1 CD - 3984-26094-2 - (p) 2000

Johann Nicolaus de la Fontaine und d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt (1929-2016)





Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Magnificat in C major, D 486 - for soloists (SATB), chorus and orchestra
8' 59"

- Magnificat anima mea Dominum
 2' 26"
1

- Deposuit potentes de sede 2' 25"
2

- Gloria Patri 4' 08"
3





Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) Schöpfungsmesse in B flat major, Hob. XXII:13 - for soloists (SATB), chorus and orchestra
44' 01"

Kyrie 6' 01"


- Adagio 1' 54"
4

- Allegro moderato
 4' 07"
5

Gloria 10' 36"


- Gloria 7' 24"
6

- Quoniam 3' 12"
7

Credo 11' 59"


- Credo 2' 18"
8

- Et incarnatus
 3' 00"
9

- Et resurrexit 4' 41"
10

Sanctus 3' 07"
11

Benedictus 5' 54"
12

Agnus Dei 6' 24"


- Agnus Dei
 3' 26"
13

- Dona 2' 58"
14





Franz Schubert Intende voci in B flat major, D 963 - aria for tenor, chorus and orchestra
11' 59" 15



 
Christiane Oelze, Soprano
Elisabeth von Magnus, Contralto
Herbert Lippert, Tenor
Gerald Finley, Bass

Arnold Schoenberg Chor / Erwin Ortner, Chorus Master

CONCENTUS MUSICUS WIEN (with original instruments)
- Erich Höbarth, Violin - Herwig Tachezi, Violoncello
- Alice Harnoncourt, Violin - Dorothea Guschlbauer, Violoncello
- Karl Höffinger, Violin - Andrew Ackerman, Violone
- Helmut Mitter, Violin - Denton Roberts, Violone
- Anita Mitterer, Violin - Hans Peter Westermann, Oboe
- Walter Pfeiffer, Violin - Marie Wolf, Oboe
- Peter Schoberwalter, Violin - Gerald Pachinger, Clarinet
- Thomas Fheodoroff, Violin - Herbert Failtynek, Clarinet
- Annelie Gahl, Violin - Eleanor Froelich, Fagott
- Silvia Walch-Iberer, Violin - Christian Beuse, Fagott
- Barbara Klebel, Violin - Hector McDonald, Horn
- Peter Schoberwalter junior, Violin - Georg Sonnleitner, Horn
- Christian Tachezi, Violin - Andreas Lackner, Naturtrompete
- Irene Troi, Violin - Herbert Walser, Naturtrompete
- Mary Utiger, Violin - Sebastian Krause, Posaune
- Lynn Pascher, Viola - Gerhard Proschinger, Posaune
- Gerold Klaus, Viola - Dieter Seiler, Pauken
- Ursula Kortschak, Viola - Herbert Tachezi, Orgel
- Dorle Sommer, Viola


Nikolaus Harnoncourt
 
Luogo e data di registrazione
Pfarrkirche, Stainz (Austria) - luglio 1999
Registrazione live / studio
live
Producer / Engineer
Wolfgang Mohr / Martina Gottschau / Tobias Lehmann / Michael Brammann
Prima Edizione CD
Teldec Classics "Das Alte Werk" - 3984-26094-2 - (1 cd) - 63' 15" - (p) 2000 - DDD
Prima Edizione LP
-

Notes
"Opus summum viri summi Joseph Haydn" - “the greatest work of the greatest man Joseph Haydn”: thus Haydn’s contemporary, the composer Johann Adam Hiller, wrote in block letters on his copy of the Schöpfungsmesse. Haydn’s penultimate setting of the words of the Mass owes its sobriquet - "Creation Mass" - to a self-quotation from his oratorio The Creation, which had received its first performance in 1798. According to his early biographer Georg August Griesinger:

In die Mass that Haydn wrote in 1801, it occurred to him while working on the "Agnus Der, qui tollis peccata mundi" that weak mortals generally sin only against moderation and chastity So he set the words "Qui tollis peccata, peccata mundi" to the trifling melody that accompanies the words in The Creation, “Der thauende Morgen, o wie ermuntert er" in order that this profane thought should not be too conspicuous, however he let the
full chorus enter immediately aferwards with the “Miserere”.

