs in fairy tales and myths.

[The rabbit in the moon pounding rice cakes]

The major one of these is the "rabbit in the moon." Since the pattern of the moon's surface as seen from Japan has long looked like a rabbit standing on tiptoe and pounding rice cakes (mochi) with the help of an usu, a Japanese mortar, there have been folk tales about rabbits living on the moon since ancient times. A similar tradition has been handed down in other Asian countries, including China. In China, the mortar is said to be used to pound the ingredients of an elixir of long life into powder, rather than the very practical rice cakes in the Japanese example. This legend also gave rise to local festivals in those diverse cultures, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival of China, or the Moon-viewing Festival of Japan, all of which celebrate the legend of the Moon rabbit. 

[Tsuba (sword guard) with rabbit looking at the moon]

The story of the "Rabbit in the Moon" is found in the "Konjaku Monogatari" (Tales Ancient and Modern), but originally derived from the Jataka, the tales of the previous lives of the Buddha written in India. Here is a link to the Sasa Jataka at the website  "Sacred Texts." The story tells how the Buddha (while still a Bodhisattva) was born as a rabbit. Even as a rabbit, he possessed incredible virtue and goodness. He had three disciples: an otter, a jackal, and a monkey, who, through his teaching, forgot their lower animal nature. Now it was customary on holy days to offer alms to anyone who passed through their forest. Although his three companions had ample means to feed a guest, the rabbit realized he had nothing but the meager blades of grass he ate to sustain himself. So he decided to offer his own flesh as food. Then the deity Taishakuten came by in the guise of an old, weary traveler who had lost his way. The four beasts rushed to his aid: the otter supplied him with several fish, the jackal with a lizard and some sour milk, and the monkey with some ripe mangoes. Seeing that the man had built a fire, the rabbit explained that he was offering his own body and then, without hesitation, jumped into the swirling flames. Taishakuten rejoiced, reached into the fire and pulled out the rabbit and then lifted him up into the heavens and displayed him before the gods. He also adorned the face of the moon with the rabbit's image. So even today the image of the rabbit can be seen in the full moon.

[Okuninushi (Daikoku) and the rabbit]

A hare also plays an important role in the mythical story "Inaba no Shirahagi (White Hare of Inaba)" in the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters, 720 CE), the oldest Japanese myth-historical record:

"The god Okuninushi had eighty deities as his brothers, but they were all forced to leave the land to Okuninushi. The reason was the following: Each of these eighty deities wished to marry Princess Yakami of Inaba, and they traveled together to Inaba, having Okuninushi (the youngest one) carry their bags as an attendant. When they arrived at Cape Keta, they found a naked (= stripped of his fur) hare lying down. Then the eighty deities spoke to the hare, saying: "What you should do is to bathe in the sea-water here, and lie on the slope of a high mountain exposed to the blowing of the wind." So the hare followed the instructions of the eighty deities, and lay down. Then, as the sea-water dried, the skin of its body all split with the blowing of the wind, so that it lay crying from the pain. But Okuninushi, who came last of all, saw the hare, and said: "Why are you lying there weeping?" The hare replied: "I was in the Island of Oki, and wished to cross over to this land, but had no means of crossing over. For this reason I deceived the crocodiles of the sea, saying: 'Let you and me compete, and compute the numbers of our respective tribes. So do you go and fetch every member of your tribe, and make them all lie in a row across from this island to Cape Keta. Then I will tread on them, and count them as I run across. Hereby shall we know whether it or my tribe is the larger.' Upon my speaking thus, they were deceived and lay down in a row, and I trod on them and counted them as I came across, and was just about to get on land, when I said triumphantly: 'You have been deceived by me.' As soon as I had finished speaking, the crocodile who lay the last of all seized me and stripped off all my clothing (=fur). As I was weeping and lamenting this, the eighty deities came by and exhorted me: 'Bathe in the salt water, and lie down exposed to the wind.' So, on my doing as they had instructed me, my whole body hurt." Thereupon Okuninushi advised the hare: "Go quickly now to the river-mouth, wash your body with the fresh water, then take the pollen of the sedge growing at the river-mouth, spread it about, and roll about upon it, so that  your body will be restored to its original state." So the hare did as it was instructed, and its body became as it had been originally. This was the White Hare of Inaba. So the hare said to Okuninushi: "These eighty Deities shall certainly not get the Princess of Yakami. Although you are carrying their baggage, you shall obtain her."" (edited from the translation by Basil Hall Chamberlain, 1882)

[Netsuke of a rabbit]

'Usagi' (rabbits or hares) are not a very common subject of Japanese art, except in small-scale paintings, prints, carvings (netsuke) and lacquer decorations - so mainly in the applied arts. Artists of the Rinpa school, however, often crossed borders between the media, and the British Museum owns a six-fold screen by a painter of the Rinpa school, probably of the generation after Korin (1658-1716), which shows rabbits frolicking among the waving grasses on Musashi Moor.


Japanese Seasons

Private Lives, by Noël Coward (1930)

Ninety minutes listening to a bickering couple may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the dialogue in Private Lives is managed so cleverly, coming in waves of affection and fighting, the smallest things again leading to heated arguments, that I finally was won over. Moreover, the ending is very original. 

Private Lives is a comedy of manners about a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel (Coward makes unashamed use of coincidence to kick-start the plot!). Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realize that they still have feelings for each other.

[Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence
smoking and "posing as mirror opposites"
in the Broadway production of Private Lives (1931)]

It was a good thing that playwright Noël Coward caught influenza when visiting Shanghai in 1930, and had to convalesce in Room 314 at the Cathay Hotel by the Bund (since 1949 the Peace Hotel, a big, old pile where I have also stayed once in a previous life). He spent the two weeks usefully by sketching out a new play, "Private Lives, An Intimate Comedy," and then completing the actual writing in only four days.

The lives in question are those of the young, wealthy divorcees Elyot and Amanda, who, following a volatile three-year-long marriage, have been divorced for the past five years. Their problem is that they both have rather large egos. They used to love each other passionately, but couldn't stop their arguments from getting out of hand. During their stormy marriage they always tried to outwit each other, arguing violently. They simply couldn't love each other without fighting constantly.

In the opening scene, both are newly married to the much duller partners Sybil and Victor, but by chance they are honeymooning in adjacent suites of a sumptuous hotel in Deauville, on the coast of Normandy in northwest France (Deauville with its marinas and seaside casino attracted many artists as well as "the idly rich"; it is known perhaps above all for its role in Proust's In Search of Lost Time where its is called "Balbec").

The somewhat naive Sybil, by the way, clearly lacks the strong character that Amanda has, and Victor is a rigid and ridiculously conservative figure - through him traditional male roles are in fact satirized. Victor and Sybil together look like a standard, traditional couple. In contrast, Elyot and Amanda are equals in all respects and are both a bit androgynous. Amanda is an independent modern woman with a short hairstyle, who suggests the jazz age and its freedoms. She enjoys popular music and likes to dance to songs from a gramophone. Her advanced views include a challenge to male sexual hypocrisy, for when Elyot remarks that "it doesn’t suit women to be promiscuous," she retorts "It doesn’t suit men for women to be promiscuous" - in only 40 years, we have come a long way from a play like Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray, in which a woman who was "promiscuous" in her younger years, is ostracized by society.

Elyot and Amanda separately beg their new spouses to leave the hotel with them immediately, but both new spouses refuse to co-operate and each storms off to dine alone. As the sudden meeting again fires the spark between Elyot and Amanda, they start regretting ever having divorced. Finally, they abandon their new spouses and run off together to Amanda's flat in Paris.

[Gertrude Lawrence and Noël Coward play the love scene
in the Broadway production of Private Lives (1931)]

The second act is laid in this flat and we spend the evening with the reunited couple. They have devised a code word "Sollocks" to stop their arguments from getting out of hand. They kiss passionately, and there is even a hint of a love scene which was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué. But they are still the same people and the new-found harmony cannot last. They start arguing violently again, mostly about insignificant and nonsensical things. Their argument escalates to a point of fury (also helped by the cognac that Elyot has rather liberally consumed), as Amanda breaks a record over Elyot's head, and he retaliates by slapping her face. Then at the height of their biggest fight, Sibyl and Victor walk in - they have finally located their partners and want to talk to them. But as Amanda and Elyot have locked themselves into separate bedrooms, such a discussion will have to wait until the morning.

