Following up on last week’s “Black Death Music Parties”, this isn’t the first time the musical community (or the world in general) has been impacted by a pandemic. Early Music America had a great article exploring this issue!
A Historically Informed Approach to Music in Times of Pandemic
Here’s a repeat of an Early Music Monday post from May 2019 that seems timely:
The History of Black Death Music Parties
Political upheaval? Rampant disease?
Late Renaissance or just yesterday’s news?
Here’s a setting of Sir Walter Raleigh’s sonnet “What is our life?”, written while he was in the Tower of London awaiting execution.
Next up: Monteverdi, Gabrieli, Schein, and Schütz with Back Bay Chorale, including my perennial favorite, Schütz’ Musikalische Exequien! Read more below and then come hear the concert on Saturday night!
Musikalische Exequien (Funeral music), Op. 7, SWV 279–281 is a sacred composition by Heinrich Schütz, dating from c. 1635/36. Written for the funeral services of Count Henry II, Count of Reuss-Gera, who had died on 3 December 1635, it is Schütz's most famous work of funeral music.[1] It comprises the following sections:
Henry II had planned the service himself and chosen the texts, some of which are scriptural and others of which are from 16th-century Lutheran writers, including Martin Luther himself. He also commissioned Schütz to compose the music on the occasion of his death.
Part I, by far the longest part of the work, is scored for SSATTB (2 sopranos, alto, 2 tenors, bass) chorus alternating with small ensembles of soloists. Part II is scored for double choir SATB SATB, and part III for SATTB choir and a trio of soloists. All movements are accompanied by basso continuo.
Allegri’s Miserere, or “What if everything you loved was a lie?”, courtesy our colleagues at Early Music Sources!
Psalm 42 has inspired some of choral music’s best moments (“like as the hart”, “as the deer”, “sicut cervus”), but this setting, sung by The Advent Choir a few weeks ago, is probably my favorite of all time.
Never heard of Guillaume Dufay? He was the illegitimate son of a priest, spent his career as a priest and composer between his home in Cambrai and the courts of some of the major families of Italy (Malatesta, d’Este, de’Medici), and wrote some of the most incredible sacred music of the Renaissance!
Nothing like an epic Dufay mass setting to break up mid-winter lethargy!
About the Turkish Crescent (featured in Haydn’s Symphony 100 and other places): Much of the modern orchestra’s percussion comes from Turkish military bands. First European military bands imported Turkish musicians. Then they assigned Turkish instruments to black performers dressed in exotic Eastern garb.
Turkish music, in the sense described here, is not the music of Turkey, but rather a musical style that was occasionally used by the European composers of the Classical music era. This music was modelled—though often only distantly—on the music of Turkish military bands, specifically the Janissary bands.
An important impetus for Turkish music occurred in 1699, when Austria and Ottoman Empire negotiated the Treaty of Karlowitz. To celebrate the treaty, the Turkish diplomatic delegation brought a Janissary band along with other performers to Vienna for several days of performances.
Although the Janissary sound was familiar in Europe during the 18th century, the Classical composers were not the first to make use of it; rather, the first imitators were military bands. The cultural influence at first involved actual importation of Turkish musicians, as Henry George Farmer relates:
Next up: Haydn (Lord Nelson) and Mozart with Handel + Haydn Society! Check out the program notes here and then come hear the program on Friday night or Sunday afternoon!