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2 CD -
C 952 182 I - (p) (c) 2018
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Joseph Haydn
(1732-1809) |
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Il ritorno di Tobia -
Oratorium in zwei Teilen für Soli, Chor
und Orchester |
149'
22" |
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Parte Prima |
76' 26" |
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- Sinfonia / Ouverture |
5' 17" |
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- "Pietà d'un'infelice" - Anna,
Tobit, Coro: Ebrei |
5' 03" |
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- "Né comparisce, oh Dio!" -
Recitativo: Anna, Tobit |
3' 44" |
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- "Sudò il guerriero" - Aria:
Anna |
5' 17" |
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- "Deh modera il dolor - Ah tu
m'ascolta" - Recitativo ed Aria: Tobit |
5' 53" |
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- "Non è quello Azaria" -
Recitativo: Anna, Raffaelle |
4' 13" |
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- "Anna m'ascolta" - Aria:
Raffaelle |
6' 36" |
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- "Che disse?" - Recitativo:
Anna |
0' 54" |
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- "Ah gran Dio" - Aria: Anna |
5' 53" |
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- "Ah gran Dio!" - Coro: Ebrei |
3' 18" |
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- "Sara, mia dolce sposa" -
Recitativo: Tobia, Sara |
1' 00" |
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- "Quando mi dona un cenno" -
Aria: Tobia |
9' 24" |
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- "Somme grazie ti rendo - Del
caro sposo" - Recitativo ed Aria: Sara |
8' 03" |
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- "Rivelarti a Dio piacque" -
Recitativo: Raffaelle, Tobit, Sara, Anna,
Tobia |
4' 12" |
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- "Odi le nostre voci" - Coro:
Brei, Tobia, Anna, Tobit, Sara, Raffaelle |
7' 33" |
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Parte Seconda |
72' 54" |
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- "Oh della santa fé stupendi
effetti!" - Recitativo: Anna, Sara,
Raffaelle |
3' 31" |
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- "Come se a voi parlasse" -
Aria: Raffaelle |
4' 27" |
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- "Ad Azaria nel volto" -
Recitativo: Anna, Sara |
1' 15" |
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- "Non parmi esser fra gl'uomini"
- Aria: Sara
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11' 22" |
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- "Che soave parlar!" -
Recitativo: Anna, Tobia |
0' 52" |
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- "Quel felice nocchier" - Aria:
Tobia |
6' 20" |
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- "Giusta brama l'affretta" -
Recitativo: Anna |
2' 28" |
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- "Come in sogno un stuol
m'apparve" - Aria: Anna |
3' 41" |
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- "Svanisce in un momento" -
Coro: Ebrei |
4' 27" |
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- "Ah dove corri, o padre?" -
Recitativo: Tobia, Tobit, Raffaelle |
4' 19" |
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- "Invan lo chiedi, amico" -
Aria: Tobit |
5' 43" |
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- "Che fulmine improvviso!" -
Recitativo: Tobia, Anna |
1' 02" |
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- "Dunque, oh Dio, quando sperai"
- Duetto: Anna, Tobia |
9' 22" |
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- "Qui di morir si parla" -
Recitativo: Sara, Anna, Tobia, Tobit,
Raffaelle |
6' 35" |
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- "Io non oso alzar le ciglia" -
Coro: Ebrei, Tobit, Anna, Sara, Tobia |
7' 24" |
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Sen
Guo, Raffaelle (Soprano)
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ARNOLD
SCHOENBERG CHOR / Erwin
Ortner, Chorenisdtudierung
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Valentina
Farcas, Sara (Soprano)
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ORCHESTRA
LA SCINTILLA / Stefan
Gottfried, Cembalo |
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Ann
Hallenberg, Anna (Alto)
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt |
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Mauro
Peter, Tobia (Tenor)
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Ruben
Drole, Tobit (Bass)
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Luogo e data
di registrazione
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Felsenreitschule, Salisburgo
(Austria) - 19 agosto 2013 |
Registrazione
live / studio
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live - Salzburger Festspiele
2013
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Producer / Engineer
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Prima Edizione
CD
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Orfeo "Orfeo d'Or" - C 952 182
I - (2 cd) - 76' 26" - 72' 54" - (p) (c)
2018 - DDD
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Prima
Edizione LP
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Especially
his choruses burned
with a fire that
otherwise was
Handel's alone
Everyone
thinks Haydn wrote two
oratorios, the Creation
and the Seasons - nobody
knows Il ritorno di
Tobia. I have studied
it for many years; I
have only come to know
it in the last few days.
The piece is a quite
incredible work! (...)
The young Haydn found a
musical language of his
own, not in the sense of
a narrative but in the
sense of a depiction of
emotional states and
that is where he uses
all the musical
rhetoric, uses the most
sophisticated key
modulations, things that
had not existed
before...