The next morning, in the third and last act, we witness a series of farcical but emotionally chaotic interactions between the four characters. After meeting Sibyl and Victor, Amanda and Elyot start bickering again. It is then decided that neither of the new spouses will grant a divorce for a year, to give Amanda and Elyot time to confirm if this is really what they want. But tempers keep rising, and now Sibyl and Victor even begin to bicker with each other, defending their respective spouses. Amanda and Elyot realize therefore that Sibyl and Victor are as well (or as badly) suited to each other as they are. They forgive one another and sneak out, leaving the younger two together. As Elyot and Amanda silently tiptoe out, Victor and Sibyl have reached the point of mutual violence...

And then the curtain falls. The conventional ending we expect from the genre of romantic comedy - that of celebratory marriage - is given an ironic twist: Amanda and Elyot’s unstable reunion means a fresh set of divorces from the abandoned second spouses. This is a satisfying ending as Elyot and Amanda are again together, but also in the sense that  the virus has spread, for now we have two bickering couples!

The British author and actor Noël Coward (1899-1973) wrote more than 50 highly polished comedies of manners. His greatest work was done in the second half of the 1920s and in the 1930s. As a person, he was known for his wit and flamboyance, and he carefully developed "a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise," as it was called. I already knew his work through Design for a Living (1933) in the film adaptation by Ernst Lubitsch (with Miriam Hopkins, Frederic March and Gary Cooper). A poet and a painter both fall in love with the same woman and the trio agrees to try living together in a menage-a-trois. This is a very gracious film, and I liked it better in fact than the play which I read later (as a play I liked Private Lives better). Also see my article "Forbidden Pre-Code Films" at this blog.


[This post contains parts edited from the relevant article at Wikipedia]

Greatest Plays of All Time

Hedda Gabler, by Ibsen (1890)

After emphasizing the importance of individualism in earlier plays such as A Doll's House, Ibsen shifted the balance by writing about the danger of too much self-assertion in Hedda Gabler. In this character study, we meet a woman named Hedda, a ruthless individualist married to a dull scholar, Jorgen Tesman. She is the daughter of General Gabler, a powerful man who always gave her everything she wanted. As the play opens, she and her husband have just returned from their long honeymoon, during which Tesman did nothing but collect material for his studies of medieval craftsmanship. There is a clear temperamental (and probably sexual) incompatibility between husband and wife - is that why Ibsen uses Hedda's maiden name in the title of the play instead of calling her by her married name? She is more her father's daughter than her husband's wife.

[Hedda Gabler (Netherlands, 1959)]

The play is set in Oslo (then Kristiania) at the Tesman mansion. The action takes place over a day and a half.

Hedda, the daughter of General Gabler, and her husband, Jørgen Tesman, have just returned to Kristiania from their honeymoon. Jørgen Tesman is a hard-working, pedantic man who has spent most of the six-month trip working on a book of cultural studies, the publication of which he hopes will earn him a doctorate and a professorship at the university. Hedda does not love Jørgen. She regards him with indifference; he has no sense of Hedda's femininity. She married him only because she hoped the marriage would secure her a respectable social position. Two paraphernalia kept by the couple symbolize their antagonism: a pair of old slippers given to Jørgen Tesman by two old aunts who raised him; and a pistol from General Gabler's estate, a dangerous "toy" of Hedda's.

Hedda realizes the futility of her marriage when she learns that Ejlert Løvborg is back in town. Løvborg and Hedda had an extremely tense and intense love affair several years earlier. Løvborg, a cultural scientist, had retired to the countryside as a tutor after bouts of alcoholism and was working on a successful book that had just been published with the help of the married Thea Elvsted. If the book is a success, Løvborg could become Tesman's professional rival.

Thea has left her much older husband and is pursuing Ejlert Løvborg. She visits Hedda and her husband. Hedda is jealous of Thea's obvious influence over Løvborg and tries to come between them. She cleverly exploits Thea's naivety, having helped Løvborg write his book as a "comrade," and elicits secrets from her about Løvborg's life in the country. Another visitor, Brack, a lawyer, tells Hedda's husband that Løvborg has already finished the manuscript for his second book. He has become a serious scientific rival to Jørgen Tesman.

Now Hedda sees that her hour has come. She is driven by the thought: "For once in my life I want to have power over a man's fate." Exercising this power over her husband does not interest Hedda; he has no value in her eyes. Løvborg, however, does. She persuades him to go to a party with Tesman and Brack. Løvborg, unable to deal with his unprocessed memories of his relationship with Hedda, decides to break his abstinence and get drunk. The celebration turns into a binge. Hedda knew that Løvborg's behavior would end in a social fiasco and the destruction of his career opportunities.
The next morning, a distraught Løvborg tells her that he is socially ruined and has also lost the manuscript of the sequel to his book. He tells his girlfriend Thea that he destroyed the manuscript. Symbolically, he has destroyed any connection to Thea. Hedda does not tell him that her husband found the manuscript and gave it to her for safekeeping. Instead, she encourages Løvborg's sense of hopelessness and hands him her pistol with the request that it be done "in beauty. She then burns the manuscript, referring to the relationship between Thea and Løvborg: "Now I burn your child, Thea! - Your child and Ejlert Løvborg's." She explains to Jørgen that she destroyed the manuscript to secure his and her future.

Ejlert Løvborg does not die a "nice death". He shoots himself in the stomach. The lawyer Brack has recognized the pistol as Hedda's, and with this knowledge he tries to blackmail Hedda. He wants her to become his lover. But Hedda does not want to risk a scandal. Since she is disgusted not only by life, but also by Løvborg's banal death, she decides to commit suicide.

While Hedda plays the piano loudly in the next room and the shot that ends her life is fired, Jørgen and Thea are already reconstructing Ejlert Løvborg's book from his notes.

Hedda Gabler is a play about powerlessness and insignificance. Hedda has no purpose in life; she has doubts about life. She suspects that there are opportunities for happiness on earth, but she cannot see them. "She lacks a purpose in life - and that torments her," was one of Ibsen's notes on the play. He also wrote: "Life is not sad - it is ridiculous - and that is unbearable".

Hedda Gabler is one of Ibsen's best psychological dramas. The play has been performed countless times around the world, and the title role of Hedda is still considered one of the most challenging and rewarding for an actress.

The play has been adapted for the screen several times, from the silent film era onward. The BBC screened a television production of the play in 1962, with Ingrid Bergman (who is a bit too soft for the diabolic role), Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, and Trevor Howard, which is probably one of the best adaptations.

I have read Hedda Gabler in the translation by Jens Arup in Oxford World's Classics (Henrik Ibsen, Four Major Plays)

Online translation at Project Gutenberg.

[This post has been partly translated and edited from the relevant articles in the German and Dutch versions of Wikipedia]

Greatest Plays of All Time

The Government Inspector, by Nikolai Gogol (1836)

Nabokov has called The Government Inspector the product of Gogol's fancy in which his private nightmares are peopled with its own incomparable goblins. Gogol combined a love of the grotesque with the keenest power of observation. Is Khlestakov, the St Petersburg clerk mistaken for a high official, man's corrupt conscience made flesh? Or is this play a scathing portrait of Russian corruption?

The news that a government inspector is about to arrive incognito for a secret investigation reveals the depths of corruption and decay in a small provincial town.
The top officials, led by the mayor, react in shock, and a flurry of activities follows to cover up their various abuses and to clean up the city. The local judge usually accepts bribes in the form of greyhound pups; the physician of the hospital doesn't bother to cure the patients entrusted to him; the school superintendent presides over a bunch of drunks; the postmaster always opens everyone's letters; and the mayor pockets public money, allows violence among the constabulary and lets rubbish accumulate throughout the town.

[Gogol]

Then it is discovered that a suspicious young man from St Petersburg has arrived already two weeks ago and is staying in the town's inn. The dignitaries immediately conclude that this must be the dreaded government inspector. In reality, it is Khlestakov, an impoverished young civil servant from the capital on his way to his parents' estate - he has been stalled in the small town because he has run out of money. He has not paid any of his bills, but does everything on credit.

So the mayor and his cronies confuse this comical and insignificant dandy with the much-dreaded inspector. Soon the two parties meet. Khlestakov thinks he is about to be arrested because of the unpaid bills, and becomes furious. He shouts and complains that the food does not taste good anyway. The mayor is completely intimidated by this outburst and even more convinced that he is dealing with a real top government official. He calms Khlestakov down and when hearing he has run out of money, quickly slips him 400 rubles as a bribe. Khlestakov from his side at first is surprised at how very good-natured and generous the people of the town are, but then realizes that they must be mistaking him for someone else.

Eager to impress, the town's notables hope they’ve done enough to cover up the shoddy operation of their school, hospital, police station and court house – the latter was operating as a hunting lodge until they heard of the inspector!  Accepting generous bribes from the town officials, Khlestakov leaves them under their delusion and spins elaborate yarns of his life as a high-ranking government official. The Mayor offers his house for Khlestakov to reside in. The visitor accepts and starts flirting outrageously with Maria and Anna, the Mayor's wife and daughter. Getting carried away, Khlestakov even proposes to Maria.

