The Baroque period in music is usually reckoned as
stretching from the start of the 17th century to about 1750. The two
greatest exponents were the giants J S Bach (1685-1750) and G F Handel
(1685-1759), whose wondrous music is deeply loved and has been extensively
chronicled. This piece briefly describes three other brilliant composers who
have given me, a total musical layman, particular pleasure and who also
represent the Baroque idiom with huge distinction.
Dieterich Buxtehude |
Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707),
was of Danish-German origin. Not much is known of his early life. His father
was a church organist in Helsingor, whom he succeeded but he is most associated
with the handsome Imperial Free City of Lübeck, where Buxtehude became the
organist at the Lutheran Marienkirche (St Mary’s Church) and lived there for 40
years.
His output was considerable, though much has been lost; he
is most admired as a composer of organ music, of preludes and of fugues, where
he displayed great mastery. However his choral music most appeals to me,
usually sacred, with 4 voices. His Magnificat,
Membra Jesu Nostri and his lovely cantata, Benedicam Dominum fully explain his later influence on Bach,
tuneful, expressive and beautifully formed. Among his other works, the cantata Ich bin
eine Blume zu Saron as rendered
by the matchless baritone, Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau is an ecstatic highlight.
Buxtehude was granted
considerable autonomy in Lübeck and organised Sunday afternoon concerts, Abendmusiken, not only using his own
works, to entertain the people. Lübeck happily maintained this tradition well
into the 19th century. Buxtehude was revered in his lifetime and was
visited by his juniors Handel, Bach and Pachelbel. The first two aspired to
succeed Buxtehude but a condition was that they married his daughter, an
opportunity they both declined! Buxtehude’s music deserves to be more widely
known outside the German world.
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
Henry Purcell
(1659-95), is perhaps the greatest of English composers and after his death
there was a very long wait until someone deserving of a European reputation
emerged in the shape of Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Purcell had acquired a
mastery of Baroque music but injected a distinctively English flavour, wry,
deeply felt, yet gloriously lyrical.
Henry Purcell |
Purcell was always associated with the Court and with the
Anglican institution known as the Chapel Royal: as a boy and mature chorister,
composer (a prodigy from the age of 9) and later as the organist at Westminster
Abbey. From 1678 his duties included writing musical Odes on state occasions
relating to three monarchs – Charles II, James II and finally joint monarchs
William III and Mary II. These include some of Purcell’s most brilliant pieces Welcome Glorious Morn (for Queen Mary’s
Birthday 1691) – this served as my waking alarm clock in the 1980s! – Come, Come Ye Sons of Art (Queen Mary’s 1694
Birthday) with its lovely counter-tenor parts and the triumphant Hail Bright Cecilia! celebrating the
goddess of music. Unpopular James II
nevertheless inspired in 1685 one of Purcell’s finest pieces Britain, Thou now art Great with its
dazzling ritornello and percipient
view on the fate of Caesars. The counter-tenor James Bowman sang this to
perfection.
Purcell’s output was substantial – he wrote incidental music
to over 50 theatrical pieces – and his chamber opera Dido and Aeneas was a landmark in English music. Poignant Dido’s Lament is
played every year by the Guards’ massed band at the November Remembrance Day
ceremony at the Cenotaph. Purcell died far too early aged 36 but his rousing
choruses and soaring solo airs have earned him harmonious immortality.
-------------------------------
Another short life, enriched by major achievement, was that of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-36). Most of his days were spent in the Naples area where he had studied music. He became well known in Naples and Rome as a composer of opera buffa (comic opera). Posthumously, he became known as the Father of Comic Opera – his 1733 intermezzo opera La Serva Padrone (the Servant Mistress) achieved wide popularity following on from Lo Frate ‘nnamorato (The Brother in Love) in the Neapolitan dialect.
Although Pergolesi had written sacred music, he must have been an unpromising candidate to accept the commission of a Confraternity of pious Catholic laymen to provide a setting for the sombrely moving medieval poem Stabat Mater, describing the Sorrows of Mary standing at the foot of the Cross. Pergolesi rose to the occasion with one of the glories of Baroque music, a lovely work for soprano, contralto and choir. The whole piece is superb and my favourite passage is the 9th verse Sancta Mater, istud agas with its soaring dialogue between the two voices.
Pergolesi’s death aged 26 from tuberculosis was a grievous
loss to music.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi |
Buxtehude Link
Purcell Link
Pergolesi Link
SMD
13.05.14
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment