contents - aws
TRANSCRIPT
ROBERT SCHUMANN’S
CHOICE OFREPERTORY &
REHEARSALPLANNING IN
HIS CAREERAS A CHORALCONDUCTOR
Gregory W. Harwood
Schumann’sOrchestration forDas Paradies und die Periand Szenen aus Goethes Faust Laura Tunbridge
Schumann’s Eusebius:His Beethovenian Origins in the
Christian Liturgical YearTheodore Albrecht
CONTENTS September 2010Vol. 51 • no 2
edited by Marvin E. Latimer, Jrand Christina Prucha
66
INS IDEINS IDEART ICLESART ICLES
COLUMNSCOLUMNS
The Choral Journal is the official publication of The American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). ACDA is a nonprofit professional organization of choral directors from schools, colleges, and universities; community, church, and professional choral ensembles; and industry and institutional organizations. Choral Journal circulation: 19,000.
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Permission is granted to all ACDA members to reproduce articles from the Choral Journal for noncommercial, educational purposes only. Nonmembers wishing to reproduce articles may request permission by writing to ACDA. 545 Couch Drive, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102. Telephone: 405/232-8161. All rights reserved.
The Choral Journal (US ISSN 0009-5028) is issued monthly except for July. Printed in the United States of America. Periodicals postage paid at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and additional mailing office. POST-MASTER: Send address changes to Choral Journal, 545 Couch Drive, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102.
2 From the Executive Director
4 From the President
5 From the Editor
53 In Memoriam
80 Advertisers’ Index
Cover art by Efrain Guerrero, graphic artist, Austin, Texas.Interior art by Tammy Brummell.
Musical examples by Tunesmith Music <www.Tunesmithmusic.com>.
6 Schumann's Orchestration for Schumann's Orchestration for Das Paradies und die PeriDas Paradies und die Peri and and Szenen aus Goethes FaustSzenen aus Goethes Faust by Laura Tunbridge
1818 Whose Mourning? Schumann's Whose Mourning? Schumann's DieDie Requiem für MignonRequiem für Mignon by Eftychia Papanikolaou
3232 Rober tRober t Schumann's Choice of Reper tory and Rehearsal Planning Schumann's Choice of Reper tory and Rehearsal Planning in His Career as a Choral Conductor in His Career as a Choral Conductor by Gary W. Harwood
5454 Schumann's Eusebius: Schumann's Eusebius: His Beethovenian Origins in the Christian Liturgical Year His Beethovenian Origins in the Christian Liturgical Year by Theodore Albrecht ho
6565 Reper toire & StandardsReper toire & Standards edited by Nancy Cox More Than “Politically Correct:” Accuracy and Authenticity In World Choral Music Study and Performance
by Sharon Davis-Grotto Examining Ourselves: Are We Living Up to Our Own Standards? by William McConnell
7373 Hallelujah!Hallelujah! edited by Richard J. Stanislaw Church Choirs, a Nineteenth Century Heritage
7777 Recording Reviews Recording Reviews edited by David Castleberry
1818 3232 5454
2 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Tim Sharp
National Officers
President
Jerry McCoy
University of North Texas
940-369-8389 (voice)
Vice-president
Hilary Apfelstadt
HJA, University of Toronto
President-elect
Jo-Michael Scheibe
University of Southern California
NATIONAL TREASURER
Jo Ann Miller
North Dakota State University
Executive Director
Tim Sharp
405-232-8161(voice)
Central Division President
Mary Hopper
Wheaton College
630-752-5828 (voice)
Eastern Division President
Bob Eaton
North Central Division President
Kevin Meidl
920-8324170 (voice)
Northwestern Division President
Richard Nance
Pacific Lutheran University
253-535-7613 (voice)
Southern Division President
Tom Shelton
First Presbyterian Church
336-275-9398 (voice)
Southwestern Division President
Margie Camp
Young Voices of Colorado
303-797-7464 (voice)
Western Division President
Kathryn Smith
Cosumnes River College
916-691-7234 (voice)
Industry Associate Representative
Alec Harris
GIA Publications Inc.
708-496-3800 (voice)
Chair, Past Presidents’ Council
Michele Holt
Providence College
401-822-1030 (voice)
National Past Presidents † Archie Jones Maurice T. Casey
† Elwood Keister † Hugh Sanders
† Warner Imig David O. Thorsen
† J. Clark Rhodes Diana J. Leland
† Harold A. Decker William B. Hatcher
† Theron Kirk John B. Haberlen
† Charles C. Hirt † Lynn Whitten
† Morris D. Hayes James A. Moore
Russell Mathis Milburn Price
† Walter S. Collins David Stutzenberger
H. Royce Saltzman Mitzi Groom
† Colleen Kirk
The mission of the American Choral Directors Association is to equip and inspire choral directors. At our recent Leadership Conference in Chicago, the offi cers of our state and division chapters explored ways that we could collaborate with each other and with other organizations toward the working out of our mission and purposes that revolve around the themes of equipping and inspiration.
Our ACDA leadership enthusiastically recognizes and embraces the need for interconnectedness with other choral music education and performance organizations toward creative collaboration. We know that we simply cannot do this work alone. We must be an association that collaborates with other similar-purposed organizations.
We realize that our work toward collaboration means that we will be border-crossing in our efforts, and it means that we will need to be creative. As we work at border-crossing and creativity, collaboration will take us beyond the bounds of the known and the statis quo of the past. It means looking at other perspectives; it means looking at other purposes; and it means drawing from other sources of energy.
As we think about collaboration, I propose three characteristics of collaboration we must remember as we examine our own identity and mission:
1. Complementarity—Collaborators are not homogenous people or groups, but rather individuals and organizations with different perspectives, expertise, conceptualizations, working methods, temperaments, resources, needs, and talents. The interaction of these differences forms the foun-dation for the dynamics of collaboration to unfold;
2. Tension—Collaboration's goal is not necessarily to reach consensus, as such agreement does not lead to learning or challenge. Collaboration is not absence of tension, but the fruitful cultivation of tension. As our own song culture teaches us, we have to Wade in the Water children. We go into the storm. Our differences are where the latent op-portunities for growth reside.
3. Emergence—Collaboration can lead to outcomes that could not be predicted solely from the additive power of people working as a group. There will be the initial "con-ceptual" collaboration that will help frame a problem, but down the line there will be technical collaboration that will represent problems and their solutions. It will be an organic process.
There are some very good reasons for us to move more and more to-ward collaboration and interconnect-edness toward the accomplishment of our mission to equip and inspire choral directors.
Collaboration can provide a kind of “insurance policy” against quitting as it smothers the ups and downs of the creative process. We spread the risk, which encourages us to take more chances. Further, collaboration may widen the scope of intrinsic motiva-tion. Intrinsic motivation derives from what you personally enjoy in a task. By collaborating, extrinsic motivation joins with intrinsic motivation, providing another insurance policy for the fragile state of our individual desires.
Collaboration bolsters unstable self-discipline because one becomes attached and responsible to the other collaborator as well as the focus of the work and mission. Collaboration lessens the loneliness of creative work and reduces the fears of going against fi eld norms which are and can be the sclerosis of any organization.
What we want as we go forward in ACDA is connective motivation--collaboration that is motivated by maximizing the energies par tners bring to the project. In this level of cre-ative collaboration, each partner's love for the work and for the shared goal moderates the inherent diffi culties that can occur when working together.
Tim Sharp
• To foster and promote choral • To foster and promote choral singing which will provide artistic, singing which will provide artistic, cultural, and spiritual experiences for cultural, and spiritual experiences for the participants.the participants. • To foster and promote the finest • To foster and promote the finest types of choral music to make these types of choral music to make these experiences possible.experiences possible.
• To foster and promote the organi-• To foster and promote the organi-zation and development of choral zation and development of choral groups of all types in schools and groups of all types in schools and colleges. colleges.
• To foster and promote the develop-• To foster and promote the develop-ment of choral music in the church ment of choral music in the church and synagogue.and synagogue.
• To foster and promote the organi-• To foster and promote the organi-zation and development of choral zation and development of choral societies in cities and communities. societies in cities and communities.
• To foster and promote the un-• To foster and promote the un-derstanding of choral music as an derstanding of choral music as an important medium of contemporary important medium of contemporary artistic expression. artistic expression.
• To foster and promote significant • To foster and promote significant research in the field of choral music.research in the field of choral music. • To foster and encourage choral • To foster and encourage choral composition of superior quality. composition of superior quality.
• To foster and promote Interna-• To foster and promote Interna-tional exchange programs involving tional exchange programs involving performing groups, conductors, and performing groups, conductors, and composers.composers. • To foster and encourage rehearsal • To foster and encourage rehearsal procedures conducive to attaining procedures conducive to attaining the highest possible level of musi-the highest possible level of musi-cianship and artistic performance.cianship and artistic performance.
• To cooperate with all organizations • To cooperate with all organizations dedicated to the development of dedicated to the development of musical culture in America. musical culture in America.
• To disseminate professional news • To disseminate professional news and information about choral music.and information about choral music.
—ACDA Constitution and Bylaws —ACDA Constitution and Bylaws
Elora Festival Singers Eric Whitacre Choral Music
Voce Chamber Ar tists Sure on this Shining Night
The Conductor as Leader by Ramona M. Wis
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Executive Director's Log
What's on Tim's ipod ?
What's on Tim's Kindle?
What's on Tim's day planner?
Sept 8–10 Site Visit, Boston, MA
Oct 9–10 Music of Samuel Barber Tulsa Oratorio Chorus Tulsa, OK
Oct 21–22 Montana ACDA Fall Conference
Oct 22–23 "One Song" Music in Worship Conference Marietta, GA
The 12 Purposes of ACDA
World Choir Initiatives
The 9th World Symposium on Choral Music,
to be held in Puerto Madryn, Argentina, 3-10
August 2011, is progressing very well. You
can fi nd out more information at the Web
site (http://www.wscm9.com/en/index.
php/content). This will be a unique Sympo-
sium—more exotic, more intriguing—than
any in the past. Strongly consider extending
your stay (either before or after the Sympo-
sium) to take advantage of the innumerable
aspects of the Argentine landscape and
culture. In 2014, we will be in Korea, so mark
your calendar!
4 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
National Chair
Nancy Cox
580/482-2364 (voice)
Boychoirs
Julian Ackerley
Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus
520/296-6277 (voice)
Children and Youth Community Choirs
Robyn Lana
Cincinnati Children’s Choir
513/556-0338 (voice)
College and University Choirs
William McConnell
St. Andrews Presbyterian College
910/277-5262 (voice)
Community Choirs
Ron Sayer
Marshall Community Chorus
660/831-5197 (voice)
Ethnic and Multicultural Perspectives
Sharon Davis Gratto
University of Dayton
973/229-3946 (voice)
Junior High/Middle School
Gretchen Harrison
Frontier Trail Junior High
913/780-7210 (voice)
Male Choirs
Ethan Sperry
Portland State University
Music in Worship
Terre Johnson
Vestavia Hills Baptist Church
Senior High Choirs
Amy Johnston Blosser
Bexley High School
614/539-5262 (voice)
Show Choirs
Robert Lawrence
University of Central Missouri
Two-Year Colleges
Paul Laprade
Rock Valley College
815/921-3347 (voice)
Vocal Jazz
Kirk Marcy
Edmonds Community College
425/640-1651 (voice)
Women’s Choirs
Iris Levine
Vox Femina Los Angeles
Youth and Student Activities
Joey Martin
Texas State University —San Marcos
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Jerry McCoy
National R&S Chairs During the last week of June, the national leadership met in Chicago, site of the 2011 national ACDA con-ference, for our annual board meeting and biennial leadership conference.
As is normal, the national leadership dealt with organizational issues that face ACDA. As a part of the executive committee’s ongoing review of the roles and structures of our standing committees, a national task force on R&S was formed in the spring and made it’s fi rst report during our June meeting. Lively and productive discussions between the national R&S Chair, the division presidents, the national offi cers, and others of the national board bode well for the services of R&S at the grassroots and national levels.
The national board and most of our state presidents spent a day and a half in conversations and interactions led by organizational guru Hugh Ballou. Our conversations led to an enormous number of ideas related to our mission and how our work can further enhance the art of choral singing. Representatives from the American Guild of Organists, the Choristers Guild, Chorus America, Music Educators National Conference, Music Teachers National Association, and National Pastoral Musicians sat with small groups for brainstorming ses-sions, which ultimately led to a signifi cant list of proposed actions.
The national board also reiterated its enthusiasm for the revitalization of ACDA’s International Conductors Exchange Program. James Feiszli was named national coordinator for this very important project. The program will bring young conductors from abroad to the United States during our division conferences in 2012. Later that year, representatives from the United States will make reciprocal visits abroad. Between 1988 and 1994, the project sup-ported visits to the United Staes by young conductors from Argentina, England, Germany, Sweden, and Venezuela and, in turn, sent contingencies of American conductors to those countries. Many of the conductors who participated in the exchanges have become world and national leaders in the choral art. Look for additional information in future issues of the Choral Journal.
As you are no doubt aware, ACDA and CHORALNET have forged a very important alliance. One of the most exciting aspects of that union is the creation of a new CHORALNET Communities page. Organized and created by James Fieszli and Philip Copeland, this new opportunity for discussion and dissemination of information has already become one of ACDA’s most active communications sites. Visit the ACDA webpage, click on CHORALNET, and explore all the many facets of our new communities pages. Quite a number of states, divisions, and other entities have already established communities and invite you to visit and participate.
We left our meetings with a great deal of enthusiasm and expressions of hope for the choral art in America and the world. But, nothing we did in those meetings means anything if you don’t continue to stay deeply and passionately involved with ACDA. We may be the largest choral community on the globe but we’re an organization that matters only if you are involved. I look forward to seeing you in Chicago next spring for our national conference.
Jerry McCoy
Editorial Board
Editor
Carroll Gonzo
University of St.Thomas
651/962-5832 (voice)
Managing Editor
Ron Granger
ACDA National Office
405/232-8161 (voice)
Editorial Associate
David Stocker
281/291-8194 (voice)
Board Members
Hilary Apfelstadt
HJA, University of Toronto
Patricia Abbott
Assn. of Canadian Choral Conductors
514/351-4865 (voice)
Terry Barham
Emporia State University
620/341-5436 (voice)
Richard J. Bloesch
319/351-3497 (voice)
David Castleberry
Marshall University
4304-696-2963
J. Michele Edwards
651/699-1077 (voice)
Lynne Gackle
Baylor University
254/710-3654 (voice)
Sharon A. Hansen
University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee
414/229-4595 (voice)
Paul Laprade
Rock Valley College
815/921-3347 (voice)
Edward Lundergan
SUNY-New Paltz
845/257-2715 (voice)
Donald Oglesby
University of Miami
305/284-4162 (voice)
Ann R. Small
Stetson University
386/822-8976
Magen Solomon
University of Southern California
213/740-3225
Richard Stanislaw
Ocean City Tabernacle
609-399-1915 (voice)
Stephen Town
Northwest Missouri State University
660/562-1795 (voice)
Carroll Gonzo
FROM THE EDITOR
In This Issue
According to Laura Tunbridge, it is almost impos-sible to disentangle Schumann’s orchestration from other features such as a composer’s treatment of texts, themes, harmonies, and form. Tunbridge notes Schumann wrote for solo voices in particular. Early critics frequently noticed the instrumental character [of Schumann’s melodies] shows through and the vo-cal line winds like an arabesque through the orchestra. Across his choral works, Schumann frequently divided his choruses between male and female voices, and his orchestra into high and low instruments. According to Krüger, Schumann was fi rst and foremost, an instru-mental rather than a vocal composer: this judgment
may strike us as odd today, when we think of Schumann as a composer of lieder and solo piano music. In the fi nal analysis, observes Tunbridge, Schumann’s ability not only to respond to poetry, but also to write inventively and effectively for chorus and orchestra is quite evident.
Eftychia (Effi e) Paponikolaou's article considers the elevated status choral-orchestral compositions held in Schumann’s output and sheds light on tangential connections between the composer’s musico-dramatic approach and his engage-ment with the German tradition. Much of this article is an analysis and discus-sion of Schumann’s Requiem für Mignon. Effy, in the concluding remarks in her article, writes: “Alongside his espousal of romantic tendencies in his composition, especially evident in their romantic subjectivity and poetic impulses, Schumann continued to look to the past as a source for inspiration and even validation—a trope that pertinently summarizes his artistic credo. Schumann almost single-handedly contributed to the creation of idiosyncratic dramatic works that, in the composer’s words, aspired ‘toward’ a new genre for the concert hall.’”
As a young man about to be married, Schumann assured his future wife that conducting would not be an activity in which he would engage. Gregory Harwood asserts, however, ultimately, choral conducting came to occupy a major part of Schumann’s musical activities during his last six active years as a professional musician. Schumann’s choral work in Dresden led him to turn more of his com-positional attention to secular part-songs and choral/orchestral music. Moreover, his intensive work with sacred choral music became an important impetus in his decision to begin composing religious choral music. Harwood states Schumann’s work with his Dresden choir probably best represents his own ideas and concep-tions about organization and repertory choice for rehearsal and performances, since the group was independent and under his control
Theodore Albrecht explores the reasons Schumann often signed his articles as Florestan, Eusebius, and Raro—the impulsive, impatient, decisive, and effusive Florestan, the moderate cautious, slower, sometimes skeptical Eusebius, and the mature, detached, pastoral Master Raro. Albrecht avers Florestan derived from a character in Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Meister Raro was his teacher Wieck, and the origins of Eusebius, not much more than a household name in the 1830 than it is today, have always seemed unclear. Albrecht concludes, although John Diverno’s decade-old observation that it is diffi cult to know what precise con-notations the name Eusebius might have for Schumann in 1831, remains valid today, perhaps in certifying at least one Feast of Saint Eusebius on December 16 with Beethoven’s birthday on the same date—we have advanced another step toward an explanation that both Florestan and Eusebius had Beethovenian connotations in Schumann’s creative mind.
Carroll Gonzo
Schumann’sOrchestration forDas Paradies und die Periand Szenen aus Goethes Faust Laura Tunbridge
Laura Tunbridge is senior lecturer in music at the University of Manchester, UK. She is the author of Schumann's Late Style (Cambridge, 2007) and The Song Cycle (Cambridge, 2011), and co-editor of Rethinking Schumann (Oxford, 2010)[email protected]
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 7
ecent “historically informed” per-
formances of Robert Schumann’s
symphonic works have made a strong
case for re-evaluating one of the most
contentious aspects of his music: the
quality of its orchestration.1 So far, less
attention has been paid to the orches-
tration of the choral works,
although some of them have
also benefi ted from the lighter
touch of recordings by John El-
iot Gardiner and the Orchestre
Révolutionnaire et Romantique
or Philippe Herreweghe and the
Orchestre des Champs Elysées. However,
in the scores of Schumann’s Das Paradies und
die Peri, Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, Szenen aus Goethes
Faust, the four choral ballades. and the Mass
and Requiem, we can fi nd multiple examples of
inventive and delicate orchestral writing within the
Romantic tradition of Carl Maria von Weber, Felix
Mendelssohn, and even, to a degree, Hector Berlioz.
As can be seen in Table 1, throughout his career,
Schumann wrote for a standard classical orches-
tra with paired woodwinds, paired horns and
trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and fi ve-
part strings. The bass end was sometimes
bolstered by ophicleide (Das Paradies
und die Peri) or its descendant the
tuba (the choral ballades). Extra
instruments—piccolo, harp
or triangle—were included
for particular illustra-
tive effects. In this,
Schumann was
little different
R
8 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Schumann's Orchestration for
Table 1 Orchestration of Schumann's Choral Works
Title Chorus Soloists Picc. Flute Ob Cl. Bsn Hn Tpt Trb Oph Timps Perc Hp Strings Organ
Das Paradies und die Peri Premiered Dec 4,1843, Leipzig. Piano score published 1844 (Breitkopf und Härtel), orch. 1874
SSAA TTBB
2 Sop. Mezzo, 2 Alto, Tenor, Baritone, Bass
1 2 2 2 2 4 2 3 1 Yes TriangleBass drumGr. Tr
Yes Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Der RosePilgerfahrt, op. 112Premiered in piano version 6July 1851, Düsseldorf;orchestral version 5 Feb 1852. Pub 1852 (Kistner).
SSAA TTBB
2 Sop. 2 Mezzos, 2 Alto, 2 Tenor, 2 Baritone, 2 Bass
2 2 2 4(2 Ventilhorn,2 Waldhorn)
2+2cornetsàpiston
2 3 Yes Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Der Königssohn, op. 116Premiered Düsseldorf May 6, 1852;Piano score pub-lished 1853.(Whistling),orch 1875
SA TTBB
Alto, Tenor, Baritone, Bass
1 2 2 2 2 4(as above)
3 YesTuba Triangle Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Des Sängers Fluch, op. 139Premiered Feb 28, 1857,Elberfeld.Piano score pub-lished 1857.(Arnold),orch 1858.
SA TTBB
Alto, Tenor, Baritone, Bass
1 2 3 2 2 4(as above)
2 3 YesTuba Yes Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
SA TTBB
3 Sop.Alto, Tenor, 4 Basses
1 2 2 2 2 4(as above)
2 3 Yes Yes Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Vom Pagen und der König-stochter, op. post 140.Premiered Dec 2, 1852,Düsseldorf.Piano score published 1857.(Rieter-Bieder-mann)
TTBB Tenor,
Bass 2 2 2 2 4
3 3 Yes Yes Violins
I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Tuba TriangleDas Glück von Edenhall, op. post 143Premiered Oct 23, 1854,Leipzig.Published 1860.(Rieter-Bieder-mann)
Table 1 Orchestration of Schumann's Choral Works
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 9
Das Paradies und die Peri and Szenen aus Goethes Faust
were often detrimental to appreciation of the works. For instance, it took 23 years for an orchestral score of Der Königssohn to be published and the interim piano reduction does not give many clues to the work’s distinctive low-voiced sonorities.
There is also the issue of where the choral and orchestral works fit within Schumann’s career. Das Paradies und die Periwas composed in the early 1840s, but most of the choral music comes from the next decade. One of the reasons for Schumann’s increased interest in choral music then was that he took up the post of music director in Düsseldorf in September 1850, duties for which included conducting and composing for the town choir and orchestra. (His revi-sions to what became known as the Fourth Symphony—the most notorious example of his “bad” orchestration, with all those doubled winds—were perhaps intended to suit the forces and abilities of his players in Düsseldorf.) The chivalric, nostalgic, and sentimental texts he chose to set, by Ger-
man poets such as Ludwig Uhland, were in keeping with the nationalistic impulses of the age.4 Schumann, in other words, was writing for the musicians and audiences around him.
Yet, when we look back on Schumann’s time in Düsseldorf, our vision tends to be clouded by awareness of his fi nal illness: of his incarceration in an asylum in 1854 and his death two years later. What with hindsight we call Schumann’s late style has typically been associated with a falling off in his creative powers, even if that judgment is sometimes queried by how his composi-
Title Chorus Soloists Picc. Flute Ob Cl. Bsn Hn Tpt Trb Oph Timps Perc Hp Strings Organ
Missa sacra, op. 147Premiered Kyrie and Gloria in Düsseldorf,1853. Published 1863 (Rieter-Biedermann)
SATB
Sop. Tenor
2 2 2 2 2 2 3 Yes Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Requiem, op. 48Premiered Nov 19, 1864, Königsberg.Published 1864(Rieter-Biedermann)
SATB SATB 2 2 2 2
2
2 3 Yes Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Szenen aus Goethe's Faust,WoO 3Part III premiered June 25, 1848,Dresden;complete workJune 14, 1862published 1858
SSAA TTBB
5 Sop.Alto, Tenor, 3 Baritones, Bass
1 2 2 2 2 4
3 YesTuba Violins I and IIViolasCellosDouble bass
Yes
from Mendelssohn.2 Whereas Mendels-sohn’s orchestration is praised, however, Schumann’s is not, even though there are many instances where he achieved compa-rable effects to the scores of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or St. Paul.
Inevitably, the evaluation of Schumann’s orchestration does not simply depend on whether or not he could compete with Mendelssohn. There are several other factors
in play. Some have to do with the challenge of talking about orchestration altogether. Julian Rushton has pointed out that, as for any aspect of musical creativity, there are no eternal laws for successful orchestra-tion.3 What is more, it is almost impossible to disentangle orchestration from other features such as a composer’s treatment of texts, themes, harmony, and form. There are practical problems too. The table shows frequent delays between the publication of Schumann’s choral works with piano reduc-tions as accompaniments and orchestral scores becoming available. Such delays
10 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
betrothed. Schumann eventually decided on the second story from Lalla Rookh, about a peri’s quest to fi nd a gift with which to regain entry to paradise, from which she is excluded because she is the offspring of a fallen angel and a mortal. ( A peri is one of a race of beautiful fairy-like beings from Persian mythology.) His friend Adolf Böttger devised a libretto (rather than dealing with Moore directly, it drew on translations by J. L. Witthaus (1822) and Theodor Oelker (1839)), which Schumann freely edited. Das Paradies und die Peri is in three tableaux. In the fi rst, the Peri offers blood from a young warrior killed by the tyrant Gazna, but that gift is rejected. In the second, she takes the sighs of a maiden who dies in the arms of her plague-stricken beloved. Those did not suffi ce either. It is a criminal’s tears at the sight of a boy at prayer, discovered in part III, that fi nally grant her redemption.
When the composition began, Schumann worked at his typical speed: Part I was com-pleted between February 23 and March 30 1843; Part II was drafted from April 6–17; and Part III from May 17– 25. Everything was orchestrated by June 16. Das Paradies und
die Peri was fi rst performed at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on December 4 and 11, 1843, with Livia Frege as the peri. It was an im-mediate success and was Schumann’s best known work during his lifetime: there were performances throughout Germany, Europe, and even in New York.6
In musical and formal terms, Schumann’s score for Das Paradies und die Peri was unusual on two counts. First, it represented what the composer called “a new genre for the concert hall,” that aimed to sit squarely between oratorio and opera.7 Second, Schumann pursued Heinrich Marschner’s practice of linking numbers so that they ran virtually continuously. However, this was far from an amorphous structure: each tableau is clearly framed by changes in thematic material, harmonic area, ensemble (chorus, recitative, aria), and, importantly for our purposes, orchestration.
The exotic landscapes and supernatural characters of Das Paradies und die Peri pro-vided ample opportunity for musical scene paintings and orchestral effects. So, too, did the choruses of Nile genies, houri (an hou-ris is one of the beautiful virgins provided in paradise for faithful Muslims) and peris Schumann added to the libretto. These were not only crowd pleasers; they also allowed Schumann to show his mastery of orchestra-tion in the manner of his two great German predecessors, Weber and Mendelssohn. The music for the Nile genies (no. 11) has been compared to the Act II fi nale of Weber’s 1826 opera Oberon, in which mermaids and fairies sing the gratuitous if graceful, “Oh! ’tis pleasant to fl oat on the sea.” As in the Weber, Schumann’s scene features sixteenth-note brocaderie for strings and upper winds as accompaniment for the chorus. Unlike the Weber, the string line is not for a soloist, but for “at least” three fi rst violins, then violas, then second violins and cellos at the octave, lending the whole a more substantial sound. However, the slightly thicker texture makes the disappearance of the genies all the more effective: the sixteenth notes start to falter and eventually become triplet eighth notes that sink into the subsequent tenor arioso.
Mendelssohn’s infl uence, meanwhile, has been heard in the arioso solo vocal writing and characterful choruses of Das Paradies und die Peri. Perhaps these features alluded
tions were received at the time.5 Negative assessments of Schumann’s orchestration, therefore, need to be considered against a complex historical backdrop of not only mu-sical but also personal and practical concerns. In order to attempt this, we will here focus on two works: Das Paradies und die Peri, in many ways, the composer’s greatest suc-cess during his lifetime; and Die Szenen aus Goethes Faust, of particular interest because its three parts and Overture have been seen to document changes in Schumann’s compositional approach in the last decade of his creative life.
Paradise and the PeriSchumann had fi rst considered using
sections from Thomas Moore’s extended poem Lalla Rookh (1817) as a source for an opera or concert pieces in 1841. The poem follows the journey of Princess Tulip Cheeks (Lalla Rookh) to her arranged marriage with the Sultan of Lesser Bucharia. Along the way, she is entertained by a young Persian poet’s romantic fables; as you may have guessed, it is fi nally revealed that the poet is in fact her
Schumann's Orchestration for
betrothed Schumann eventions were received at the time 5 Negative
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to Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht, which Schumann heard in February 1843. The presence of an ophicleide in nos. 6, 7, and 23 also reminds us of Mendelssohn. Patented in France in 1821, this precursor to the tuba and euphonium is thought of today primarily as the instrument that represents the comic character of Bottom in Mendels-sohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In fact, it serves two roles: generally, it supports the bass line (as in the Wedding March) but it can also occasionally provide a distinctive timbre. For example, the ophicleide is the sound that signifi es Thisbe’s enchantment with Bottom despite his ass’s head, and provides the donkey’s bray in the dance of the clowns.
Schumann was impressed, on the whole, by Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he heard in Potsdam on October 18, 1843. (Shake-speare’s play he dismissed as a curiosity!) “The music is fi ne and fanciful,” he wrote: “The instruments tease and joke as if the fairies themselves were playing them. One hears brand new sounds.”8 He had already composed Das Paradies und die Peri by this point, and had himself experimented with what one might call brand new sounds. Schumann did not use the ophicleide in quite the same way as Mendelssohn, how-ever. Rather than playing in conjunction with the other low brass instruments or to depict a braying ass, it provides a darker hue. In the sixth and seventh numbers of Das Paradies und die Peri, the ophicleide accompanies the Chorus of the Conquerors (Chor der Eroberer), who celebrate the tyrant Gazna’s victory. In no. 23, it underscores the tenor solo’s lengthy description of the old man:
Beim Knaben, der, des Spiels nun satt, [Near the boy, who tir’d with play]
in Blumen sich gelagert hat, [Now nestling ’mid the roses lay,]
sieht sie vom heißen Rosse steigen [She saw a wearied man dismount]
jetzt einen müden Mann und schnell [From his hot steed, and on the brink]
an einem hochumgrasten Quell [Of a small imaret’s rustic fount]
zum Trunke sich hinunterbeugen, [Impatient fl ing him down to drink]
dann kehrt er schnell sein wild’ Gesicht [Then swift his haggard brow he turn’d]
aufs schöne Kind, das furchtlos saß, [To the fair child, who fearless sat.] obgleich noch nie des Tages Licht [Though never yet hath day-beam burn’d]
ein wild’res Antlitz sah als das, [Upon a brow more fi erce than that, -]
entsetzlich wild, ein grauser Bund, [Suddenly fi erce – a mixture dire,]
wie Wetterwolk’ aus Nacht und Glut, [Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fi re;]
dort stehn die Laster all, es tut [ In which the [peri’s] eye could read]
dort jedes Bubenstück sich kund - [Dark tales of many a ruthless deed;]
Meineid, eschlag’ner Gast, [The ruin’d maid – the shrine profan’d –]
betrog’ne Braut, mit blut’ger Schrift [Oaths broken – and the threshold stain’d]
auf jenem Antlitz stand’s geschrieben. [With blood of guests! – there written, all.9]
The underlined passages mark where the ophicleide plays. It is clear that the instru-ment is associated with the rougher aspects of the man’s mien: his ferocity and the das-tardly deeds he has done. As we will see in later examples, Schumann did not only use orchestration to paint scenery; in his choral music, particular timbres also are used to enhance musical descriptions of a character or emotional experience.
Mendelssohn was far from the only composer in Germany to use an ophicleide in the early 1840s. The instrument appears in Richard Wagner’s Rienzi and Der fl iegende Holländer (premiered in 1842 and 43 re-spectively) and, perhaps most pertinently, in the Offertory to Berlioz’s Requiem, another work Schumann heard in 1843.10 Despite their being contemporary, we don’t often consider Schumann and Berlioz together. Perhaps they seem too contrasting in
character: the Frenchman theatrical and—signifi cantly for this article—a master of orchestration, the German less so. The two met during Berlioz’s tour of Saxony from January 29 to March 1, 1843. While they did not share a common spoken language, there seems to have been a musical connection. Schumann heard the already mentioned Offertory, the King Lear Overture and Sym-phonie fantastique (which he had favourably reviewed from a piano score eight years earlier). Perhaps it was only by chance that the Berlioz concerts coincided about Schumann’s starting sustained work on Das Paradies und die Peri. The range of orchestral textures he explores, though, suggests that at the very least his imagination was fi red.
One striking aspect of Berlioz’s Offertory is its initial lengthy presentation, by upper strings, of a winding theme occasionally punctuated by horn chords. The choir be-gins with a simple melodic fragment as if it is accompanying the orchestra rather than the other way around. In Das Paradies und die Peri, Schumann frequently uses a similar set up, with the orchestra (often the strings) presenting a distinctive thematic kernel around which the voices enter. For example, the fi rst number begins with a descending violin motive, treated sequentially, which is gradually imitated by the other string instruments; no. 7 features a prominent cello quarter-note melody; in no. 13 there is one in triplet quarter notes for violas and cellos. Allowing the orchestra to carry the thematic weight of a movement changed the way in which Schumann wrote for soloSchumann wrote for solo
Das Paradies und die Peri and Szenen aus Goethes Faust
12 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Schumann's Orchestration for
voices in particular. Early critics noticed voices in particular. Early critics noticed that “very frequently the instrumental that “very frequently the instrumental character (of Schumann’s melodies) shows character (of Schumann’s melodies) shows through and the vocal line winds like an ar-through and the vocal line winds like an ar-abesque through the orchestra.”abesque through the orchestra.”1111 Making the vocal writing more instrumental was not unproblematic; there were complaints about a lack of lyricism, and that the tendency to repeat melodies made no sense with regard to the ongoing text. But bringing voices and orchestra closer together did mean that Schumann could explore the coloristic and descriptive capacity of both, as evident in a couple of further examples.