It
was in much the same terms
as Nikolaus Harnoncourt
before the 2013 Salzburg
performance of Il
ritorno di Tobia in
the Felsenreitschule that
the reviewer of the work's
premiere expressed himself
in the Vienna newspaper K.k.
allergnädigst
privilegierte Realzeitung
of April 6, 1775. "The
famous Kapellmeister Hayden
having set to music his
(...) Oratorio, entitled:
The Return of Tobias has won
general acclaim. and once
again exhibited his familiar
skill in the most
advantageous manner.
Expression, Nature and Art
were so finely interwoven in
his work, that the listeners
must love the one and admire
the other. Especially his
choruses burned with a fire
that otherwise was Handel’s
alone, in a word the entire
exceptionally numerous
audience was enraptured..."
Il ritorno di Tobia
was commissioned by the Tonkünstlergesellschaft
zum Unterhalt der Wittwen
and Waysen, “Society
of Artists in Music for the
Support of Widows and
Orphans", as the theatre
handbill observes. Haydn,
who had written his new work
in support of his
application to join the
Society, personally directed
the two charity performances
in Vienna's Theater am
Kärntnertor. The libretto,
written in Italian to accord
with contemporary taste, was
the work of Viennese court
poet Giovanni Gastone
Boccherini, a brother of the
noted composer. He drew on
the Book of Tobit a
late addition to Hebrew
scripture, which describes
the eventful journey of
Tobias returning from
Nineveh ro cure his farher
Tobir of his blindness. a
popular rheme in rhe music
and picrorial art of rhe
17th and 18th centuries.
The premiere performance of
Joseph Haydn’s first
orotorio Il ritorno di
Tobia was an ambitious
undertaking with 180
performers, most of them
drown from the imperial
capital; the work would have
been beyond the resources of
the Esterhazy orchestra
alone. The evening was a
great success, both
artistically and
financially: 1,712 florins -
corresponding to a
five-figure sum in
present-day euros or dollars
- went to the Musicsl
Artists’ Society for its
charitable work. Haydn had
offered his services free of
charge - for that matter,
the present recording was
made at a fundraising
concert, as will be related
- and complained four years
later in a letter to the
Secretary of the Society
that his acceptance as an External
Member had still not
been confirmed. The
remission of the joining fee
of 300 florins, wrote Haydn,
was something thst "I regard
as a very necessary
Compensation, in that I have
earned the Society 1000 fl.
with my New ond freely
donated Ritorno di Tobia".
The suggestion that Haydn
should furthermore commit
himself in writing to
compose at the request of
the Society Oratorium,
Cantate, Sinfoni oder Cori,
with the assurance that they
would never burden him with
"indiscreet" requests for
such vocal or instrumental
works, infuriated the
eminent composer. His
brusque letter concluded
with his rebuttAl of The
musical Artists’ Society. In
the years thst followed,
"The return of Tobias"
spread throughout Europe,
with numbers from the
oratorio being sung in such
cities as Rome, Leipzig and
Lisbon. Nine yeors after the
premiere, in 1784, there was
a revival of the oratorio -
this time in the Burgtheater
- in a version to which
Haydn hsd added two new
choruses while tightening up
the overture, recitatives
and some of the arias. The
soloists were among Vienna’s
leading lights: Nancy
Storace, Mozarts later
Susanna, sang Anna, while
the role of Tobit went to
Stefano Mandini, Count
Almaviva in The Marriage
of Figaro. For all
that, its success could no
longer build on that of the
first performance. In 1808,
Haydn’s pupil ond colleague
Sigismund Neukomm, who had
previously prepared the
piano reductions of the
Creation and the Seasons,
tried a new presentation of
Tobias - with no greater
success. Not Till 1963 did
Il ritorno di Tobia appear
in print as part of the
complete edition of Haydn's
works.
The story
The oratorio, comparable to
opera seria in its
sequence of recitatives and
arias, is written for a cast
of five: Tobit, a pious Jew,
blinded by hot swallow’s
dung; Anna, his wife;
Tobias, their son;
Raffaelle, the Archangel
Raphael (incognito as
Azariah), travelling
companion of Tobias; Sarah,
widow of seven husbands
killed by an evil spirit and
later wife of Tobias.
The first part begins after
the one-movement Sinfonia -
described by Haydn in a
later letter to his
publisher Artaria as an
"overture" - with the plea
of Anna and Tobit for the
safe return of their son.
Anna is distraught, Tobit
seeks to console her. In a
dream, he has seen his son
married to Sarah, daughter
of his cousin, the very
Sarah whose spirit has
killed each of her husbands,
Anna adds. Surely her son
too has fallen victim to
this demon. Anna accuses her
own husband Tobit of having
sent Tobias away against her
wishes. Azariah, the
companion of Tobias, appears
on the horizon - alone: a
further sign to Anna that her
son is dead.
Raffaelle (as Azariah) now
relates past events: how
Tobias overcame a monster in
the Tigris and disembowelled
it - in search of its heart
and gall bladder - and
married Sarah at divine
prompting, finally
conquering the evil spirit
Asmodeo by burning the heart
of the monster before
commencing his present
journey home. In his first
aria, Raffaelle promises
Anna that upon his return
Tobias will restore his
father's sight. Anna and the
chorus of Hebrews praise God
in the aria "Ah gran Dio!”,
one of the numbers added in
1784.