Fortunately, on the advice of his more sober servant, he manages just in time to flee the city. This happens moments before the dignitaries, to their dismay, intercept a letter revealing Khlestakov's true identity. As the notables argue, the play ends with the announcement that the real Government Inspector is in town and that he immediately wants to speak to the mayor, whereupon the characters freeze on stage.

Based on an anecdote allegedly told to Gogol by Aleksandr Pushkin, this is a satire about human shortcomings, greed, stupidity and political corruption. The publication caused a stir and the play was adapted several times to get it performed effectively.


English translation at project Gutenberg. I have read the translation by Christopher English in Oxford World's Classics ("Plays and Petersburg Tales").

Greatest Plays of All Time

The Broken Jug, by Heinrich von Kleist (1808)

A comedy in blank verse, The Broken Jug is one of the most famous works by Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). It tells the story of Adam, a village magistrate who must judge a crime he has committed. The plot consists mainly of a court hearing, which is reenacted in its entirety and in natural time. What is being tried has happened in the past and is revealed only gradually. The play, like Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, is therefore a prime example of an analytical drama. Like the comedies of Shakespeare and Molière, The Broken Jug has a serious core and touches on the tragic in places.

The starting point for the play was a painting by Jean-Baptiste Geuze that Kleist saw in a friend's house in Bern: "La cruche cassee," which depicts a pretty girl holding a broken jug as a symbol of her lost virginity.

[The Broken Jug, by Jean-Baptiste Geuze (1771)]

Set around 1685 in the courtroom of Huisum, a fictional Dutch village in the province of Utrecht, the plot revolves around the titular broken jug, which belongs to a woman named Marthe Rull. She accuses Ruprecht, the fiancé of her daughter Eve, of breaking the jug in her house the night before. Ruprecht claims that a stranger broke into the house and escaped through a window, knocking the jug off the windowsill.

Clerk Licht catches Judge Adam in the morning as he is bandaging fresh wounds. Adam explains that he tripped getting up and fell against the stove. Licht doesn't argue, but suggests that he believes it was an erotic adventure of his superior in which a powerful rival got in his way.

Then court administrator Walter, a member of the judicial council, arrives in the village. He has been sent from Utrecht to check the court records and files. Adam panics, especially since his judge's wig has disappeared and there is no replacement. On top of that, it is court day and the plaintiff, the defendant and the witnesses are already waiting at the door. Walter demands to attend the trial, the inspection of the coffers and files will take place later.

Now Judge Adam, like King Oedipus of old, is forced to judge a crime he himself committed. But unlike the ancient hero, he knows this from the beginning, that the deed is an outrage, and that he himself is a villain. Accordingly, he does everything in his power to prevent the solution of the case, in which, in addition to the jug, a betrothal has (almost) been broken.

The way he tries to hide his guilt by conducting the trial in a way that defies all rules of judicial impartiality, by influencing and confusing the witnesses, sometimes with threats, sometimes with sweet words, is most comical. Like a snake, he twists and turns to divert suspicion to others, which exposes him to contempt. Sweating with fear, however, he is cornered, which allows human compassion to sprout. The flourishing imagination with which he invents new excuses makes him almost sympathetic at times.

But court administrator Walter and clerk Licht are not blinded by this. Both are interested in solving the case, but for very different reasons. Walter is interested in reforming the administration of justice in the countryside, while Licht wants to become a village judge himself. Step by step, the trial reveals the following facts: the unknown person who hastily escaped through Eva's bedroom window on the eve of the trial, knocking the jug off the ledge, was him, Judge Adam himself. It was neither the defendant, Eve's fiancé Ruprecht, nor his alleged rival Lebrecht, nor even the devil, as the witness Mrs. Brigitte, who examined the scene of the crime together with Licht, claims.

The circumstantial evidence speaks a clear language: there are the two head wounds Adam suffered when Ruprecht twice banged the broken door handle over the head of the unrecognized fugitive - the jealous man had previously kicked in the door and literally stormed the chamber. Then there is Adam's club foot, which of course explains the trail in the snow from the crime scene across the village to the judge's house. Finally, there is the missing judge's wig: Mrs. Brigitte proudly places it on the table; it got caught in the vine trellis under Eve's bedroom window.

Now Walter advises the judge to resign, the dignity of the court is at stake. But Adam will not listen. All right, says Walter, then he should put an end to it and pronounce sentence. In the ensuing uproar, Adam decides that Ruprecht should go to jail for disobeying the court. Now Eve steps forward and admits for the first time that it was Adam who was in her room last night and who broke the jug on his escape.

This finally makes room for the full truth: Adam lied to Eve that her fiancé was threatened with military service in the East Indies, from which, as is well known, only one man in three returns. So he blackmailed his way into her chamber. Even at the time of the trial, Eve feared that Adam's blackmailer had the power to snatch her fiancé away from her. Therefore, she remained silent for a long time about what really happened.

Although Eve does not explicitly state that Adam did not seduce her, Ruprecht is ashamed and begs her forgiveness for calling her a "harlot. However, there was already a shadow of jealousy over the relationship before Adam's interference. Ruprecht has asked Eve if she has had any contact with his rival Lebrecht, but she does not give a clear answer and only turns the accusation around. The night before the trial, Ruprecht sneaks into Eve's house. His suspicions are confirmed when he does not find Eve alone. However, he does not reveal himself, but hides behind a bush in order to witness what happens between Eve and her unknown visitor - he even feels a voyeuristic "lust".

Walter assures Ruprecht that his conviction will be overturned, Ruprecht and Eve reconcile, and Eve gives Ruprecht a kiss. The wedding can take place, Walter has done something to improve the administration of justice, the ambitious Licht becomes the new village judge, and punishment awaits old Adam. Only the jug is not repaired, much to the annoyance of Eva's mother, the plaintiff Frau Marthe. She had been so eager to accuse Ruprecht of the crime because anyone other than the fiancé in Eve's bedroom would have destroyed the good reputation of her child and her house. But the pitcher was also dear to her. At least she described it in detail at the beginning of the trial, together with the recent history of the Netherlands (the fight against Spain) depicted on it, and thus immortalized it.

The village judge Adam is more than just a lecherous old man, a stock figure in the comedy of all ages. It is not for nothing that he is called "Adam" and the seductive young woman who is his counterpart is called "Eve". The play is thus about a "second fall" in which man sits in judgment on his own guilt. Just as Adam, the first man, falls victim to his pride in wanting to "be like God," the village judge Adam also falls victim to vice, in his case lust, which leads him (apparently not for the first time) to want to "fall into a bed. The village judge Adam is also expelled from his "paradise" (the office of judge and the prosperity associated with it). According to the motif of the "second fall", Eve must also have "sinned", and indeed it is obvious that much more than just a glass was broken during her rendezvous with the old judge.

German text at Wikisource and at Project Gutenberg.

Greatest Plays of All Time


[This post has been partly translated and edited from the relevant article in the German version of Wikipedia]

Johann Sebastian Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140 (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 14)

Four items by Bach, isn't that too much? Well, no - for it was by systematically listening to Bach's cantatas that I started to like choral music, now almost 11 years ago. Originally, I didn't like music with words, neither opera nor Lieder, but I had (and basically still have) a preference for instrumental music, chamber music and symphonic music - I mean, music without text, pure abstract music. It is still my idea that pure music without words is what makes European classical music great and special. In all other cultures, and also in contemporary popular music, the music consists only of "songs", which are accompanied by instruments. Songs are different from for example a sonata which has its own structural rules - not from outside the music, but from the inside. This emancipation of instruments only occurs in European music, somewhere in the 17th century. The music becomes pure and abstract and only obeys its own rules, not those of a text. So what about choral masterworks? Well, the words do certainly influence the music, but at the same time the music has its own internal rules as well, as these are after all large pieces of music. And Bach does interesting things with words and music in his cantatas...

So here is my favorite Bach cantata: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, "Awake, calls the voice to us." The text is based on the Biblical parable of the wise and foolish virgins. They wait throughout the night with burning lamps for the arrival of the bridegroom. Five of them have brought along extra oil to keep their lamp burning. The others run out of oil and go off to buy some more. The bridegroom arrives while they are away. This is of course an allegory. The wise virgins symbolize faith and vigilance. The arrival of the bridegroom stands for the return of Christ. This moment comes at the precise middle of the cantata, in the famous chorale sung by the tenor, which Bach later transcribed for organ. 