No. 4, “Wo fi nd” ich sie?” begins with the peri wondering “whither shall I go / To fi nd this gift for Heav’n?” Her uncertainty is mirrored by the wandering harmonies of the strings, the fi rst violins sequentially repeating a quizzical ascending fi gure. The texture becomes thicker and a more stable A♭ major is established as the peri describes all the worldly wealth she knows: the where-abouts of “unnumbered rubies” and “Isles of Perfume” are described to clarinet, bassoon, and horn accompaniment, with the fl utes and oboes echoing the end of the vocal phrase. Beneath them is an undulating viola line that an early critic described as if “en-gaged … in a quiet soliloquy.”12 Reference to King Jamshid’s “jewell’d cup” full of life’s elixir
introduces a distant trumpet fanfare; the German words Gold and Juwelen prompt the only tutti passage in the number. The music associated with the description of wealth evaporates, leaving the peri alone with the strings again to contemplate how to fi nd “the drops of life” (Lebenstropfen). At fi rst, the descending pianissimo fi gure in the violins and violas seems to be those drops, but they are converted into something more urgent by fl ute and oboe as they lead into the subsequent tenor solo. The orchestra here seems to refl ect the peri’s consciousness.
The orchestra serves a more deliber-ately illustrative purpose in the opening number of Part III, “Schmücket die Stufen zu Allah’s Thron” [“Bedeck the steps to Allah’s Throne”]. Across his choral works, Schumann frequently divided his choruses into male and female voices, and his orches-tra into high and low instruments. In Das Paradies und die Peri, there are several female choruses, partly because they seemed best suited to depicting the choruses of genies and, here, peris. Sopranos and altos (each divided into two parts) begin an imitative chorus as if the music itself is encircling Al-lah’s throne with fl owers. Upper woodwinds occasionally echo their melodic contours, against a light drone from strings, pizzicato cello, bassoon, and horns and intermittent triangle and cymbal contributions.
A solo quartet (2 sopranos, 2 altos), in-troduces a new stanza, dotted rhythms and a new sound world—clarinet and horns, in the relative minor. But, this is soon dismissed with the return of the opening material. With the entrance of another soprano soloist, how-ever, another section begins: faster, initially using the dotted rhythm of the quartet and, most distinctively, propelled by repeated trip-let eighth notes on clarinets, bassoons, horn and violas. The soloist narrates what the peri is doing—“Lo, to the path to eternal light / The peri now has taken her fl ight”—after which the chorus interjects with support for their sister : “Lovely Peri, be thou not afraid; / Truth and faith have never been betrayed!”. A soprano duo then takes on the triplet rhythm of the accompaniment to return to urge the peri to return to the “rosy bower,” supported by punctuating chords from fl ute, bassoon, and strings. The chorus re-enters
to promise that “Endless award / Waits for those who joyfully serve the Lord.” The number ends with an ascending scale from the solo violin that leads into the following tenor solo.
In a review of the Leipzig premiere of Das Paradies und die Peri, Eduard Krüger praised Schumann’s facility at making the orchestra “take on the total content, illustrating and explaining the sung text.”13 According to Krüger, Schumann was, fi rst and foremost, an instrumental rather than a vocal com-poser: the judgment may strike us as odd today, when we think of Schumann as a composer primarily of Lieder and solo piano music. Yet perhaps we can consider his use of the orchestra in his choral works as akin to the imaginative, evocative piano accompaniments of the songs which so often seem to tell us more than the words.
Although the above examples all point to Schumann’s skill as an orchestrator, it should be admitted that critics have not always been similarly convinced. One reviewer of a London performance of Das Paradies und die Peri in 1856 described it as “a work of great genius and power,” with the qualifi cation:
Much of the diffi culty which must be felt in comprehending and appreciating it on a first hearing arises, we think, from the great elaboration and intricacy of the score. There is such a profusion of minute and complicated details that the ear is perplexed, and fi nds it diffi cult to trace the simple form through the multitude of orchestral combinations and ornaments in which it is enveloped. In this respect, Schumann’s music reminds us of one of those pre-Raphaelite pictures in which every object is delineated with the laborious distinctness of miniature painting, or of the nice tracery and carved work of a fl orid Gothic edifi ce … When the ear is once accustomed to it, it may be found that it is no longer perplexing, but only heightens the richness of the colouring without obscuring the form.14
Another complained that the score is:
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 13
Das Paradies und die Peri and Szenen aus Goethes Faust
to that in Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, although, in the Ros-setti, the central female fi gure wishes to return to earth not heaven. The connection I am inter-ested in here, though, is the way in which the scene is painted. Rossetti reproduces his poetic description with care: the Damozel carries the three lilies mentioned and there is also a halo of stars around her hair. Everything from the background foliage to the folds of her gown is presented in detail and rich co-lours. We might draw a parallel to the combination of instruments in the score of Das Paradies und die Peri: both Rossetti and Schumann are invested in creating a kind of heightened realism.
The complexity of Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri was not simply a challenge for listeners; it also caused problems for perform-ers. At its Leipzig premiere soloist Heinrich Schmidt refused to go on stage at the last minute (fortu-nately the Viennese tenor Johann Vesque von Püttlingen stepped in). When Schumann moved to Düsseldorf in 1850, it seemed that, fi nally, he would have a chance to write for and work with a stable group of able musicians. He had in-herited a “well-drilled” orchestra of about forty players in Düsseldorf from his predecessors as munici-pal music director, Mendelssohn,
Julius Rietz and Ferdinand Hiller.17 Yet—as with Mendelssohn—it did not take long for his relationship with the musicians to sour. Within a year of Schumann’s arrival, there were complaints about his taciturn and ab-sent-minded manner, his style of conducting, and his hiring of soloists from out of town. On his part, Schumann bemoaned the high rate of absenteeism and, to the disgruntle-ment of his players, scheduled extra re-hearsals. After a fraught rehearsal for Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Schumann’s wife Clara, a famous virtuoso pianist, complained about the chorus’s “respect neither for art nor for
ttttttttttttusw
ew
wta
f
ttPa
Dsae
o
V
fiwg
aDante Gabriel Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel
@ National Museums Liverpool.
Her eyes were deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even;She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven.
Rossetti’s later painting The Blessed Damozel (1871) shows said lady surrounded by an-gels, looking down towards her earthbound lover. She leans over a more literal gold bar too: the frame between the upper part of the picture and the lower predella canvas (a layout borrowed from Italian fourteenth- or fi fteenth-century altarpieces). The division between heaven and earth is not dissimilar
so often completely s m o t h e r e d b y loud, complicated, and unproduct ive accompaniments, that their few beauties have to s t r ugg l e through a fog, more or less opaque, of N e o - G e r m a n i c mystifi cations.15
The references in these reviews to pre-Raphaelite paintings and “Neo-German mystifi cations” raise two sig-nifi cant issues in the recep-tion of Schumann’s choral works. Both have to do with the composer’s complicated relationship with what con-stituted modern art. Today, the sentimental poetry of the Peri, and its emphasis on choral writing, can make it seem old-fashioned. How-ever, in the mid nineteenth-centur y, Schumann was considered to stand at the forefront of the musical avant-garde, alongside none other than Wagner.
This is not to say that there were not already those who found Moore’s poetr y mawkish. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the founders of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, parodied the opening verse of Lalla Rookh to commemorate his pet wombat.16 Still, the critic who compared the orchestration of Schumann’s Paradies und die Peri to the detailed paintings of the pre-Raphaelites could have found several supportive ex-amples from Rossetti’s oeuvre. “The Blessed Damozel,” a poem published in the short-lived journal The Germ in 1850, relayed the story of a lady separated from her lover by death:
The blessed damozel leaned outFrom the gold bar of Heaven;
14 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Schumann's Orchestration for
the conductor!”18 She continued: “The ladies hardly open their mouths and they behave (naturally with the exception of several trained singers) so impolitely, sit down when singing, throw their feet and hands around like quite untrained youngsters.” Despite the importance placed on amateur singing as a way to consolidate and express feelings of nationhood and communities, there were still, it seems, tensions between professional and amateur musicians. Schumann’s creative ambitions were perhaps at odds with the circumstances in which he found himself; this was never more apparent than with his attempt to set one of the great masterworks of German literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, Parts I and II.
Scenes from Goethe’s FaustThe year after the success of Das Paradies
und die Peri Schumann considered setting several texts, among them August Bürck’s König Artus and Karl Leberecht Immermann’s Tristan und Isolde. He eventually decided on the fi nal scene of Goethe’s Faust, but progress was unusually slow. In a letter to Mendelssohn, he explained that he had abandoned the work:
The scene from Faust rests on my desk…. I’m downright afraid to look at it. Only because the sublime poetr y of precisely this closing scene grips me would I venture [to resume] work; I don’t know whether I’ll ever publish it.19
Hearing selections from Anton Heinrich von Radziwill’s Faust at a soirée in Berlin on March 21, 1847, seems to have motivated Schumann to return to his score. By April 19 he was “busy with the Finale;” by May 22, he began revisions. He then left it untouched until early summer 1848 when he added a conclusion to the central number, “Gerettet ist das edle Glied.” A private performance took place on June 25. Over a year later, the work received its fi rst public airings, includ-ing a performance on August 29, 1849, as part of Dresden’s, Leipzig’s, and Weimar’s celebrations of Goethe’s centenary. Mean-while, Schumann had decided to set more scenes from Faust. Between July 13 and 24, 1849, he drafted and scored the whole of Part I. Just days before the Goethe centenary celebrations, he completed the opening scene of Part II; the remainder was done by the following May. In August 1853, he added an Overture.
During the near decade that Schumann spent working on the Faustszenen he had completed numerous instrumental pieces as well as a sketch and chorus for Byron’s The Corsair, an overture and incidental music for Byron’s Manfred, the Requiem für Mignon, and his opera Genoveva. Traces of those ex-periences can be detected in the different characters, and orchestration, of Faust’s three parts. Part I consists of three scenes from the Gretchen tragedy—a distillation of Faust’s seduction and desertion of a young inno-cent, which leads to the deaths of her child, her brother, and her mother. This episode in Goethe’s work is familiar from the operatic stage, and although Schumann was the fi rst to use the poet’s actual words rather than a paraphrase, as we will see, the overall effect is relatively operatic. Part II traces Faust’s progression towards death, while Part III sets the scene of his transfi guration. If Part III is the most straightforwardly choral, Part II straddles opera and oratorio. The differ-ent genre of each is refl ected in its vocal and instrumental requirements. As shown in Table 2, Part I is primarily for soloists, Part II for soloists and small choruses, Part III for numerous ensembles and multiple soloists. Closer inspection of a few scenes should help explain how the orchestration also shifts in each.
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 15
Das Paradies und die Peri and Szenen aus Goethes Faust
The fi nal scene of Part I, “Szene in Dom,” fi nds Faust’s betrayed lover Gretchen in church, tormented by Mephistopheles. It is a scene you could easily imagine on an operatic stage. Schumann subsumes the scenery—the pillars of the church, the un-forgiving congregation—into the parts for orchestra and chorus to create a suitably claustrophobic atmosphere. The chorus sings a Dies irae, while violas and cellos play a zigzag descending motive associated with Mephistopheles (and, looking beyond Faust,with the witch Margarete in Genoveva). Gretchen’s fragile solo line is pitted against full chorus and orchestra, with hardly any support in her register, and—understand-ably—she faints.
Part II fi nds further absorption of scenery into orchestration: indeed, you could even say that visual and sonic phenomena here become one and the same. It opens with
Faust resting in a pleasant landscape, trying to forget the horrors of Part I. Above him hover spirits, and Ariel (the nature spirit of Shake-speare’s The Tempest) sings to the sound of Aeolian harps. The arrival of the sun is heralded by a “frightful clangor” (angeheures Getöse). Ariel warns the spirits to hide away, for if the sound strikes them they will be deafened. Schumann renders this sonic boom of dawn with a break in harmony and texture: swathes of tremolando strings unsettle the steady diatonic homophony of the preceding chorus, diverting the imminent cadence from E♭ major to its tonic minor, and beginning a lengthy B♭ pedal that lingers threateningly. Brass fanfares, the trumpets and trombones to which Ariel refers, piece the whole. The spirits disappear, and Faust awakens. Overwhelmed by the beauty of his surroundings, he indulges in a paean to nature. From behind the mountain peaks,
the sun emerges: a blaze of tremolando C major that, against the surrounding harmo-nies, seems like an unexpected glare on the horizon. It momentarily blinds Faust.