Sarah and Tobias approach
his parents’ house. The
sight of home provides the
occasion for a love aria by
Tobias, “Quando mi dona un
cenno", answered by Sarah’s
praise of God and her
husband. Tobias falls into
the arms of his parents,
Sarah is welcomed as a
daughter-in-law. The first
part ends with the concerted
plea that God may restore
Tobit's eyesight.
Part Two begins in joyful
expectation that Tobit will
soon be healed. Sarah
praises her new family in
the aria "Non parmi esser
fra gl’uomini" - which
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
considers The "high point of
the oratorio" in sound,
music and spirit, with Haydn
having captured "the moment
of enchantment" in the
encounter between Sarah and
her new family, with the
"magic of sounds never yet
heard even in the symphonic
prelude”, in the words of
the conductor as quoted by
Monika Mertl in the
programme notes of the
Salzburg Festival
production. The healing
process itself is the
centrepiece of the second
part. Just before it, Anna
sings a wonderful
"nightmare” aria,
accompanied by cor anglais
and trombones, “Come in
sogno", which anticipates
the course of events: from
darkness to light, from F
minor to F major.
Tobias heals his father by
pouring the monster’s gall
into his eyes. Tobit cannot
bear the light, he cries out
in pain, says Harnoncourt:
"This is a great scene,
which receives quite drastic
musical portrayal. First he
complains of the painful
treatment, then when it is
successful he is so dazzled
by the unfamiliar brightness
of the sun that he would
prefer to remain blind.” On
the advice of Raffaelle,
Sarah covers Tobit's eyes
first with a black cloth and
then with progressively
lighter cloths, till he
grows accustomed to the
sunlight. When the family
offer to reward Raffaelle
for his services, he reveals
himself as an archangel. The
oratorio ends with praise of
the Lord.
A “gift of Time”
The present Salzburg
performance of Il
ritorno di Tobia is
due to an initiative of
Orchestra La Scintilla at
the Zurich Opera: this
specialized ensemble for
early music, which emerged
from the opera orchestra in
1998, offered its
long-standing mentor
Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his
wife Alice honorary
membership of the orchestra,
in grateful acknowledgement
of an association dating
back to the 1970s and their
legendary Monteverdi cycle.
This was linked with a
generous "gift of time” to
the celebrated conductor,
consisting of a concert to
be played free of charge,
including the necessary
rehearsals. In the spring of
2012, Harnoncourt promised
to claim his "absolutely
unique gift” and to present
Joseph Haydn’s early
oratorio Il ritorno di
Tobia in a benefit
concert at the 2013 Salzburg
Festival, "where nobody asks
for money, not the hall, not
the conductor, not the
choir, not the soloists".
The proceeds of the concert
would go to three
multi-cultural youth
projects in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The audience paid tribute to
the work put in, as can be
heard, with generous
opplause - particularly for
the Arnold Schoenberg Choir.
The press reaction was more
mixed. Heidemarie Klabacher
of Vienna's Der Standard
declared the
Felsenreitschule too large
for the "intimate story” but
praised the performers:
"Contralto Ann Hallenberg
song the spiky coloraturas
with wicked delight. Bassist
Ruben Drole endowed his role
with profound depth, warm
timbre ond great
expressiveness. Heavenly
moments were bestowed by
soprano Valentina Farcas as
Sarah. The title role of
Tobia was shaped by Mauro
Peter with his radiant
tenor, still supple even on
high notes. The hand-picked
soloists were given a richly
varied musical backdrop by
Nikolous Harnoncourt and the
orchestra.” Eleonore Büning
gave a more critical verdict
on the conductor in the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung:
“All the work's
contradictions are
conscientiously deployed by
Harnoncourt, who dismembers
every recitative, relishes
each strange
oboe-cor-anglais sound
mixture and celebrates even
the most conventional
modulations with ritual
solemnity. Yet no spark
leaps the gap, not even when
the long-heralded miracle
takes place and major-key
light floods in.” She found
praise only for Sen Guo (as
the archangel Raphael) and
Ann Hallenberg (as the
mother) in the solo quintet.
The Vienna daily Die
Presse found "The
result interesting rather
Than exciting" and the
critic of the Salzburger
Nachrichten Karl Harb
concluded "This Return does
not come easy. But who other
than Harnoncourt could
convert the necessary
artistic ‘hard work' into an
enjoyable journey of
discovery?"
How did Nikolaus Harnoncourt
put it to his audience
before the concert? "You
must immerse yourselves and
commit yourselves to
something that we have
already committed ourselves
to during the rehearsals and
again now during the
performonce. That is not
easy to hear, but if you
hear it, you will also feel
something."
Hannes
Eichmann
(Translation:
Janet and Michael
Berridge, Berlin)
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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