The cantata is based on the Lutheran hymn "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" by Philipp Nicolai (1599), which appears unchanged in movements 1, 4 and 7. As love poetry, the other movements of the cantata were based on the Song of Songs. Now the poems in the Song of Songs are unashamed love poetry, even rather erotic, but the Church in its wisdom also deemed that to be an allegory, of Christ and the Church as bridegroom and bride.

Both the arias in the cantata are dialogues, the soprano and bass soloists representing the bride and bridegroom respectively. The first duet is accompanied by an embellished siciliana line in the violin, perhaps inspired by the "flickering oil lamps" of the text. The two vocalists sing their own text here, but in the second duet they join in parallel lines, symbolizing their union, a technique common in operatic love duets in Bach's time. The second strophe of the chorale, at the center of the cantata, is sung by the tenor against a ritornello theme in the strings, which supposedly reflects the nightwatchmen's joy.

Cantata BWV 140 is one of Bach's best known and loved pieces and surely stands among the greatest of his works. It was one of the first Bach cantatas to be printed in the 19th century.

Bach also made an chorale arrangement for organ (BWV 645) and that is again possibly his best-known organ work, after the Toccata and fugue in D minor BWV 565. It is more or less a literal copy of ‘Zion hört die Wächter singen’, the fourth movement of the present cantata. The viola and violin parts are played in unison in the right hand and the bass parts in the pedal, while the chorale ends up in the tenor. The arrangement is simple - the lack of harmony above the now stark bass is hidden by extra suspensions and other ornaments.

Listen to the Netherlands Bach Society:




Here is the chorale prelude BWV 645 based on the same material, played by Wolfgang Zerer:

Choral Masterworks

Hector Berlioz: L’Enfance du Christ (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 32)

Berlioz was one of those seemingly paradoxical figures, agnostic or atheist, who composed great works of sacred music. Berlioz wrote in his memoirs that the Roman Catholic faith had been the "joy of his life" for the first seven years of his life and that "although we have long since fallen out, I have kept the most tender memories of it. Yet the "sacred trilogy" L'Enfance du Christ is the odd one out among Berlioz's music, although it must be said that he presents the story of the young Christ as a legendary narrative rather than as an uplifting religious experience. How did he come to compose this Christmas music?

The idea for L'Enfance goes back to 1850, when Berlioz composed an organ piece for his friend Joseph-Louis Duc called "The Shepherds' Farewell," which he then turned into a choral movement about the shepherds saying goodbye to the baby Jesus as he leaves Bethlehem for Egypt. Berlioz had the Chorus performed as a joke on November 12, 1850, passing it off as the work of an imaginary 17th-century composer, "Ducré". He was pleased to find that many people who disliked his music were taken in and praised it, one lady even going so far as to say, "Berlioz would never be able to write a melody as simple and charming as this little piece by old Ducré. He then added a piece for tenor, "The Repose of the Holy Family," and preceded both movements with an overture to form a work he called "La fuite en Egypte." It was published in 1852 and premiered in Leipzig in December 1853. The premiere was so successful that Berlioz's friends urged him to expand the piece and he added a new section, "The Arrival at Sais," which included parts for Mary and Joseph. Berlioz, perhaps feeling that the result was still unbalanced, then composed a third section to precede the other two, "Herod's Dream. And so a joke became a great, serious oratorio...

L'Enfance du Christ was first performed in its entirety at the Salle Herz on December 10, 1854, conducted by Berlioz himself, and was an immediate success. Even people who did not like Berlioz's music were won over by L'Enfance. Some critics attributed its positive reception to a new, gentler style, but Berlioz vehemently denied this - he said that there was no change in style, but that a gentler manner was only due to the subject matter, which naturally lent itself to a gentle and simple style of music. However, the work has retained its popularity to this day - it is often performed around Christmas - and many recordings have been made of it.

L'Enfance has the following parts:

Part I: The dream of Herod.
King Herod laments the loneliness of great rulers. Subject to a recurring night vision, he summons Jewish soothsayers, who tell him that "a child has just been born who will destroy his throne and his power". To prevent the evil predicted to him, he orders the massacre of all newborn children in Judea.

After a silence of about 8 or 9 bars, Berlioz proceeds without further interruption to the "Manger Scene". In a stable, the Virgin Mary tends to the Child Jesus. The angels inform the Holy Family that they are in danger and must leave Judea as soon as possible.

Part II: The flight to Egypt.
Gathered in front of the stable, the shepherds bid farewell to the Holy Family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus as they leave for Egypt to escape slaughter. This scene contains the composer's most serene music.

Part III: The Arrival at Sais.
The final section describes their arrival in the Egyptian city of Sais. Brutally rejected by the Romans and then by the Egyptians, the exhausted refugees are taken in by an Ishmaelite family man who offers them hospitality under his roof. To entertain their hosts, his children perform a trio for two flutes and harp. The narrator, accompanied by an a cappella choir, serenely concludes the work after announcing the coming sacrifice of Jesus as an adult.

Among Berlioz's choral works, L'Enfance du Christ stands apart from the Te Deum and the Grande Messe des Morts. These latter works are monumental, public in their expression, and require very large forces to perform them. With L'Enfance du Christ we are in a very different, much more intimate world. Yet it is as original as any of Berlioz's works - it contains some of the most beautiful and charming music that ever came from his pen.

Listen to The Orchestre National de France conducted by James Conlon.

Choral Masterworks

Hector Berlioz: Te Deum (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 31)

Anton Bruckner, who wrote his own Te Deum in the early 1880s, criticized Berlioz's setting for being too secular, and he was undoubtedly right: Berlioz was not a believer, he used his settings of the Requiem and Te Deum in the first place to write massive and monumental "architectural" music as a sort of "sacred opera." That is very clear in the Te Deum, in which massed instrumental and vocal forces are deployed by the composer like an army in order to exploit alternately colossal and intimate sonorities in a vast, spacious acoustic.

As was usual for Berlioz, this large work was written by fits and starts, especially as he - in contrast to the case of his Requiem - had no commission to compose it. Berlioz reused some older ideas from the early 1830s, including sketches for a Napoleonic symphony. He also borrowed from the Messe solennelle which he had already written in 1824 (and which he considered as lost - it was rediscovered in 1991).

As he had no commission, Berlioz had to involve himself in the politics of lobbying in order to find a suitable occasion where the Te Deum could gain a performance. That became the opening of the new organ in the church of St-Eustache on April 30, 1855. This was the only complete performance in Berlioz’s lifetime.

The ecclesiastical Te Deum is also sometimes known as the Ambrosian Hymn because it was said to have been spontaneously composed and recited in alternation by Saints Ambrose and Augustine when the former baptized the latter in the year 387. It is usually employed as a hymn at festive occasions, such as a royal coronation, the celebration of a military victory, or the consecration of a church official (or a new organ, as in the case of Berlioz).

Berlioz' Te Deum has six core movements, plus two which are not always performed (a prelude and a march for the presentation of the flags). These are:

    Te Deum (Hymne)
    Tibi omnes (Hymne)
    Dignare (Prière)
    Christe, Rex gloriae (Hymne)
    Te ergo quaesumus (Prière)
    Judex crederis (Hymne et prière)

When performed (as in the registration below), the Prelude falls between the Tibi omnes and Dignare; the March usually comes after the Judex crederis.

From the first, Berlioz wants to impress you and succeeds. He added even a third chorus, and his concern for contrasting vocal and instrumental colors prompted him to specify that the third chorus must consist of children. The work is peppered by astonishing, unexpected chord progressions and an asymmetrical melodic phrasing that sounds both odd and right at the same time. Berlioz' music remains, at even the surface, mysterious. All the same, the Te Deum is bit more conventional than the Frand Guignol of the Requiem - the "Judex crederis" movement from the Te Deum perhaps comes closest.

Listen to l'Orchestre philharmonique, la Maîtrise et le Choeur de Radio France, le Choeur d'enfants de l'Orchestre de Paris, la Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris et le Choeur de l'Armée française, conducted by Kazuki Yamada.



Choral Masterworks

Hector Berlioz: Requiem "Grand Messe des Morts" (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 30)

My intention was to do only Berlioz's Te Deum and leave out the Requiem, because I already have a lot of funeral music in this series. But as I listened to the Te Deum, with its tremendous power, my appetite for the Requiem grew, and I decided to include it after all, even though that means three works by Berlioz! The Grande Messe des Morts of 1837 has - even more than the Te Deum - a tremendous orchestration of woodwinds and brass, including four antiphonal brass ensembles offstage. This is truly religious theater, with the emphasis on the last word! And I found the great performance at Cologne Cathedral linked below...