Sound and sight come still closer in the next scene. Faust, now wealthy, is alone in his palace at midnight. He hears a door creak and, shaken, asks who is there. Four gray women—Want, Guilt, Distress, and Care—have come to visit. Schumann’s score represents them by devices typical of Romantic representations of the musi-cal supernatural—high woodwind pedals, scampering string fi gurations, and fl ickering chromaticisms. Care introduces herself: Faust refuses to succumb to her magical power and so she breathes on him to blind him. Those high woodwind pedals become part of Faust’s disorientation; interestingly, it is the only scene scored for piccolo.
The fi nal part is in many ways more stat-ic; there are no scenery changes. The progres-sion through low (Pa-ter Profundus), middle (Pater Seraphicus), high (Angels) and highest regions (Dr Marianus), however, is refl ected in changes in voice type and orchestration. Pater Profundus begins with a low B ♭ pedal from strings, trombones, and horn. Pater Seraphicus is accompanied by up-per strings and cello in the tenor clef. The angels enjoy a full or-chestral texture that is also high and airy. With Dr Marianus, we hear the harp (previously associated with Ariel at the beginning of Part II), that routine signifi er of heavenly spaces.20
Part III has always been considered the f inest segment of Szenen aus Goethes Faust. In it, Schumann’s successor as editor of
Chorus (SATB)
Pater Ecstaticus (T)
Pater Profundis (B)
Pater Seraphicus (B)
Blessed Boys (S1 and 2, A)
Angels (SATB)
Young Angels (S2, chorus; later S2, M, T2, B3, chorus)
The More Perfected Angels (T2, B3, chorus)
Dr Marianus (T or B)
Penitent Women (S4)
Magna Peccatrix (S)
Mulier Samaritana (S)
Maria Aegyptaca (A)
A Penitent (S)
Magna Gloriosa (A)
Chorus Mysticus (S2, M, T2, B1)
Part I Part II Part III
Faust (B)
Gretchen (S)
Mephistopheles (B)
Martha (S)
Chorus (SATB)
Faust (B)
Mephistopheles (B)
Chorus (S1 and 2, T1 and 2, B2, SATB)
Ariel (T)
4 Gray Women (SSAA)
Lemurs (AT)
Table 2 Vocal Parts in Schumann's Szenen aus Goethe's Faust
16 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Schumann's Orchestration for
the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Franz Brendel, heard sounds of “the church music of the fu-ture.”21 The other scene judged particularly successful by nineteenth-century critics was the appearance of the four gray women, de-scribed by one as a “Wunderwerk.”22 Some felt uncomfortable about the shift in style from theatrical to something like sacred. The preference for Part III derived directly from awareness of chronology. Eduard Hanslick pointed out in his review of the fi rst com-plete performance that the third part had been written fi rst, during what he called the fi nest hours of Schumann’s best period.23
Parts I and II and the Overture, he continued, were written when Schumann was at Düs-
seldorf, when his physical and mental health was already wavering. Hanslick contrasted the chronology of Schumann’s composition with Goethe’s: the poet had written Part I of Faust at the height of his powers, and Part II as an old man, who would not live long beyond his next birthday. Schumann also divided Faust into two, but in reverse order, composing the music for the fi nal scene at his creative peak, and the fi rst parts when in decline. By the time he turned to Part I, Hanslick concluded, Schumann had no more power to produce something beautiful.
The reception history of Schumann’s choral music is complex, merging elements of biography and preconceptions of the
composer’s late style with more purely mu-sical considerations. What I hope emerges from the above survey of Das Paradies und die Peri and Szenen aus Goethes Faust is the richness of both scores and the way in which they demonstrate Schumann’s abilities not only to respond to poetry in music, but also to write inventively and effectively for chorus and orchestra.
NOTES
1 See, for example, Herreweghe’s Symphonies no. 2 op. 61 and no. 4 op. 120 (Harmonia Mundi, 1996); Szenen aus Goethe’s Faust
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 17
Das Paradies und die Peri and the Szenen aus Goethes Faust
(Harmonia Mundi, 1998); Gardiner’s Complete Symphonies (Archiv, 1988); Das Paradies und dir Peri (Archiv, 1999); and Norrington’s Symphony no. 3 in E fl at op. 97 “Rhenish;” Symphony no. 4 in D minor (EMI, 1990).
2 For more on Mendelssohn, see R. Larry Todd, “Some thoughts on Mendelssohn’s Orchestration,” Mendelssohn, The Hebrides and Other Overtures (Cambridge University Press), 84– 88.
3 Julian Rushton, “The Art of Orchestration,” The Cambridge Companion to Berlioz, ed. Colin Lawson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 92–111; here 94.
4 For more on the political aspect, see John Daver io, “Einheit—Freiheit—Vater land:Intimations of Utopia in Robert Schumann’s Late Choral Music,” Music and German National Identity, ed. Celia Applegate and Pamela Potter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 59–77.
5 See Laura Tunbridge, Schumann’s Late Style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
6 See Nicholas Marston, ‘“The most signifi cant musical question of the day’: Schumann’s music in Britain in the later nineteenth century,” Schumann Forschungen: Robert und Clara Schumann und die nationalen Musikkulturen des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. Matthias Wendt (Mainz: Schott, 2005), 153–65.
7 For more, see John Daverio, ‘“A New Genre for the Concert Hall’: Das Paradies und die Periin the Eyes of a Contemporary,” Schumann and his World, ed. R. Larry Todd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 129–55.
8 Robert Schumann, ‘“A Midsummer Night’s Dream’: A Letter (1843)”, Schumann on Music: A Selection from the Writings, trans. and ed. Henry Pleasants (New York: Dover, 1965), 195–96; here 196.
9 Emil Flechsig’s and Schumann’s libretto is here given in parallel to Moore’s original; the translation is by no means exact, but the spirit is true.
10 See Schumann’s diary entry for February 23, 1843, Tagebücher 1827– 38, ed. Georg Eismann (Leipzig: VEB, 1971), III, 238.
11 Eduard Krüger, review of the premier of Das Paradies und die Peri, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 47 (1845), cols. 561–70, 585–89, 606–11, 617–22; here col. 565; quoted in Daverio, ‘“A New Genre for the Concert Hall,”’ 140.
12 Krüger, review of the premier of Das Paradies und die Peri, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 47 (1845), col. 567; quoted in Daverio, ‘“A New Genre for the Concert Hall,”’ 141.
13 Krüger, review of the premier of Das Paradies und die Peri, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 47 (1845), col. 620.
14 “Music: Philharmonic Society,” Daily News June 24, 1856: 3152.
15 “The Theatrical and Musical Examiner,” The Examiner June 28, 1856: 2526
16 “I never reared a young wombat / To glad me with his pin-hole eye, / But when he most was sweet and fat / And tailless, he was sure to die!” mimics Moore’s “The Fire Worshippers”: “I never nurs’d a dear gazelle / To glad me with its soft black eye / But when it came to know me well / And love me, it was sure to die.”
17 For more, see Cecelia Hopkins Porter, “The Reign of the Dilettanti: Düsseldorf from Mendelssohn to Schumann,” The Musical Quarterly 73 (1989), 476–512.
18 Diary entry for March 30,1852, translated in Porter, “The Reign of the Dilettanti,” 502.
19 Letter of September 24, 1845, Robert Schumanns Briefe: Neue Folge, ed. F. Gustav Jansen (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1886), 240.
20 See Daniel Beller-McKenna, “Distance and Disembodiment: Harps, Horns, and the Requiem Impulse in Schumann and Brahms.” Journal of Musicology 22 (2005): 47– 89.
21 Franz Brendel, Geschichte der Musik in Italien, Deutschland und Frankreich von den ersten christlichen Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart (Leipzig: Heinrich Matthes, 1878), 359.
22 P. Lohmann, “Robert Schumann, Scenen aus Goethe’s Faust.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 51 (1859): 106–07.
23 Eduard Hanslick, “Schumanns Musik zu Goethe’s Faust (vollständige Aufführung)”, Aus dem Concert-Saal: Kritiken und Schilderungen aus 20 Jahren des Wiener Musiklebens 1848–68 (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1897), 190–93, 304–09.
Eftychia Papanikolaou is assistant professor of musicology and coordinator of music history studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Her research (from Haydn and Brahms to Mahler’s fi n-de-siècle Vienna), focuses on the in-terconnections of music, religion, and politics in the long nineteenth century, with emphasis on the sacred as a musical topos. She is currently completing a monograph on the genre of the Romantic Symphonic Mass <[email protected]>.
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 19
famous poetic inter-polations from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Leh-
rjahre [Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship], especially the “Mignon” lieder, hold a prestigious place in nineteenth-century lied literature. Mignon, the novel’s adoles-cent girl, possesses a strange personality whose mysterious traits will be discussed further later. Goethe included ten songs in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, eight of which were fi rst set to music by Johann Fried-rich Reichardt (1752–1814) and were included in the novel’s original publication (1795–96). Four of those songs are sung by the Harper, a character reminiscent of an epic rhapsode, and four by Mignon.1 Numerous composers, from Zelter and Beethoven to Liszt and Wolf, set Mignon’s and the Harper’s songs as lieder for solo voice with piano accompaniment.2 In 1849, a year that witnessed numerous celebrations surrounding the centenary of Goethe’s birth (an anniversary with obvi-ous nationalistic overtones), Schumann chose to commemorate him in his Szenen aus Goethes Faust (1844–53)3 and by creating a comprehensive opus out of all the songs in Wilhelm Meister. With the exception of only one (an anonymous satire, “Ich armer Teufel, Herr Baron” from Book 3, Chapter 9), Schumann wrote mu-sic for all remaining nine songs and, in an unconventional turn, he chose to cap this collection of lieder with a musical setting of Mignon’s funeral rites, a passage that appears later in the novel and that had never been set to music before.
Schumann’s lied cycle and Mignon’s Exequien (as Goethe called the funeral scene) appeared in 1851 under a uni-fi ed opus number, titled Lieder, Gesänge und Requiem für Mignon aus Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, Op. 98.4 In the fall of 1850 Schumann moved to Düsseldorf to assume the duties of music director, and
it was there that the Requiem für Mignon (subsequently the second Abteilung, Op. 98b), received its premiere as an inde-pendent composition on November 21, 1850. With this dramatic setting for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra Schumann’s Wilhelm Meister project was completed. In under 12 minutes, this “charming” piece, as Clara Schumann put it in a letter, epito-mizes Schumann’s predilection for music that defi es generic classifi cation. This article will consider the elevated status choral-orchestral compositions held in Schumann’s output and will shed light on tangential connections between the com-poser’s musico-dramatic approach and his engagement with the German tradition.
A Bildungsroman?The idiosyncratic style and content of
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre has led many scholars to dispute its categorization as a Bildungsroman. Only a couple of years after its publication, Friedrich Schlegel called the book “absolutely new and unique.” He asserted that we “can learn to understand it only on its own terms. To judge it accordingly to an idea of genre drawn from custom and belief, accidental experiences and arbitrary demands, is as if a child tried to clutch the stars and the moon in his hand and pack them in his satchel.”5 If Faust, especially Part II, still resists traditional stage presentation, largely due to its philosophically oriented aesthetic nuances, then Wilhelm Meister’s illusive classifi cation as a Bildungsroman seems to fail to do justice to the excep-tional qualities of this work.
