Sacred Music: From The Middle Ages To The 20th Century CD8

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共9首歌曲

艺人: Various Artists
语种: 拉丁语
厂牌: Harmonia Mundi ‎
发行时间: 2009年01月01日
专辑类别: 录音室专辑

专辑介绍

LAMENTATIONS AND LEÇONS DE TÉNÈBRES

The Lamentations (Thrênoi, Threni, Lamentationes) of the Prophet Jeremiah were written at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of the kingdom of Judah in 586 BC. The text was written by eyewitnesses and definitively compiled during the Babylonian captivity. Jeremiah was therefore certainly not the sole author of the Lamentations, and some authorities even think that he had no hand at all in the writing of the text.

The Lamentations consist of five chapters, or rather songs or cantos. The structure of the first, second and fourth chapters is identical. Each of them comprises twenty-two verses, corresponding to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The Latin Vulgate endeavoured to preserve a trace of this alphabet by beginning each verse with the first Hebrew letter of the verse. So the first verse of Chapters 1, 2 and 4 begins with the letter ALEPH followed by the Latin text, the second verse begins with BETH, the third with GHIMEL, and so on. In addition, the first Lamentation starts with the heading ‘Incipit Lamentatio Hieremiae Prophetae’, which, however, is not always sung.

The structure of the third Lamentation differs from that of I, II and IV. The shorter verses (I and II consist of verses in three sections, IV of verses in two sections) are linked in groups of three in the third Lamentation. Each of these grouped verses begins with the same Hebrew letter, so that the chapter comprises not twenty-two but sixty-six verses. The Vulgate, too, always repeats this letter. The structure of Song III is therefore: ALEPH (…), ALEPH (…), ALEPH (…), BETH (…), BETH (…), BETH (…), etc. The fifth and last chapter differs from the others in various ways. In the first place this chapter has the character of a prayer (the Vulgate begins with the title ‘Oratio’). Moreover, there is no mention of the letter at the beginning of each verse. Finally, they are very simply structured in two distinct sections.

The text of the Lamentations is highly emotional, rich in imagery and in a language replete with rhetorical turns of phrase. It is a text which, as has been mentioned, was written by eyewitnesses and therefore manifests – how could it not? – an intimate relationship with the sorrow, helplessness, bitterness and supplications of the population of Jerusalem. It is precisely this aspect of the combination of dramatic elements and meditative fragments, together with the incantatory citation of the Hebrew letters, that undoubtedly attracted the attention of medieval and particularly of Renaissance composers. Otherwise how can it be explained why a text which – unlike the Mass, for instance – was used only once a year (during Holy Week) inspired so many composers?

From the Middle Ages onwards, sections of the Lamentations were used at one specific juncture in the Divine Office, namely during Matins on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Matins, a service of prayer and chant that took place before dawn, consisted of three parts, the three Nocturns. Each of these Nocturns consisted successively of three psalms and three lessons (lectiones

). It was for the first Nocturn of Matins on the last three days of Holy Week that the Lamentations were used forthe three lessons. A total of nine lessons were therefore devoted to the Lamentations. The use of the Lamentations during Matins had another peculiarity. At the end of the verses each lesson was concluded with the verse, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum’. This was not a Biblical text, but it served as a kind of refrain that was repeated after each lesson. – P. V. N.

The popularity of the Lamentations of Jeremiah during the Baroque period is a well-known phenomenon, thanks chiefly to the innumerable leçons de ténèbres written by such French composers as Lambert, Charpentier, Delalande, and of course François Couperin. Their works have introduced a wide audience to this specific religious ‘genre’, notably since the Baroque revival of the 1970s.

The disadvantage of this craze for the Baroque leçons is that they have tended to overshadow both the Lamentation settings which preceded them and those which came later. It must be said, though, that in this respect the post-Couperin era was fairly lacklustre, as if the complaint on the fall of Jerusalem was no longer quite in tune with the times. Having become a source of entertainment by the end of the Grand Siècle, then, the leçons de ténèbres could hardly expect to survive the Enlightenment . . . and it was only in the twentieth century that the highly unusual text and poetic structure of the Lamentations were once again to interest certain composers, including Ernst Krenek in 1941 and Igor Stravinsky in 1958.