In 1837, Adrien de Gasparin, the French Minister of the Interior, asked Berlioz to compose a Requiem Mass to commemorate the soldiers who had died in the July 1830 Revolution. Berlioz accepted the request, as he had already planned to compose a large choral work. However, the purpose of the Requiem was changed; the premiere at Les Invalides, conducted by François Habeneck on December 5, 1837, was to commemorate the death of General Damrémont and the soldiers killed during the siege of Constantine (an event that is now completely forgotten).

The orchestral apparatus is indeed enormous: the main orchestra includes 4 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 English horns, 4 clarinets, 8 bassoons, 12 horns, 16 timpani, 2 bass drums, 10 pairs of cymbals, 4 tam-tams, and 108 strings (25 each of first and second violins, 20 each of violas and cellos, and 18 double basses). In addition, there are four other brass orchestras, consisting of cornets, trumpets, trombones, and tubas, which are to be placed as a distance orchestra at the four points of the compass to represent the Last Judgment. According to the score, the chorus was to include at least 210 voices (80 sopranos and altos, 60 tenors, 70 basses). In the Sanctus, Berlioz used only one tenor as a solo voice, but the part could also be sung by 10 tenors from the chorus. In the score, Berlioz also noted that these numbers were relative and that the instrumentation could be doubled or tripled if necessary! Note that the work is written almost entirely for chorus and orchestra, and that there is only one soloist, a tenor, who appears in only one movement.

First Movement
The Requiem begins solemnly, with violins, horns, oboes, and English horns gradually entering before the choirs. The music then becomes more agitated and desperate. The first movement contains the first two sections of the Requiem Mass (Introit and Kyrie).

Second Movement
The second movement begins with the Dies iræ, which describes the Last Judgment. The four brass ensembles placed in the corners of the stage appear one after the other in this movement; they are joined by 16 timpani, 2 bass drums and 4 gongs. The rising sound (a truly deafening display!) is followed by the entrance of the choirs. The winds and strings conclude the movement.

Third Movement
The third movement, Quid sum miser, is short and describes what happens after the Last Judgment. The orchestra is reduced to two English horns, eight bassoons, and the cellos and contrabasses.

Fourth movement
The Rex tremendæ contains contrasting oppositions. The choir sings both pleadingly, as if asking for help, and majestically.

Fifth movement
Quærens me is a soft, calm movement, entirely a cappella.

Sixth movement
The Lacrimosa is in 9/8 time and is considered the centerpiece of the Requiem. It is the only movement written in recognizable sonata form and is the last movement to express mourning. The dramatic effect of this movement is heightened by the addition of numerous brass and percussion instruments. This movement concludes the Sequence section of the Mass.

Seventh Movement
This movement begins with the Offertory. Domine Jesu Christe is based on a three-note motive of A, B♭, and A. This motive, sung by the choir, is interwoven with the melody of the orchestra. It lasts about ten minutes, almost to the end of the movement, which ends quietly. Robert Schumann was very impressed with the innovations in this movement.

Eighth movement
The conclusion of the Offertory, the Hostias, is short and scored for male voices, eight trombones, three flutes and strings.

Ninth movement
The Sanctus is sung by a tenor. The flutes play long held notes. The female voices also sing, perhaps in response to the tenor. The low strings and cymbals join in. A fugue sung by the entire chorus, accompanied by the orchestra, concludes the movement. In the original version, Berlioz uses 10 tenors for the solo part.

Tenth movement
The final movement contains the Agnus Dei and the Communion of the Mass, played by strings and winds. The movement reuses the melodies and effects of the previous movements.

The journalist Christophe Deshoulières, a contributor to Diapason, wrote: "Berlioz's Requiem is an intimate meditation on nothingness put into perspective by gigantic means". Alfred de Vigny, in his Journal d'un poète of December 5, 1837, declared: "The music is beautiful and bizarre, wild, convulsive and painful."

Berlioz himself loved his Requiem. He later wrote: "If I were threatened with the destruction of all but one of my works, I should beg for mercy for the Messe des morts. Yet, like Verdi's Requiem, the Grande Messe des Morts was created by a man who apparently had no real religious convictions.

Listen to: WDR Radio Choir, WDR Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno and tenor Andrew Staples under the baton of conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Recorded live on 18 May 2017 in Cologne Cathedral.



Choral Masterworks

 

Felix Mendelssohn: Elijah (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 29)

In my previous article on The Peri and Paradise, I wrote that Schumann dabbled in Biedermeier sentimentalism. Similarly, Mendelssohn fell for a Victorian mood in his oratorio Elijah.

Oratorios of the 19th century often had a subject which was only partially biblical or not at all, as The Peri and Paradise. However, the 19th century also saw an increased interest in the oratorios by Handel, and that encouraged composers to turn again to biblical subjects. One of them was Felix Mendelssohn who composed two oratorios which are still part of the standard repertoire of 19th-century choral music, Paulus and Elias (Elijah).

Although it is historically correct to rank Elias among the German oratorios, it received its first performance in England, on an English translation of the original German libretto. Mendelssohn had taken up the idea of composing an oratorio on the Old Testament prophet Elijah in 1836, but nothing came out of this until in 1845 Mendelssohn received the request to compose an oratorio for the 1846 Birmingham Festival. For the libretto, Mendelssohn turned again to the theologian Julius Schubring, who had written the text for Paulus. The text was then translated into English by William Bartholomew.

The first performance took place on 26 August 1846 and found an overwhelming reception. The next day The Times wrote: "The last note of Elijah was drowned in a long-continued unanimous volley of plaudits, vociferous and deafening. It was as if enthusiasm, long checked had suddenly burst its bonds and filled the air with shouts of exultation. (...) Never was there a more complete triumph - never a more thorough and speedy recognition of a great work of art."

Elijah is certainly not a kind of sacred opera, although the life of Elijah was full of drama. There is no continuing narrative; it is rather a sequence of six scenes from Elijah's life, three in each of the two parts. One of the reasons of the ongoing popularity of this oratorio is the large number of choruses. The choir takes several roles, sometimes expressing the feelings of the people of Israel, elsewhere commenting the events.

The Victorians seem to have loved Elijah above any other oratorio except Handel’s Messiah. Choirs love to sing it and it has gratifying solo parts. This all explains its continued presence in concert programs and on disc. George Bernard Shaw, however, spoke about “despicable oratorio-mongering,” calling it a “prostitution of Mendelssohn’s great genius to this lust for threatening and vengeance.” But Mendelssohn himself thought Elijah was his best work.

It unquestionably begins as if it might be - the splendid opening is one of the most remarkable things of the score. There is an immediate entry of the bass/baritone soloist, as in a recitative Elijah announces that Israel - ruled by the ungodly King Ahab and Queen Jezebel - will suffer from drought and famine; only then follows the orchestral overture, which shows plenty of spirit.

The first part of Elijah shows a strong, militant prophet who rebels against the polytheism of the queen in the northern kingdom who, as a Canaanite, adhered to the Baal cult. Elijah sought to end this development and to turn all Israelites to the one God: Yahweh. The concern for water forms the dramatic tension of this first part. The prophet Elijah's opening announcement of a perennial water shortage ("So wahr der Herr") is punctuated by three descending chords. In the overture, the orchestra rises to a mighty crescendo, whereupon the chorus enters with a supplication ("Help, Lord!") and a subsequent a cappella recitative ("The deep is dried up!"). The episode with Elijah and the widow of Zarpath ("What have you done to me") is followed by the confrontation with King Ahab and the priests of Baal. Their cries, "Baal, hear us!" are mocked by Elijah with "Shout louder!" The conclusion of the first part is the large-scale "Rain Miracle," introduced by a dialogue between Elijah and a boy observing the sky, until finally a cloud rises from the sea, bringing forth rushing downpours amid the cheers of the crowd.

The second part shows a resigning, life-weary Elijah. It opens with the aria "Hear, Israel," originally written for soprano Jenny Lind. It is less dramatic than the first part, but contains numerous lyrical moments, especially the aria "Es ist genug," which expresses Elijah's despairing weariness with life. This aria is followed, as a soothing contrast, by the a cappella terzet "Hebe deine Augen auf" for three female voices, followed by the chorus "Siehe der Hüter Israels," both from Psalm 121.

The queen incites the people to murder the inconvenient prophet Elijah, who is led by angelic choirs to Mount Horeb in the desert and experiences the climax of his prophetic life in the encounter with the invisible God. He sets out again with renewed courage to fight against the worshipers of the gods, and at the end of his life rides to heaven in a fiery chariot. The conclusion then announces the arrival of the Messiah, who will continue his work.

Libretto in German and English.