In the course of the novel’s eight books (which vary in length from 9 to 17 chap-ters each), Wilhelm undertakes a process of self-discovery and education, but it is Mignon, one of the main characters (some might even say the protagonist)6 who radically evolves and tragically perishes at
The
20 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
the end of the book. Early on we learn that she was “taken from her parents when she was very young by a company of acrobats,” and she became Wilhelm’s adoptive daugh-ter, with whom she formed a strange attach-ment, at once fi lial and erotic.7 Mignon is “the prey of strong emotions,” and her personal-ity “consists almost entirely of a deep sort of yearning: the longing to see her mother again, and a longing for [Wilhelm]”—those, actually, seem to be “the only earthly things about her.”8 Fragile and vulnerable (indeed she suffers from “terrible convulsions” when emotionally disturbed),9 Mignon is a mar-ginalized personality until she undergoes a major transformation. Starting with Book 6, Mignon, who had worn boys’ clothes all
her life, is no longer the strangely looking, androgynous creature Wilhelm saved. When she is asked to participate in a theatrical play as an angel, we witness her for the fi rst time “clothed in a long, thin white garment with a girdle of gold around her chest and a golden crown in her hair.”10 Immediately afterwards she sings her last song in the novel, “So lasst mich scheinen,” whose text relates immediately to this transformative experience. It also sadly offers a prolepsis of her impeding death: Wilhelm encounters her shortly thereafter, still decked out in her “long white dress, her thick brown hair partly hanging loose”; at the sight of Wilhelm kissing another woman, Mignon suffers a seizure and dies.11 Afterwards, we learn that the Harper (who is also dead) was her father, and Mignon was born of an incestu-ous relationship with his sister. As strange as this story seems, even if read allegorically in Goethe’s superbly crafted prose, it neverthe-less helps elucidate the constant yearning, isolation, and poignancy of the novel’s ten lyrical interpolations. It will also help us un-derstand the elaborate scene of Mignon’s Exequien and how such a non-traditional musico-dramatic setting forms the perfect analog to the novel’s unconventional content.
ExequienThe prose text for Die Requiem für
Mignon comes from the opening of Book 8, Chapter 8 of Goethe’s novel, in which the author dramatizes the funeral rites that follow the unexpected death of Mignon. Its location, the Hall of the Past, with the “four large marble candelabras” in the corners, was already described to the readers before, when Natalie and Wilhelm observed the “exquisite craftsmanship” of a sarcopha-gus—an eerie prolepsis of the fate that they knew Mignon would soon succumb to. In that scene, their observation of the “semicircular openings” for the “choirs of singers, so that they may remain unseen”12 had prompted Natalie to relate her uncle’s account on vocal music—a discourse on romantic aesthetics that deserves to be cited in its entirety:
We have been spoiled too much by
theaters, where music only serves the eye, accompanying movements, not feel ings. In orator ios and concerts the physical presence of the singer is disturbing. Music is only for the ear. A lovely voice is the most universal thing one can think of, and if the limited individual producing it is visible, this disturbs the effect of universality…. when someone is singing, he should be invisible, his appearance should not prejudice me in his favor or distract me. With singing it is a case of one organ addressing another, not one mind speaking to another, not a manifold world to a single pair of eyes, not heaven to a single man.13
(Book 8, Chapter 5)
It is immediately after this account that Mignon dies. A couple of chapters later, Mignon’s funeral takes place in this familiar Hall, as if it were “an elaborately staged dra-matic performance.”14 This time Mignon’s embalmed body lies inside the ornamented sarcophagus, and four boys and two invisible choirs, as if “disembodied” in the manner described earlier, intone in “gentle strains.”15
After a detailed stage description of the Hall of the Past, Goethe relates a dramatic exchange that takes place between the four boys sitting near Mignon’s coffi n and the two invisible choruses. Schumann’s melopoiesis of this short dialogue, which resembles a dramatic scene, constitutes Die Requiem für Mignon.
Schumann, appropriately, gave the texts of the four boys to two solo soprano and two solo alto voices, while the two choruses are represented by a single chorus on the score.16 Unlike what one would expect from the nature of the text, Schumann does not set this dialogue in an antiphonal manner. Instead, he creates a miniature dramatic presentation in six parts, per-formed without a pause. As he had done before, and especially in his setting of scenes from Faust,17 Schumann followed Goethe’s text quite faithfully: with the exception of occasional repetitions and/or alterations, the prose serves almost as a libretto (Table 1 outlines Schumann’s division of the text
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon""Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 21
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
J. W. von Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Leh-rjahre, 1795–96. In Sämtliche Werke, Abteilung 1, Band 9, ed. Wilhelm Voßkamp and Herbert Jaumann. Frankfurt am Main: Deutsche Klassiker Verlag, 1992.
Am Abend lud der Abbé zu den Exequien Mignons ein. Die Gesellschaft begab sich in den Saal der Vergangenheit und fand denselben auf das sonderbarste erhellt und ausgeschmückt. Mit himmelblauen Tep-pichen waren die Wände fast von oben bis unten bekleidet, so daß nur Sockel und Fries hervorschienen. Auf den vier Kandelabern in den Ecken brannten große Wachsfackeln, und so nach Verhältnis auf den vier kleinern, die den mittlern Sarkophag umgaben. Neben diesem standen vier Knaben, himmelblau mit Silber gekleidet, und schienen einer Figur, die auf dem Sarkophag ruhte, mit breiten Fächern von Straußenfedern Luft zuzuwehn. Die Gesellschaft setzte sich, und zwei unsichtbare Chöre fi ngen mit holdem Gesang an zu fragen: »Wen bringt ihr uns zur stillen Gesellschaft?« Die vier Kinder antworteten mit lieblicher Stimme. »Einen müden Gespielen bringen wir euch; laßt ihn unter euch ruhen, bis das Jauchzen him-mlischer Geschwister ihn dereinst wieder aufweckt.«
ChorErstling der Jugend in unserm Kreise, sei willkommen! mit Trauer willkommen! Dir folge kein Knabe, kein Mädchen nach! Nur das Alter nahe sich willig und gelassen der stillen Halle, und in ernster Gesellschaft ruhe das liebe, liebe Kind!
KnabenAch! wie ungern brachten wir ihn her! Ach! und er soll hier bleiben! Laßt uns auch ble-iben, laßt uns weinen, weinen an seinem Sarge!
J. W. von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, edited and translated by Eric A. Blackall. Goethe’s collected works, Vol. 9. New York: Suhrkamp, 1989.***
In the evening the Abbé summoned everyone to the funeral rites for Mignon. The whole company proceeded to the Hall of the Past; they found it strangely decorated and illumi-nated. The walls were almost entirely draped with tapestries of azure blue, so that only the base and the frieze remained uncovered. Large wax candles were burning in the four big candelabras at the corners of the room, and others of appropriate size in the four smaller ones surrounding the sarcophagus in the center. Four boys were standing beside the bier, dressed in silver and blue, fanning with sheaves of ostrich feathers a fi gure that lay on top of the sarcophagus. The assembled company all took their seats, and two in-visible choruses intoned in gentle strains: “Whom do you bring to those at rest?” The four boys replied with lovely voices: “A weary playmate we bring you; here let him stay and rest till the rejoicing of his heavenly sisters shall wake him once more.”
CHORUSChild so young for this our realm, we wel-come you! We welcome you in sorrow! May no boy, nor girl follow thee! Old age alone shall wend its way, eagerly, calmly, here to this silent Hall, but thou, dear child, shalt rest here too, rest in solemn company.
BOYSAh, reluctantly we brought him here! Ah, and here shall he stay! We too will stay, let us weep and mourn, shed our tears above his corpse!
Robert Schumann, Requiem für Mignon aus Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, Op. 98b, für Chor, Solostimmen und Orchester. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1851.
Am Abend [lud der Abbé zu den Exequien Mignons ein] fanden die Exequien für Mignon statt. Die Gesellschaft begab sich in den Saal der Vergangenheit und fand denselben auf das sonder-barste erhellt und ausgeschmückt. Mit himmelb-lauen Teppichen waren die Wände fast von oben bis unten bekleidet, so da[ss] nur Sockel und Fries hervorschienen. Auf den vier [C]andelabern in den Ecken brannten gro[ss]e Wachsfackeln, und son-ach [sic] Verhältnis auf den vier kleiner[e]n, die den [mittlern] Sarkophag umgaben. Neben die-sem standen vier Knaben, himmelblau mit Silber gekleidet und schienen einer Figur, [die] welche auf dem Sarkophag ruhte, mit breiten Fächern von Strau[ss]enfedern Luft zuzuwehn. Die Ge-sellschaft setzte sich und zwei [unsichtbare] Chöre fi ngen mit holdem Gesang an zu fragen:
[No. 1, Chorus, SS/AA, Ch]Chor »Wen bringt ihr uns zur stillen Gesellschaft?« [Die vier Kinder antworteten mit lieblicher Stimme.]Knaben»Einen müden Gespielen bringen wir euch; laßt ihn unter euch ruhen, bis das Jauchzen himmlisch-er Geschwister ihn dereinst wieder aufweckt.«Chor»Erstling der Jugend in unserm Kreise, sei willkommen! mit Trauer willkommen! Dir folge kein Knabe, kein Mädchen nach! Nur das Alter nahe sich willig und gelassen der stillen Halle, und in ernster Gesellschaft ruhe das liebe, liebe Kind!«
[No. 2, S/A]Knaben»Ach! wie ungern brachten wir ihn her! Ach! und er soll hier bleiben! Laßt uns auch bleiben, laßt uns weinen, weinen an seinem Sarge!«
Table 1 Indications of Modifi cations in Schumann’s Setting
[roman] = alternate spelling [italics] = entirely omitted underlined = new or modifi ed text italics = repeats text from before
22 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
[No. 3, Ch, SS/Ch] Chor»Seht die mächtigen Flügel doch an! seht das leichte, reine Gewand! wie blinkt die goldene Binde vom Haupt! seht die schöne, die würdige Ruh!«Knaben»Ach! die Flügel heben sie nicht; im leichten Spiele fl attert das Gewand nicht mehr; als wir mit Rosen kränzten ihr Haupt, blickte sie hold und.«Chor»Seht die mächtigen Flügel doch an! seht das leichte, reine Gewand! wie blinkt die goldene Binde vom Haupt! seht die schöne, die würdige Ruh!«
Chor» Schaut mit den Augen des Geistes hinan!
[No. 4, Ch, SS/A/Ch] Chor» In euch lebe die bildende Kraft, die das Schönste, das Höchste hinauf, über die Sterne das Leben trägt!«Knaben»Aber ach! wir vermissen sie hier, in den Gärten wandelt sie nicht, sammelt der Wiese Blumen nicht mehr. Laßt uns weinen, wir lassen sie hier! laßt uns weinen und bei ihr bleiben! «Chor»Schaut hinan mit den Augen des Geistes hinan!«
[No. 5, Bass, SS/AA, Ch] Chor»Kinder! kehret ins Leben zurück! Eure Tränen trockne die frische Luft, die um das schlängelnde Wasser spielt. Entfl ieht der Nacht! Tag und Lust und Dauer ist der Leb-endigen Los.«Knaben»Auf, wir kehren ins Leben zurück. Gebe der Tag uns Arbeit und Lust, bis der Abend uns Ruhe bringt und der nächtliche Schlaf uns erquickt.«
[No. 6, Ch, SS, Ch] Chor»Kinder! eilet ins Leben hinan! In der Schön-heit reinem Gewande begegn’ euch die Liebe mit himmlischem Blick und dem Kranz der Unsterblichkeit!«Knaben»Auf, wir kehren ins Leben zurück! Auf!«Chor»Auf! Kinder! eilet ins Leben hinan! Auf!«
ChorSeht die mächtigen Flügel doch an! seht das leichte, reine Gewand! wie blinkt die gold-ene Binde vom Haupt! seht die schöne, die würdige Ruh!