Paradoxically enough, the masters of music did not wait for the opportunity afforded by the Baroque affetti to measure themselves against the text attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. Numerous variants of the tonus lamentationum (found from the twelfth century onwards) circulated in the Middle Ages, clearly indicating a substantial interest in the Lamentations during that period. But it is really at the Renaissance that one observes a fairly phenomenal expansion in the number of settings, as exemplified by the works on this recording. – C. G.

Tiburtio Massaino (c.1550-1609) was an Augustinian monk and composer-singer in Cremona, Innsbruck (at the court of Archduke Ferdinand II), and Salzburg where he was arrested on suspicion of homosexuality. He subsequently fled to Prague where he became a singer in the court chapel of the Emperor Rudolph. From 1594 he was back in Italy as maestro di cappella in Lodi and Piacenza. His Lamentations à 5 were published in 1599 and were dedicated to the monastery of Monte Oliveti in Piacenza. So Massaino wrote his Lamentations for the surroundings where they belong: the closed monastic community. The music is in a polyphonic idiom, but mostly syllabic. The structure is supported by a rich harmonic tone palette that does not shun the occasional surprise, as on the text ‘et lachrime’ of the BETH verse. The melismatic ‘acclamationes’ of the Hebrew letters are, compared to those of his contemporaries, short (five to six breves). The ‘Hierusalem’, which uses a slow-moving falling motif in the voices on the word ‘convertere’, is particularly beautiful.

The Lamentations in five voices of Orlande de Lassus (1532-94) are among the late works of the great master. They were published in Munich in 1585 by Adam Berg together with ten motets. Like Massaino, Lassus had monastic practices in mind when composing his Lamentations, because in his foreword, dedicated to Abbot Johannes of Benediktbeuren, he writes that he wishes only to serve liturgical practice. And indeed, Lassus wrote a complete cycle of Lamentations, i.e. three lectiones for each of the three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Saturday.

This CD contains a recording of the Lamentations for Good Friday. Everything in this composition shows the hand of the master. All of the Hebrew letters are spun out in a richly melismatic manner and are given a genuine ‘acclamatio’ character (e.g. JOD). The contrapuntal richness of the verses is full of surprising turns and illustrates the text with great vividness.

Examples are legion – among them the use of low registers at the words ‘Defixae sunt in terra portae ejus’ (first lesson, second verse), ‘Sederunt in terra’ (first lesson, third verse), ‘tenebras’ (third lesson, first verse). In addition, the carefully considered alternations of more homophonic passages and polyphonic interpolations are treated with consummate mastery, with deliberate verbal repetitions (e.g. the question ‘Quis medebitur tui’ in the second lesson) supported by richly imitative writing. Together with his swan song, the Lagrime di S. Pietro, these Lamentations comprise the master’s last testament. – P. V. N.

‘They transform into an entertainment that which has been created for no other purpose than to produce in the Christian soul a holy and salutary sadness’, complained a Paris priest about the leçons de ténèbres. It is indeed appropriate, he argues, that the Lamentations over the fall of Jerusalem should be performed during Matins for the sacrum triduum, in the form of readings – or, at most, recited on the Gregorian lamentation tone: but can one permit these sacred texts to be given by singers whom everyone knows from the theatre, in a specifically worldly style which is employed, in the first place, in the performance of opera arias and airs de cour? Is it not true that this new music is degenerating into a ‘spectacle de musique extraordinaire pour les Ténèbres’, and that at a time when ‘music during a time of mourning is inappropriate and importunate’?

By the end of the seventeenth century the leçons de ténèbres were more popular than ever in France, and enjoyed a golden age in the reign of Louis XIV when they were indeed a very worldly affair. It was society, more than the composer, that was to blame for this. The Lamentations of Jeremiah gave many composers the opportunity for writing music which grew out of a specifically French tradition – music that was meant ‘to appeal to the ear as well as to move the heart’.

The Tenebrae of Charpentier form the highest as well as the terminal point of what we can call the ‘high melismatic style’. Throughout his career Charpentier experimented with this most intimate of all vocal genres.

After Charpentier there is an evolution towards a growing contrast between the letters (in melismatic style: the archaic element) and the verses (in motet style: the ‘new’ element). Brossard, Couperin and Delalande had their leçons de ténèbres printed in 1721, 1714 and 1730 respectively, which testifies to the vast popularity of the genre; but strictly speaking, these works are no longer true lamentations.