Listen to this great performance by the Orchestre National de France conducted by Daniele Gatti, with Lucy Crowe, Christianne Stotijn, Rainer Trost and Michael Nagy.

Choral Masterworks

Schumann: Paradise and the Peri (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 28)

A new work by Schumann... or at least, that is how it seemed to me, for I had never heard "Paradise and the Peri," and it not only made a fresh impression on me, but also was very melodious and inventive. That being said, the story of the Peri - a tale about a fallen angel looking for a way back to Eden - is 19th century Biedermeier sentimentality incarnate - and therefore also the music, to a degree. Although it was a big success for Schumann as the oratorio saw fifty performances in just over ten years, the 20th century, which was made of sterner stuff, turned away from it. It seems however that our era has again learned how to live with that sentimentality, for the work is making something of a comeback.

Das Paradies und die Peri, a secular oratorio (by Schumann called "Dichtung" by him), was completed in 1843. The subject was suggested to Schumann by his friend Emil Flechsig, who together with the composer made the translation and adaptation in German. The source was the Oriental epic Lalla Rookh by Thomas Moore, which represents a vogue for orientalism (with flowery, Eastern-inspired verbiage) that was in full swing in the 19th century but has receded considerably today. Perhaps that is why Schuman's oratorio fell out of favor in the last century. But on its publication in 1817, Lalla Rookh was a gigantic bestseller. It consists of four poems surrounded by a framing tale in prose. The eponymous princess (Lalla Rookh is Persian for “tulip cheeked”) is on a journey to meet the young king to whom she is betrothed. Along the way she falls in love with a poet in her entourage who sings four songs/poems to her, the second one being “Paradise and the Peri.” In the end, the poet is revealed to be the very king she has set out to marry.

A "Peri" (Persian for "fairy, elf") is the child of a fallen angel and a mortal. Because of her impure origin she has been expelled from paradise. To regain entry she has to bring a gist of something that is most dear to Heaven. Her first two offerings - the last drop of blood of a brave young freedom fighter against a tyrant and the last sigh of a virgin dying in the arms of her lover, who had been carried off by the plague - are not recognized by the Angel standing at the gates of Heaven. Eventually the Peri is admitted after bringing a tear from the cheek of a repentant old sinner who has seen a child praying (reminding him of the innocence of his own childhood).

This is of course unbearable sentimentality, so it is best to concentrate on the musical rather than the moral message. And musically it is quite innovative: Schumann brought the overt emotionalism of opera into the more constrained environment of the concert hall. The music is also very pictorial and its melodic inventiveness is unceasing. Despite its length of more than an hour and half, it is fast-moving.

The text with English translation.

Listen to the Chor der Chorakademie 2020, soloists and the OÖ Mozartensemble conducted by Erwin Ortner, in the Stadtpfarrkirche Krems.




Choral Masterworks

Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244

Saint Matthew Passion BWV 244, "Passio Domini Nostri J.C. secundum Matthaeum", ca. 1725-28 / 1729 / 1736

Text and English translation (list of all movements)


Since 1870, the Netherlands has had a rich tradition of annual performances of the St. Matthew Passion. The Netherlands Bach Society was founded in 1921 as a reaction to the popular performances by Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The founders believed that the St. Matthew should be performed where it belongs - in a church - and (later) in an authentic performance. The annual performance of the Bach Society in Naarden became 'the' Dutch St. Matthew Passion.

The St. Matthew Passion tells the story of Jesus' passion and death as told in the Gospel of Matthew. The narrative is periodically interrupted by recitatives/arias and chorales. Jesus is betrayed, tried, crucified, and buried. The libretto was written by Picander (Christian Friedrich Henrici) in close consultation with Bach himself. At key moments in the story, Bach and Picander added chorales and arias to reflect the biblical story. At such moments, the action is suspended and the events are placed in the theological context of Bach's day.

It used to be thought that Bach composed the St. Matthew Passion in 1728 and that it was first performed in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig on April 15, 1729, Good Friday. Today it is believed that the first performance took place on April 11, 1727 (during Good Friday vespers), possibly because Bach made some (minor) changes to the composition in 1728. In 1736 and 1742, Bach again altered the score. In 1736, Bach replaced the simple chorale " Jesum lass ich nicht von mir" BWV 244b with the impressive chorale setting "O Mensch bewein deine Sünde groß", which was originally the opening chorus of the St. John Passion. Today, the 1736 version is considered the final version.

The Passion BWV 244 consists of two parts: the first part ends with the arrest of Jesus and contains 35 movements according to the Bach Werke Verzeichnis (BWV) and 29 movements according to the Neue Bach Ausgabe (NBA). The second part ends with the death of Jesus, including the sealing of the tomb, and consists of 43 and 39 movements, respectively.

The St. Matthew Passion is written for two choirs (groups of singers and instrumentalists). Each choir contains four voices, instruments, and is accompanied by its own continuo group. The Passion follows the method that Bach used in many of his cantatas. There are several main elements:
- Recitatives: the main one is the narrative according to the Gospel of Matthew, sung by the tenor. The characters who speak in the narrative are given their own voices. The arias are also introduced by recitatives. There are two types of recitatives: the recitativo secco (brief, accompanied by long horizontal chords) and the recitativo accompagnato (a recitative in which the accompaniment has a more polyphonic character).
- Chorales: which follow the text and melody of some well-known chorales.
- Arias: personal reactions to the event in verse form, most often in A-B-A form (da capo).
- Choral sections: usually comments from the crowd on the events. At several points in the St. Matthew Passion, the two choirs take on different roles. In six places there is a dialog between believers and eyewitnesses. Chorus I "plays" the role of the "Daughters of Zion," a personification of Jesus' contemporaries and thus eyewitnesses to the story. Choir II represents the "believers" wherever and whenever they are in the world. In other places in St. Matthew's Passion, Chorus I represents the higher, divine, and Chorus II the lower, worldly. In other places, the two choirs are combined into one large chorus.

St. Matthew's Passion has a clear structure. After the great opening chorus, the Evangelist tells the story of Jesus' passion and death with minimal musical accompaniment. This narrative line is interrupted by recitatives, arias, and chorales that allow for individual or collective reflection on the story. St. Matthew's Passion ends with the death and burial of Jesus with the final chorus, "Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder."

In the Netherlands it has become customary not to applaud after the performance because of the religious atmosphere of the piece - one does not clap after a church service. Moreover, the ending - the death of Christ - gives no reason for enthusiasm. This tradition still exists for performances in churches, where people usually stand in silence after the performance in appreciation of the performers.
Text and English translation.

Listen to this wonderful performance by the Netherlands Bach Society & Kampen Boys Choir, Jos van Veldhoven, conductor.



Choral Masterworks

Bach Cantata Index

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (Vocal and Choral Masterworks)

On the one hand, I have called Bach's Coffee Cantata "a hidden opera" (and that is also how it is played by the Netherlands Bach Society) - and, on the other hand, I introduce Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas here as oratorio, which seems perfectly reasonable as like other Baroque operas it doesn't have a lot of dramatic action - and again that is how it is played by L'Arpeggiata as linked below.

In fact, Dido and Aeneas is not even a normal Baroque opera. Today, "opera" is usually understood to mean a piece of music with singing, without spoken text. Hence, Dido and Aeneas is mistakenly called Purcell's only opera. However, the piece is a chamber or semi-opera which emerged in England In the second half of the 17th century, stemming in part from the masque genre. It was indeed close to what we call an oratorio.

Purcell probably wrote his Dido in collaboration with the ballet teacher Josias Priest, whose wife had founded a Boarding School for Young Gentlewomen in Chelsea; this would explain why the opera contains hardly any male roles and many dances - except for Aeneas, all roles were sung by the pupils. The libretto was written by Nahum Tate, who would later become Poet Laureate and with whom Purcell collaborated more often.

Dido and Aeneas is often considered Purcell's masterpiece, and Dido's death scene with the somber aria "When I am Laid in Earth", is a classic aria of the Baroque repertoire.

First act.
Aeneas, having fled Troy, arrives in Carthage, where Queen Dido receives him at her palace. She conceives amorous feelings for the hero, encouraged by her sister and servant Belinda.

Second act.
A sorceress with an entourage of witches who hate the queen because she is doing well, swears to disturb her happiness: they stir up a great storm, so that Aeneas, who, having spent the night with Dido, is now hunting in the fields, is separated from the group, while Dido and her entourage flee back to the city. A trusted elf of the chief sorceress, disguised as the god Mercury, urges Aeneas to leave for Italy: Jupiter would command him to do so. After all, Aeneas is on his way to found a new city: Rome! With immense reluctance and remorse, Aeneas accepts this command. The sorceresses sing a victory chorus, followed by a dance.