KnabenAch! die Flügel heben sie nicht; im leichten Spiele fl attert das Gewand nicht mehr; als wir mit Rosen kränzten ihr Haupt, blickte sie holdund freundlich nach uns.
ChorSchaut mit den Augen des Geistes hinan! In euch lebe die bildende Kraft, die das Schön-ste, das Höchste hinauf, über die Sterne das Leben trägt!
KnabenAber ach! wir vermissen sie hier, in den Gärten wandelt sie nicht, sammelt der Wiese Blumen nicht mehr. Laßt uns weinen, wir lassen sie hier! laßt uns weinen und bei ihr bleiben!
ChorKinder! kehret ins Leben zurück! Eure Tränen trockne die frische Luft, die um das schlängelnde Wasser spielt. Entfl ieht der Nacht! Tag und Lust und Dauer ist das Los der Lebendigen.
KnabenAuf, wir kehren ins Leben zurück. Gebe der Tag uns Arbeit und Lust, bis der Abend uns Ruhe bringt und der nächtliche Schlaf uns erquickt.
ChorKinder! eilet ins Leben hinan! In der Schön-heit reinem Gewande begegn’ euch die Liebe mit himmlischem Blick und dem Kranz der Unsterblichkeit!
CHORUSSee how the mighty wings, see the light un-spotted robe, the golden circle gleaming in his hair; see the beauty and grace of his repose!
BOYSAh! They lift him not, those mighty wings. His garments fl oat no more in easy play. His head we crowned with roses, sweet and friendly was his gaze.
CHORUSLift the eyes of the spirit!
CHORUSLift the eyes of the spirit! May in you dwell the power that transports what in life is fi nest, loveliest, highest, beyond the stars.
BOYSBut ah! Down here he is lost to us now. In gardens he wanders no more, fl owers he gath-ers no more. Let us weep and leave him here! Let us weep and stay with him!
CHORUSChildren, return to life! Your tears shall be dried in freshness of air circling water’s edge. Flee the night! Day and joy and continuance are the lot of the living.
BOYSUp! We turn to life again. The day will give us labor and joy, till evening brings us rest, and night refreshing sleep.
CHORUSChildren! Hasten to life! And beauty clothed in raiment pure shall bring you love with heavenly gaze and the crown of immortality!
*** The translation has been modifi ed in order to restore the male pronouns of Goethe’s original.
Table 1 continued
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 23
however, has further than just typological or generic implications for the music—it also infers a fusion of religious outlooks. Titled after a ritual that partakes of the Catholic tradition, that is, an offering on behalf of the dead, this requiem exhibits few of the quali-ties associated with other works that belong in that genre—especially those that utilize the Latin text. Instead of placing emphasis on death and the afterlife, Goethe’s “exequien” text (a word that rather aptly defi nes the Protestant tradition) eulogizes the departed but also comforts those still alive—in other words, it functions as a sort of a Nänie, a song of lamentation, to borrow from Friedrich Schiller’s poetry. Consequently, Schumann’s music alludes to both musical traditions, and his musico-dramatic setting responds not only to the quasi-religious content of the text, but also captures the essence of Goethe’s eccentric protagonist whose me-morial we witness.
The MusicThe opening music (Nos. 1 and 2) func-
tions as a framework for the mourning atmosphere experienced by those gathered at Mignon’s funeral. The work begins with a soft, slow and solemn orchestral introduction (Langsam, feierlich; Figure 1). In less than two measures Schumann establishes a lugubrious C-minor soundworld which, interestingly, seems to have been in existence long before. The dotted eighths in the orchestration al-lude to a funeral march procession, and we can easily imagine this music having started earlier, while the company was being as-sembled in the Hall of the Past. This sense of the music starting in medias res is intensifi ed by the entrance of the chorus on the upbeat of m. 2 on a iv7–V7–i progression—thus we are called to participate in the exchange between the choruses and the boys, but dramatically the ritual has started before even a single note has sounded.
Goethe’s emphasis on the physical ap-pearance of Mignon’s embalmed body in No. 3 is a vivid reminder of life’s ephemeral nature. “Even beauty must die,” apostro-phized Schiller in his famous poem, and Schumann seems to be celebrating the
vis-à-vis Goethe’s original). This music-as-literature approach, whereby the text is taken and used verbatim from a preexisting source, was rather radical for Schumann’s time, and attests to the composer’s rever-ence for Goethe’s text.
Schumann’s score opens not with music, but with Goethe’s description of the Hall of the Past where Mignon’s body lies. The few modifi cations that Schumann made to Goethe’s text warrant a short discussion. As Table 1 indicates, Goethe never called this section of Wilhelm Meister a requiem; in fact, Schumann changed Goethe’s opening line, “Am Abend lud der Abbé zu den Exequien Mignons ein,” to “Am Abend fanden die Exequien für Mignon statt.” He retained the archaic form of “Exequien” to denote the requiem practice—that is, exactly the type of funeral rites that would have taken place in a Protestant setting, as Adolf Nowak has claimed.18 But, although semantically the expression remains the same, changing “Ex-equien Mignons” to “Exequien für Mignon” easily led to the subsequent substitution of “Requiem” for “Exequien.” This alteration,
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon""Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
24 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
ethereal references of the text with the addition of the harp, while also alluding to Mignon’s mysterious relationship with the Harper.19 The texts intertwine as Boys and Chorus freely exchange lines, culminating in a choral exhortation with the text that
should have opened No. 4: “Schaut mit den Augen des Geistes hinan!” (Lift the eyes of the spirit!; Figure 2). The “borrowing” of text from the next section’s opening lines indi-cates Schumann’s desire to use it freely, as a libretto, in order to interpret the dramatic
narrative. Here he chooses to close with this text in order to musically announce the pivotal point that the text of No. 4 holds, as a lament for the departed, before the concluding affi rmation of life (Nos. 5 and 6).
In No. 4, Schumann changes the meter
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 25
to alla breve, and completes his allusion to the parochial musical world of the Baroque with a fragmented quasi-chorale setting starting on “In euch lebe das bildende Kraft” [May in You Dwell the Power], fi rst introduced in closed part harmony by the male voices (Figure 3) and then repeated by the entire chorus (Figure 4). While the Boys still weep for Mignon’s death, the lin-earity of their melodic line is constantly fractured by the insistent interjections of the chorus singing “Schaut hinan, mit den Augen des Geistes hinan” (Figure 5). That was the opening line that Schumann had removed before the chorale, only to bring it back compressed in incessant repetition. For many composers in the nineteenth century, including Schumann, the evocation of the chorale as a sacred musical topos had become a common dialect in their arsenal of musical styles, and its connotations would be recognizable to the wider audiences. The Boys’ dirge, however, fails to achieve its purported goal—instead of regressing into the lamenting atmosphere of the opening, the chorus tears fi ssures in the musical fabric to proclaim a powerful exhortation toward life: “Lift [up] the eyes of the spirit!” Schumann had also followed the same trajectory toward light and exultation in his Faust Szenen.
Goethe’s text continues with an affirmation of life in the form of another ex-hortation by the Chorus. In Schumann’s setting, however, it is not the voices of the chorus but a solo bass singer who synechdochically represents the mass of people urging the
26 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
children to “return to life” (No. 5). The Boys’ voices (two soprano and two alto soloists) emphatically reiterate the message of con-solation for those left behind with subtle reminders from the trumpets that life is a constant battle.
The concluding music (No. 6) emphasizes the optimistic side of death, that of the hope of eternal life, complete with trombones and timpani. Schumann illustrates powerfully the antithesis: from the elegiac C-minor dirges of the fi rst part, we move to an exalted choral peroration in F major, fashioned after the most grandiose Handelian settings. The Chorus continues until the end to incite the children to “hasten to life,” enhanced by the momentary repetition of the Boys’ previous affi rmation that “Auf, wir kehren ins Leben zurück” [Up! We Turn to Life Again]. Their vis-ible presence (note in Table 1 that Schumann deleted Goethe’s description of “invisible”
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon""Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
from his score) seems to gradually fl oat away (or up?) as the music extinguishes into a sustained “auf ” (Figure 6). The last measures exude a serene and elegiac tranquility that parallels Mignon’s contemplative character.
The fact that an excerpt of secular litera-ture becomes connected musically with a genre that for centuries has been associated with biblical text and ecclesiastical context only “projects,” to use Daverio’s words, “a personal, quasi-religious message in universal, humanistic terms.”20 Canceling any pessimis-tic feeling that might arise, Die Requiem für Mignon “is not a morose lament for the dead but rather an exhortation to the living.”21
“Poetic Music”In his distinguished biography on
Schumann, John Daver io descr ibed Schumann’s idiosyncratic compositions for
chorus and orchestra—such as the Faust Szenen, Das Paradies und die Peri, Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, and other similar oratorio-like settings—as products of the composer’s “un-fl inching faith in . . . the possibility of a poetic music.”22 Not surprisingly, Schumann’s idea resonated with Franz Liszt, another fervent advocate of the fusion of music and litera-ture. In his writings, Liszt praised Schumann for broadening “the range of subjects” in his works for chorus and orchestra: “He trans-planted church and theatrical works into the concert hall and thereby discovered poetic terrain no less sublime and pure than that of the oratorio, but not as exclusively reli-gious.”23 He acknowledged that Die Requiem für Mignon “performed the rare service of enriching the consummate creation of a master with a new idea”—that is, the music did not detract from but instead illuminated the content of Goethe’s novel. Liszt saw in
Schumann’s setting of the Exequien a synesthetic image of Goethe’s Mignon described musically in the most perfect hues: “This last lament, this thousand-fold sigh repeated above a grave covering so much suffering and beauty, so much yearning and misfor-tune, is like the fi nal chord of an earthly lot full of pain-ful dissonances.”24
The numerous large- and small-scale works Schumann composed be-tween 1848 and 1849 in a surge of “unbounded creativity,”25 may also speak of the composer’s own renewed interest in writ-ing music for large choral-orchestral forces and the elevated status of these works in his output and critical writings. As Daverio has shown, “for Schumann the combination of instru-mental and vocal forces on a large scale offered an ideal medium for the resolution of the tensions
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 27
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
between freedom and unity,”26 that is, ideas that refl ect Schumann’s own engagement with the revolutionary politics of the time. “Chorus and orchestra lift us beyond our-selves,”27 Schumann quoted in a letter of 1853, the year he also wrote “Neue Bahnen” [New Paths], his famous laudatory article in which he urged the twenty-year-old Brahms to compose for “massed forces, in the cho-rus and orchestra,” since “there lie before us still more wondrous glimpses into the secrets of the spirit world.”28 Daniel Beller-McKenna sees in his Deutsches Requiem the fulfi llment of that prophecy, since in that work Brahms simultaneously “engage[d] the German cultural tradition” and em-barked “on the specifi cally German path as Schumann bade him.”29 Schumann’s own homage to the “German cultural tradition” may lie in his own compositions for chorus and orchestra, and the particular associa-tions to the precarious political atmosphere around the time of the composition of those works.30
Alongside his espousal of romantic tendencies in his compositions, especially evident in their romantic subjectivity and poetic impulses, Schumann continued to look to the past as a source for inspiration and even validation—a trope that perti-nently summarizes his artistic credo. During those mentally and physically demanding years, amidst revolutionary activities that forced the entire family to fl ee Dresden and bouts of depression, Schumann almost sin-glehandedly contributed to the creation of idiosyncratic dramatic works (among them Das Paradies und die Peri and Szenen aus Goethes Faust) that, in the composer’s words, aspired toward “a new genre for the concert hall.”31 Richard Pohl criticized Schumann’s innovative settings as arbitrary Zwichengat-tungen (“generic hybrids”).32 Our cursory look at the Die Requiem für Mignon reveals that Schumann’s “new genre” entails, among other original qualities, an uncompromising synthesis of epic and dramatic elements, shot through with moments of exceptional lyri-cism, that may serve as metaphors for wider cultural, political and religious aspirations
MonumentsMemorials are meant to preserve the
memory of those departed. In Goethe’s novel, Mignon is memorialized via an “aestheticized funeral,”33 which also ac-
complishes the work of mourning—that is, in Freud’s theory, the only successful ac-ceptance of a loss. Like the artist it wished to memorialize, Die Requiem für Mignon also serves as a monument—a monument
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28 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon""Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
that preserves Goethe’s memory not only through his art but in art. In a self-refl exive moment, Schumann seems to be espousing the romantic view that one also becomes immortalized in those who behold the art-work, be it Goethe’s or Schumann’s. In other words, in lieu of mourning, artistic products chosen to memorialize their creators tend to become monuments—and, as Alexander Rehding has recently shown, “[e]ach monu-ment casts a trajectory into the future, set-ting out guidelines for the mode in which the hero is to be remembered.”
