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A Note from the Artistic Director
In 1785, Franz Josef Haydn was commissioned by the cathedral in Cádiz, Spain, to write a set of seven orchestral sonatas for use in their Good Friday services. The seven sonatas were to conform to the "Seven Last Words," as they are called, meaning the seven statements attributed in the Gospels to Jesus while on the cross. One sonata would be played after the reading (and a short meditation-homily by the bishop) of each "Word." The piece proved so
immediately popular that it was soon to be heard throughout Europe; and Haydn was asked by his publishers to make an arrangement for string quartet, and another for piano, with which he readily complied.
Not ten years had passed when it was brought to Haydn's attention that a choral arrangement had been made by Joseph Fiebert, a composer living in Passau, who provided both the text and the choral parts (this was in an age before copyright laws!). Intrigued by the idea, but convinced that both the text and the choral parts could be improved upon, Haydn asked Baron Gottfried van Swieten (who also wrote the texts for both of his oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons) to write a text; and, this done, Haydn set about creating the choral parts to complement the original orchestral score.
It is a short leap from there to the form of tonight's performance -- taking the arrangement for string quartet and uniting it to the choral parts from the orchestral version. It has been found necessary to make a handful of small changes, but these are minor and relatively inconsequential, thus creating a new arrangement in addition to the four made by Haydn himself.
The modern ear may take some acclimating to this piece. The late-classical emotive idiom now appears sometimes almost quaint and melodramatic to the listener well-schooled in the intense drama of late-Romantic and 20th century music. The 18th century's prevalent use of diminished seventh chords at moments of stress, for example, was at the time a "fresh" harmony of considerable dissonance and intensity; but it's overuse as the Romantic era hove into view made it ripe for parody, and now the chord is more associated with the villain in a burlesque melodrama! Hence, it requires the listener to "clean his/her ears," so to speak, and place him-/herself in a darkened cathedral in 1785, before Beethoven's 3rd Symphony had revolutionized music; before Berlioz's bombastic orchestration had revolutionized instrumentation; before Wagner's anguished harmonies and Puccini's intense sense of the tragic had revolutionized drama; and before Stravinsky's crashing around in "The Rite of Spring" had revolutionized our very definition of music.
In addition, The Seven Last Words provides a further challenge to the listener in that it is almost an hour of music all marked Adagio, Grave, Largo, Lento, etc. (i.e., very slow). But, as I've said before, St. Martin's Chamber Choir is lucky to have one of the more educated and adventuresome audiences in Denver, and I retain full confidence that you are equal to the task of "cleaning your ears," and placing yourself in a mental state to appreciate an hour of essentially slow-paced music.
Despite these challenges, The Seven Last Words remains one of Haydn's most powerful compositions, admired and appreciated for centuries for its poignant depiction of the text, its creative ways of creating variety in eight essentially similarly-themed movements, and its lovely, lyrical melodies; and I am proud to present it to our audience in this unusual hybrid of two of Haydn's arrangements.
Timothy J. Krueger
March 2007 ©
2007 Timothy J. Krueger |