Act Three.
Aeneas' sailors prepare everything for departure, much to the delight of the evil sorceress and the witches. When Aeneas tearfully says goodbye to Dido, she accuses him of hypocrisy. In response, against the supposed divine command, Aeneas decides to stay in Carthage after all, but Dido resolutely sends him away. Dido then dies of grief, but whether or not she commits suicide remains unclear. Cupids descend and scatter roses on her grave.

Text (PDF).

Listen to: L'Arpeggiata conducted by Christina Pluhar at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht 2015. This is a very special performance with Jazzy baroque improvisations, boisterous songs in over-the-top masques, and other surprising vaudeville theatrics originating from Christine Pluhar’s inventive mind. A countertenor, for example, appears in drag to sing a modern song. This over-the-top Dido isn’t for everyone, perhaps, and one may feel baffled at first, but then stimulated, and by the end utterly charmed - as I was.

Choral Masterworks

 

Franz Schubert: Mass No. 6 in E-flat major D. 950 (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 27)

For Schubert, religious music was different from church music. His masses are more expressions of his own religious experience than predictable fill-in exercises of church regulations. That premise gives him room to show his vulnerable, human side. Some parts of Schubert's mass have the character of a requiem, in which the composer seems to predict his own impending end. In other sections, the composer of hundreds of songs is not far away and Schubert looks back on more happy periods in his life. (Cited from AVROTROS Klassiek on Youtube)

Schubert composed about 40 sacred works during his life - the first liturgical chants already at the age of 12. Although most of these are short (and the only oratorio, Lazarus, remained unfinished), among these sacred works are also six Latin masses. He is thus the first major mass composer to stand in the "bourgeois tradition," meaning that he no longer wrote his masses for use at court, but for performance in parish churches by the church choir. After the first four smaller masses, Schubert composed two large-scale masses, in A-flat major and in E-flat major.

The Mass in E-flat major was written in June and July of the last year of Schubert's life (1828). Like many of his other great late works (e.g., the C major Symphony), Schubert never heard it. The premiere took place on October 4, 1829, in the parish church "Heilige Dreifaltigkeit" in Vienna-Alsergrund, where Schubert's friend Michael Leitermayer was choir director. The public found great pleasure in the mass and it was repeated several times, but soon fell into oblivion afterwards.

Thanks to the efforts of Johannes Brahms, the work could appear in print in Leipzig in 1865. Brahms himself also prepared the piano reduction necessary for the rehearsal of the work.

The influence of Beethoven is felt in the mass, particularly in the ambitious architecture. This setting and the earlier Mass in A-flat major are regarded as Schubert's "late masses," which are distinguished from his four early masses by an overall maturation in Schubert's technical capabilities and knowledge of harmony. Schubert took great freedoms with the Mass text, adding and removing parts in a bid to deepen expression or enhance a particular aspect of meaning.

Schubert's two late masses are seen as the composer's two finest and most substantial settings. They are thought to have influenced the composition of Bruckner's Mass in F minor.

The work consists of the following parts (edited from the German-language text about this mass in Wikipedia):

Kyrie
The Kyrie is in E-flat major, 3/4 time, and is composed as an entire, large three-part piece. In the first section, very quiet movements predominate. In the second section the mood changes; now the strings play in triplets and a dynamic climax is reached, followed by the recapitulation of the first section.

Gloria
The Gloria is in B flat major and is also in three parts, but with a change of meter before the Domine Deus. The Domine Deus in G minor, 3/4 time, is very stirring. It begins fortissimo with the use of trombones. In measure 260, a long fugue, full of rich chromaticism, begins to the words "Cum sancto spiritu in Gloria Dei patris. Amen."

Credo
Even longer than the Gloria is the Credo, which is in E-flat major and begins pianissimo with a timpani solo. As in the Gloria, polyphonic and homophonic sections alternate constantly. The "Et incarnatus est" is a terzet for two tenors and soprano in A-flat major and leads into the "Crucifixus," in which the choir is again used. The movement ends with one of the longest fugues in classical and romantic mass composition.

Sanctus
The Sanctus, Adagio, 4/4 time, is one of Schubert's most interesting movements. Schubert understands the text not as a colossal hymn of praise to God, but as a humble prayer.

Benedictus
In the A-flat Benedictus the soloists again make their appearance. The movement does not sound sweet and carefree, like most settings of the Benedictus, but there is something cautionary about it.

Agnus Dei
The basis for the Agnus Dei, Andante con moto, 3/4 time, C minor, was the song "Der Doppelgänger" from the "Schwanengesang." An ominous four-note motif is repeatedly intoned; the orchestration is rich. The ensuing "Dona nobis pacem," E-flat major, seems like a rescue from gloom, with its undulating and joyful string movements. The Mass ends quietly.

Listen to: Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Groot Omroepkoor, and solists, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe.



Choral Masterworks

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 36)

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is a difficult piece. It is rarely performed. It may be the greatest piece of music that is (almost) never heard. Nearly 90 minutes long, it requires a large chorus, orchestra and four soloists. It's impractical for the concert hall and doesn't really fit into a church service. There's also a raw honesty to the work, as if the agnostic Beethoven is trying to convince himself that God really exists by conjuring up religious awe - and it's not clear that he succeeds. It is a multifaceted and huge structure that storms the heavens. I was going to skip it in this series of choral music when I realized that I had never really listened to it - at least not with concentration. Now was the time! And then I also discovered the performance linked below by the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, playing on authentic instruments from Beethoven's time and in an authentic style that opens up the thick acoustic - it's light and not at all bombastic, a great contrast to the heavy-handed performances by so-called "great" conductors with huge modern orchestras and bloated choruses (we won't name names here). Yes, I was won over by this performance, but all the same I still have the feeling that Beethoven is going over the top in order to convince himself...

On March 8, 1820, Beethoven began to write a large-scale Mass to celebrate the appointment of his pupil, patron and friend, Archduke Rudolf, as Archbishop of Olmütz in Moravia. However, because Beethoven immersed himself in the text of the Mass, the work was severely delayed. During its completion, Beethoven found himself in need of money. On the one hand, Beethoven presented the Kyrie, the Credo and the Agnus Dei as "secular" hymns, which were performed in concert even before the Mass was completed in its entirety. These movements were also played at the May 1824 concert that included the premiere of the Ninth Symphony. He also sent these three movements to potential patrons with the intention that they would support him financially as he worked on the rest of the Mass.

A Russian prince, impressed by the work, finally accepted the challenge on the condition that the premiere take place in St. Petersburg. This was done in October 1824. This integral performance of the Missa solemnis would be the only one during Ludwig van Beethoven's lifetime - and he didn't hear it, as he remained in Vienna.

Composed between 1819 and 1823, the Missa Solemnis became the work that cost Beethoven more work than any of his other unruly masterpieces - and it's not as if the finished work doesn't show it. It may have taken an enormous amount of effort to compose, but it is also, at times, an exhausting listen.

The Missa Solemnis consists of the following sections:

Kyrie: Probably the most traditional section, the Kyrie has the classic ABA structure. The choral passages at the beginning merge into a more contrapuntal voice leading into the Christe eleison, where the four vocal soloists are introduced at the same time.
Gloria: Rapidly changing textures and themes highlight each line of the Gloria at the beginning of this movement, which is almost exemplary in its odd meter. The movement ends with the first of the work's two broad fugues on the text lines "In Gloria dei patris. Amen," which leads to a recapitulatory, heightened variation of the first part.
Credo: One of Beethoven's most remarkable pieces of music, this movement begins with a chordal sequence that later reappears and is modulated. Melancholy modal harmonies for the Incarnatus give way to increasingly expressive climaxes in the Crucifixus until the remarkable Et resurrexit, sung a cappella, which then ends abruptly. The most extraordinary part of this movement is the fugue on Et vitam venturi saeculi near the end, which contains some of the most difficult passages to sing in the entire choral literature, especially in the furious double-tempo finale.
Sanctus: Until the Benedictus of the Sanctus, the Missa Solemnis follows classical conventions. Here, however, after an orchestral "preludio," the solo violin enters at the highest pitch. It symbolizes the Holy Spirit's descent to earth in Christ's incarnation and introduces the most moving passages of the entire work.
Agnus Dei: The imploring Miserere nobis of the male voices at the beginning leads to the radiant prayer for peace, Dona nobis pacem in D major. After a fugal development, it is interrupted by confusing, warlike sounds, while the ending sounds more peaceful again. Among other things, Beethoven quotes the theme from Handel's Messiah, "And he reigns forever and ever" (from the Hallelujah Chorus).