The melismatic Leçons de Ténèbres of Charpentier were written for nuns. The names of the sisters who sang them are known: Mère Ste Cécile and Mère Camille, who performed the soprano parts (dessus and bas-dessus), and Mère Desnots, a ‘female haute-contre’, that is an extremely low alto. Charpentier had this to say about the scoring of the continuo part: ‘If a bass viol or violin can be added to the accompaniment of the organ or the harpsichord, so much the better.’ In this recording these three instruments are employed as the continuo group, together with the theorbo – the instrument on which Lambert accompanied his own Leçons de Ténèbres.

Couperin composed his Leçons de Ténèbres between 1713 and 1717. The first three, for ‘Mercredy Saint’ (Holy Wednesday), were printed; of the other six unfortunately all trace has been lost, although the composer informs us in his Preface that he had already composed three leçons for Good Friday, and intended publishing the entire cycle at a later date. Couperin’s Leçons are, in the first place, absolute, timeless music which relegate the stylistic considerations of the day to a secondary, relatively insignificant position. Neither does Couperin regard the original scoring for two sopranos as obligatory:

‘The first and second lessons for each day are always in one part, and the third in two; thus two voices suffice for their performance; although the vocal part is written in the treble clef, all other kinds of voices may sing them, all the more so as most people today who accompany know how to transpose’ (Preface).

In none of his predecessors or contemporaries is the contrast between the instrumental, transparently celestial character of

the Hebrew letters and the dramatic and lyrical fullness of the verses stronger than it is in Couperin. From a musical point of view Couperin is here speaking (and how mellifluously he does it!) the language of the tragédie lyrique in which declamatory and lyrical elements are fused into a single unity. The verses form a great lyrical recitative, and in the sections where Couperin specifically indicates a ‘récitatif’ one does not notice a very great difference from those sections which do not bear the indication, except that the récitatifs properly speaking usually begin with a long held chord in the bass. The most moving of the leçons is the third: a virtually unbroken Récitatif en duo in which Couperin clearly appears as heir to Monteverdi and Carissimi. – R. J.

Born in 1900 in Vienna, Ernst Krenek traversed the century as hardly any other artist did. Beginning with the Expressionism of his early works which still betray the influence of his teacher, Franz Schreker, he moved into a period of atonality, the culminating point of which was what he regarded as his most significant and longest work, still written in the Mahlerian orchestral tradition, the Second Symphony of 1922. He then sought a new, more topical mode of expression in neo-classicism (Concerto Grosso, 1924), which he used in his opera, Jonny spielt auf (1924), written under the influence of American entertainment music. Out of this dead end and before embracing the twelve-tone technique, Krenek made one last essay in a virtually undiluted Romantic idiom: the Schubert-inspired song cycle Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen (1929). His newly adopted tendency towards dodecaphony was the result of a protracted quest for material, prompted notably by his conversations with Theodor W. Adorno. It is first manifested in the opera Karl V of 1938, the year he emigrated to the USA.

In November 1941, he began writing his op.93, the Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae. Krenek saw a dismal period ahead of him: Europe was thousand of miles away, the possibility of any kind of future was uncertain, he lacked friends and intellectual conversation, America was preparing to enter the war, and his own livelihood was by no means sure – exile was exacting its bitter toll.

Krenek composed this despairing lament of the Prophet on the fall of the Holy City regardless of whether it could ever be performed, because perhaps music might never be played or sung again. The selection of the texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah was made by Krenek himself. He did not, however, intend writing a liturgical work for church use, but chose this particular sequence of texts ‘because it has been hallowed by the authority of the institution that made it, an institution into which I was born and to which I am deeply attached, since National Socialist Germany has begun to threaten my native Austria with annihilation’.

Inspired by his studies of medieval music, and always concerned by the melodic development, Krenek began to arrange the twelve-tone row modally, shunning neither consonances nor octaves in the development. He broke the tone-row into two complementary six-tone groups and applied the principle of rotation, i.e. the first note of the hexachord is placed last, new six-tone groups arise and thereby a new twelve-tone row which is so similar to the original row that structural and idiomatic relationships can be reconstituted by the ear. – E. S.

Sacred Music: From The Middle Ages To The 20th Century CD8 - Lamentations & Tenebrae

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