Griesinger is wrong, in fact, when he refers to the Agnus Dei, as the quotation from The Creation occurs at the words “Qui tollis peccata mundi" in the Gloria. Although it appears there only once, The Creation was so well known in Vienna that the allusion was immediately understood. Moreover, the love duet for Adam and Eve from which the quotation is taken had already been published separately in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung and in this way had reached an even wider audience. But Haydn was criticised for taking over this "profane thought" - and criticism came from the highest quarters: when the imperial court planned a performance of the Mass, the Empress Maria Christina expressed her disapproval of the passage, and Haydn was obliged to alter it: the surviving copies of the score and parts in the Vienna Hofburgkapelle contain no trace of the offending quotation. In the longer term, however Haydn’s original version was to gain universal acceptance.

Only recently had performances of large-scale orchestral settings of the Mass again become possible in Vienna: in 1782 the Emperor Joseph II, responding to Enlightenment ideas, had decreed a radical simplification of church music, a decree that effectively spelt the end of concert performances of Latin church music for the next decade and a half. Not until 1797 was his edict formally lifted by Franz II. Even so, Haydn had already begun to write orchestral Masses the previous year. He had returned to Austria from his second and last visit to England in 1795, when his employer Prince Nikolaus II of Esterházy had asked him to resume direction of his court orchestra. At the same time, however, he released Haydn from his duties as a composer, making only one exception: Haydn was to write an annual Mass for the name-day of his wife, Princess Maria Hermenegild. lt is to this arrangement that we owe the six great Masses that Haydn wrote between 1796 and 1802. Haydn himself was in no doubt about their merits - he once told Griesinger: "I'm a tiny bit proud of my Masses." Prince Esterházy initially had these works performed at his residence in Eisenstadt. Only later, after Joseph II's decree had been rescinded, were they also heard in Vienna.

The Schöpfungsmesse was first perfonned at Eisenstadt on 13 September 1801. By now Haydn was at the very peak of his powers and, more importantly, could draw on the experiences gleaned during his two visits to England and already enshrined in his "London" Symphonies. He now transferred the principle of motivic and thematic development to the field of vocal music, dispensing with virtuoso arias and frequently treating the four vocal soloists as a self-contained ensemble in opposition to the choir, as emerges from the opening four-part Kyrie with its slow introduction and motivic links between its different sections. The high point of the Gloria is the large-scale fugue on the words "ln gloria Dei patris", while the Credo is notable for Haydn's ability to marry words and music in pursuit of heightened expression: note, in particular, his setting of the words “descendit de coelis" and the whole of the "Crucifixus". The Sanctus is largely given over to the jubilant strains of the "Hosanna". And the work ends with a plea for peace in the form of the Agnus Dei, a plea that Haydn delivers with compelling confidence.

Franz Schubert is now best known for his lieder, piano works and orchestral music. But he also wrote a great deal of sacred music, including Masses, liturgical works and songs with religious words. Although 1815 is regularly described as his “year of song” on account of the 150 or so lieder - including Erlkönig - that he wrote during this twelve-month period, it also witnessed the composition, in September, of his only setting of the Magnificat, a hymn for the Virgin Mary that he divided into three subsections: her opening words, in which she praises God and thanks Him for the favour that He has bestowed on her, are a resplendent Allegro rnaestoso for the four vocal soloists, chorus and full orchestra. The middle section is an Andante that deals with God's actions on behalf of the whole of humankind and is more muted in expression, with the orchestra reduced to strings and oboes. And the following Gloria takes up the paean from the beginning, raising the pitch of jubilation even higher especially in the final extended “Amen” section.
In October 1828, only a month before his death and at a time when he was already seriously ill, Schubert wrote three shorter sacred pieces: a  Tantum ergo D 962, a hymn to the Holy Ghost D 964 and the present Intende voci D 963. The words of this last-named piece are taken from the second verse of the Fifth Psalm and are an urgent entreaty asking for God's assistance. Schubert set this brief text as a tenor aria with four-part chorus and orchestra, and it is the soloist who, following an instrumental introduction, dominates the proceedings. The underlying mood is one of calm and at times achieves the radiant confidence of Haydn's setting of the Mass, with only a few somewhat agitated passages to disrupt the basic atmosphere, as the soloist calls on his "King and God" to answer his prayer. Like so many other works by Schubert, this Offertory remained unknown for decades after his death. Not until 1890 did it receive its first public performance in Eisenach.
Wolfgang Marx
Translation: Stewart Spencer

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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