Listen to this wonderful performance by the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Cappella Amsterdam conducted by Daniel Reuss in a recording by Dutch television.




Choral Masterworks

Ludwig van Beethoven, Choral Fantasy in C Minor (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 25)

Beethoven's Choral Fantasy of 1808 for piano, vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra is a sparkling piece of music that combines characteristics of a piano fantasy, a piano concerto and a cantata. Because of the similarities in layout to his 9th Symphony, and also because of the similarity of the main melody to the Ode to Joy in its final movement, the Choral Fantasy is also called the "Little Ninth." So why is this one of the most least known works by Beethoven? Why is it almost never played? One reason could be that it is overshadowed by the 9th Symphony. But in my view the major reason why it is rarely heard in performance is its unconventional scoring: you need a piano soloist, a large choir, two soprano soloists, an alto soloist, two tenor soloists, a bass soloist, and a large orchestra for a piece of music that only lasts 20 minutes. That is just too wasteful - it only makes sense when you happen to have these same forces already on stage for other music during the same concert (that was the case during the huge concert Beethoven organized for its premiere, when his 5th and 6th symphonies were played, his 4th piano concerto, a concert area, three movements from his C major mass, and finally as a glorious finale of the marathon concert the Choral Fantasy...).

Beethoven composed the Choral fantasy in a very short time, re-using variations of the unpublished song "Gegenliebe" (WoO 118) from 1794-95. The text was by the poet Christoph Kuffner, and like Beethoven's music, it is a poetic tribute to the divine power of music. 

The Fantasy is constructed in two parts of unequal size, an Adagio in C minor of 26 bars (this was improvised by Beethoven during the first performance) and a large Finale of nearly 600 bars, itself divided into several sections of different tempi, and finally modulating to a shiny C major. Here the theme from the above mentioned song is introduced and several variations follow. There are parts with a concertante piano, also with a long dreamy melody that reminds one of the slow movement of some of Beethoven's piano sonatas, a marching rhythm, and, finally after a brief transition, the last section begins in measure 398 with the entry of the vocal soloists, first the women, then the men, before the chorus enters. Again, some variations follow before the work ends.

The only other works which use a chorus just as wastefully are the finale of Ferruccio Busoni's symphonically scored Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Male Chorus, and the 4th Symphony by Charles Ives, which uses a mixed chorus only in a setting of the hymn "Watchman" in the first movement and a wordless intonation of the hymn "Bethany" in the last movement.

Listen to Beethoven's Choral fantasy in a performance by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and Youth Choir with Malaysian pianist Tengku Irfan.




Choral Masterworks

Joseph Haydn: Mass in B flat major no.14 - Harmoniemesse (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 24)

Haydn wrote a total of 14 masses. The Harmoniemesse is the last Mass he composed and the sixth Mass in the series of six late, symphonic Masses that were performed in Eisenstadt in September 1802 to coincide with the celebration of the name day of Princess Maria Josepha Hermengilde Esterházy, the wife of Prince Nicholas II Esterházy. Haydn no doubt recalled hearing the large-scale performances of Handel oratorios in Westminster Abbey when composing his Creation and Seasons oratorios and elements of that grandeur also inhabit the grandly conceived Harmoniemesse.

The nickname Harmoniemesse is not Haydn's, but dates from the 19th century. The nickname refers to the instrumental scoring, with a full wind section in addition to the strings: in Austria, music for wind instruments was called Harmoniemusik. But the name may also refer to the interesting harmonic structures in the music. Those structures are evident in the - very long - Kyrie where the choir begins with a fortissimo on the dissonant chord of a diminished seventh, and at the beginning of the repetition where after a long "false" preparation on the dominant of the key g minor the choir abruptly affirms the tonic of B-flat. Also in the Cruxifixus, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, Haydn's harmonic mode of writing is his main form of expression.

Haydn had grown up in the Baroque period strict counterpoint and the use of rhetorical figures in the melody line, but by the end of his life he was using a musical language that already showed the characteristics of Romanticism. The Harmoniemesse requires the largest orchestra of any of Haydn's masses.

Haydn, 70 years old, conducted the first performance of the mass, his last major work, at the Bergkirche in Eisenstadt on Sept. 8, 1802 (later to be Haydn's burial place and memorial). It is the only performance of the Eisenstadt Mass for which a record exists of an attendee: Prince Ludwig Starhemberg, diplomat in Austrian service and ambassador to the court of St. James in London, describes in his diary how he stayed in Eisenstadt during the celebration of Princess Maria Josepha's name day, and the performance of the mass:

"Wednesday, September 8. It was the feast day of the princess, and thus at 10 o'clock we went to her from Eisenstadt in great ceremonial attire, and then in a great procession of many carriages to Mass. A magnificent Mass - new, exquisite music by the famous Haydn and conducted by him (he is still employed by the prince) [...]. Followed by a great and magnificent dinner, as excellent as it was extensive, with music during the meal. The prince drank to the health of the princess, answered by fanfares and salutes - so it went on, people also drank to me, and I raised my glass to Haydn, who dined with us. After dinner we went in skirts to the ball, which was truly magnificent, like a court ball; Princess Marie opened it together with her daughter with a minuet. After that nothing but waltzes were danced. Thursday, September 9. We left at 9 a.m. for the hunt, having been awakened by the hunting horns. Then we had a magnificent concert conducted by Haydn that consisted of the finest pieces from the previous day's Mass. After the supper I bade farewell to the inhabitants of Eisenstadt..."

Haydn had reached the position of a celebrated artist who, as in London, was in the highest social circles and was treated on an equal footing with aristocrats and diplomats and was royally honored at dinner after his 40 years of service to the Esterházy's.

Haydn seems to have found the composition process wearisome, though this does not show at all in the bright and optimistic music. After composing the mass, Haydn complained of fatigue and finally resigned from his position at Esterhazy in 1804. He wrote no major pieces after the Harmoniemesse. But the work is a true delight and it is difficult to believe that this life-affirming music was written by someone who felt tired because of his age. But then, Haydn was 70 at the time and had a busy and fulfilled musical life behind him.

The Harmoniemesse was performed at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for the Mass of the Solemnity of Pentecost on 31 May 2009, which coincided with the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death.

Listen to a performance by the Chor Collegium Musicum Bruneck and Streicherakademie Bozen, directed by Clau Scherrer:




Contains translations from the article about the Harmoniemesse in the Dutch-language Wikipedia.

Choral Masterworks

Joseph Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons), oratorio (Vocal and Choral Masterworks 23)

Haydn wrote three oratorios: "The Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross," which started life as an orchestral work (1786), then was adapted as a string quartet (1787) and finally changed into an oratorio with both solo and choral vocal forces (1796); "The Creation" (1798) and "The Seasons" (1801). Living in a country where seasonal feelings are of utmost importance, I decide to listen to "The Seasons" (also because that is the only one of the three still new to me).

Haydn was spurred to compose Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) by the great success of his previous oratorio, Die Schöpfung (1798), which was being performed throughout Europe at the time. Baron Gottfried van Swieten, the son of the famous Dutch court physician at the imperial court in Vienna, who also played a major role in Mozart's career, wrote the libretto for both works. The text was his own translation into German of parts of the English cycle of poems The Seasons by James Thomson (1700-1748), from whom - on a side note - also came the text of the unofficial British national anthem "Rule, Britannia!" Van Swieten, however, greatly changed the original by shifting the scene to the Austrian countryside and painting a rather idealized picture of peasant life.

It took Haydn two years to complete the work, and the premiere in Vienna on 24 April 1801 was a success. "Die Jahreszeiten" was written for a large classical orchestra, with a four-part choir and three soloists representing the country folk: the farmer Simon (bass), his son Lukas (tenor) and his wife Hanne (soprano). Unlike most oratorios, the text is not religious. It deals with subjects such as love, hunting and merry drunkenness. "Die Jahreszeiten" is (of course!) divided into 4 parts: spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Among the more spirited choral movements are a hunting song with French horn sounds, a wine festival with dancing peasants, and a raging storm, the latter two elements almost a foreshadowing of the third and fourth movements of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony from just seven years later. More lyrical passages include the choral prayer for a bountiful harvest, "Sei nun gnädig, milder Himmel," the gentle nightfall that follows the storm, and Hanne's cavatine on winter.

As in The Creation, the composition is often illustrative and like a tone-painting: for example, a plowing farmer at work whistles the familiar theme from Haydn's Surprise Symphony; a bird shot by a hunter also falls musically; a sunrise is depicted in radiant D major. After two hours of such secular scenes from nature and country life, the work concludes with an invocation to God and an Amen.

Below is a great performance by the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, at the Salzburg Festival 2013.

German libretto.

Choral Masterworks