On this 200th anniversary of Schumann’ s birth, this author would like to invite us to remember our hero by preserving the legacy of his choral-orchestral music. For institutional, cultural, and other reasons, Die Requiem für Mignon and other such works have become, literally, disembodied—mar-ginalized, very much as Mignon in Goethe’s novel. Outwardly they represent perfect vehicles for the Romantics’ predilection for the lofty and monumental—discourses that often elude us in our complex, post-modern present. At the same time, however, they invite us to commemorate our hero in dazzlingly original forms and exquisitely in-novative styles that Schumann’s “new paths” helped pioneer.
In memory of John Daverio, dear friend and mentor, who fi rst revealed to me the beauty of Schumann’s choral music.
NOTES
1 “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” (from Book 4, Chapter 11) is actually sung by both the Harper and Mignon. Some settings exist as duets, but most composers have included it among Mignon’s solo songs. All translations, unless otherwise noted, come from Eric A. Blackall’s English translation of J. W. von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, vol. 9 in Goethe’s Collected Works (New York: Suhrkamp, 1989).
2 In his encyclopedic (although not always error-free) catalog of Goethe’s works set to music, Willi Schuh credits Mignon’s “Kennst du das Land” with more than eighty-four settings. See Willi Schuh, Goethe- Vertonungen: ein Verzeichnis (Zürich: Artemis-Verlag, 1952).
3 Schumann responded to the early “canonization” of Goethe’s Faust with the Szenen aus Goethes Faust (1844–53), a large-scale dramatic composition in three parts. The setting of the Schlußszene of Faust II, which Schumann called Fausts Verklärung, premiered simultaneously on August 29, 1849, the centenary of Goethe’s birth, in Dresden (with
Schumann conducting), Weimar (where Liszt had organized a lavish series of concerts), and Leipzig (with Julius Rietz).
4 The two Abteilungen share several motivic and thematic relations; see Ulrich Mahlert, Fortschritt und Kunstlied: späte Lieder Robert Schumanns im Licht der liedästhetischen Diskussion ab 1848 (München: Musikverlag E. Katzbichler, 1983), 152– 56.
5 Friedrich Schlegel, “On Goethe’s Meister (1798),” in Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics, ed. J. M. Bernstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 275.
6 Due to her “mesmerizing power and provocative complexity,” Edmunds believes that “she is the most significant character of the work.” See Kathryn R. Edmunds, “‘Ich Bin Gebildet Genug … Um Zu Lieben Und Zu Trauern’: Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship in Mourning,” Germanic Review 71 (1996): 87.
7 Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 320. 8 Ibid., 314 and 320. 9 Ibid., 321.10 She is also given a pair of “big golden wings, …
a lily in one hand and a little basket in the other.” Ibid., 315.
11 Ibid., 322. Note that Goethe retains the ambig-uity of Mignon’s androgynous persona in the funeral scene, with references to “him” instead of “her.” Most literary translations, for reasons of consistency, have chosen to alter Goethe’s male pronouns to female. Following several CD translations, I have modifi ed Blackwell’s translation in Table 1 to refl ect the male pronouns of Goethe’s original.
12 Ibid., 332.13 Ibid., 332–33.14 Catriona MacLeod, Embodying Ambiguity:
Androgyny and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Keller (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 109.
15 Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 352. The discourse on the singers’ disembodied voices in the manner described here has been fascinatingly discussed by Carolyn Abbate, especially in her In Search of Opera (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). According to Abbate, “[s]uch voices are considered divine, or at least supernatural, free of ordinary encumbrances” (6).
16 In his CD recording of the work, John Eliot Gardiner chose to use boys’ voices instead of SATB chorus; the results are dubious at best. See ““Schumann-Gardiner: Das Paradies und die Peri, Requiem für Mignon, Nachtlied.” The Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 29
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner, director. 2 CDs (Hamburg: Archiv, 289 457 660-2, 1999).
17 As in the case of the Requiem für Mignon (but on a much larger scale), Schumann set the narrative of the Faust Szenen as an oratorio, albeit of a hybrid form, since it encompasses diverse stylistic elements borrowed from a variety of genres. More specifical ly, Schumann’s Faust Szenenbetrays a mixture of genres and styles and transcends the boundaries between the sacred and the secular ; it also epitomizes the tendency toward infusing secular literature with a religious impulse, as evident in the Schlußszene from Faust II, a scene clothed musically in sounds that add to the text’s transcendental imagery. On the fusion of secular and religious elements in this
work, see my “‘The Will to Musical Drama’: Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust,” in Faust in Music, edited by Lorna Fitzsimmons (publication forthcoming).
18 See Nowak’s essay in Goethe: Musical Poet, Mu-sical Catalyst, ed. Lorraine Byrne (Dublin, Ireland: Car ysfor t Press, 2004), 283ff. The most famous work of this nature in Protestant Germany was Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien (1636), composed on a variety of Biblical passages. It is commonly believed that this work served as a model for Brahms’s Protestant-inspired German Requiem.
19 Schiller’s Nänie probably dates from the year 1799, but was published in 1800. Brahms wrote the famous choral-orchestral setting of Nänie, Op. 82 in 1880–81, as a memorial
piece for his friend, the painter Anselm Feuerbach. The musical restraint of Brahms’s setting bears numerous similarities with the dignifi ed lament Schumann writes for Mignon.
20 In John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 395. Elsewhere Daverio notes that all of Schumann’s “Requiem settings are affirmative in tone, underscoring as they do the poetic themes of redemption (Manfred, Faust), hope in the future (Requiem für Mignon), and comfor t (‘Ruh’ von schmerzensreichen Mühen’ and Requiem, Op. 148).” He goes on to assert that the Requiem für Mignon “best exemplifies his largely positive stance.” See Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 186.
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30 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon""Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
21 Daverio, Crossing Paths, 186. 22 Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Po-
etic Age,” 395.23 Originally in Liszt’s Gesammelte Schriften, vol.
4 (Leipzig, 1882). Translated as “Robert Schumann (1855),” in Schumann and His World, ed. R. Larry Todd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 349.
24 Ibid., 350. Undoubtedly, Schumann’s approach resonated with his own music aesthetics, which Liszt had already put in print on several occasions.
25 See Daverio’s account in this aptly titled chapter of Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age.”
26 John Daverio, “Einheit—Freiheit—Vaterland: Intimations of Utopia in Robert Schumann’s Late Choral Music,” in Music and German National Identity, ed. Celia Applegate and Pamela Potter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 73.
27 Letter of December 28, 1853 to Carl Meinardus.
Ibid., 73.28 As cited and translated in Oliver Strunk, ed.,
Source Readings in Music History, revised by Leo Treitler (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 1158.
29 Daniel Beller-McKenna, “Brahms, the Bible, and Robert Schumann,” American Brahms Society Newsletter 13/2 (1995): 3. See also his Brahms and the German Spirit (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 37ff. From Brahms’s fi rst biography to recent scholarship, many writers have proposed connections between Schumann and the Deutsches Requiem; see Klaus Blum, Hundert Jahre ein deutsches Requiem von Johannes Brahms (Tutzing: Schneider, 1971), 101ff; Michael Musgrave, The Music of Brahms (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 86; John Daverio, Crossing Paths, 184–88.
30 In 1848, during a period of great “political excitement” over the outbreak of revolutions in Europe, Schumann started, and within a
couple of years completed, a large number of compositions for voices and orchestra. As he noted in a letter of June 17, 1849, to Franz Brendel, it had fallen to him “to tell, in music, of the motivating sorrows and joys of the times”; John Daverio and Eric Sams, “Schumann, Robert,” in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://0-www.oxfordmusiconl ine .com.maur ice .bgsu.edu/subscriber/ar ticle/grove/music/40704 (accessed February 22, 2010).
31 Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 272.
32 See Schumann’s letter of February 6, 1854 to Richard Pohl, in Schumann and His World, ed. R. Larry Todd, 261– 62.
33 Catriona MacLeod, Embodying Ambiguity: Androgyny and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Keller, 109.
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 31
"Whose Mourning? Schumann's Die Requiem für Mignon"
ROBERT SCHUMANN’S
CHOICE OFREPERTORY &
REHEARSALPLANNING IN
HIS CAREERAS A CHORALCONDUCTOR
Gregory W. Harwood
32 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Gregory W. Harwood is professor and director of
graduate studies in music at Georgia Southern Univer-
sity. Archival research at the Robert Schumann Haus
in Zwickau for his Ph.D dissertation on Schumann's
Mass and Requiem (New York University, 1991) pro-
vided much of the data for the present article. Other
research interests include Giuseppe Verdi, nineteenth-
century performance practice, and eighteenth-century
music theory. [email protected]
As a young man on the threshold of marriage, Robert Schumann did not foresee con-ducting as part of his future. He assured his bride-to-be:
Klärchen, in your last let-ter you talked of the “right place,” where you would really like to have me—don’t be so presumptu-ous—I don’t want anything more than a piano with you nearby. You will never be a conductor’s wife as long as you live, but deep down inside we will be a match for any conduc-tor and his wife. Isn’t that right?1
Only a few years later, however, Robert began to reconsider his position, viewing a formal conducting position as a desir-able means to supplement his income from compositions and to gain greater recognition and prestige.2
Ultimately, choral conduct-ing came to occupy a major part of Schumann’s musical activities during his last six active years as a professional musician. He fi rst entered this sphere of activity on November 20, 1847, when he assumed, for a short time, direction of a male Liedertafel in Dresden. In a burst of enthusiasm immediately after rehearsing them for the fi rst time on one of his own pieces, “Blüth oder Schnee” on November 27, he began to consider the es-tablishment of his own mixed choir.3 The fi rst mention of this occurs in his Haushaltbücher on November 29 (“Idea about a Choral Society”), and its ensuing development can be traced in subsequent entries over the next
fi ve weeks. During this time, he planned the organization of the group, hand-picked prospec-tive members, issued formal invitations to join, and began to consider potential repertory. The new ensemble fi rst met on January 5, 1848, and soon thereafter began presenting a series of private performances at irregular intervals before in-vited guests. At fi rst, therefore, conducting brought Schumann neither the additional income nor the greater prestige he had desired; instead, it was fueled by sheer delight and satisfac-tion in hearing, rehearsing, and performing choral repertory, both his own compositions and works by others.
An entry from Clara’s diary in mid-December 1847 shows that a major motivation for establish-ing the new group was the op-portunity to perform neglected repertory:
Robert is presently caught up, both body and soul, organizing a choral society for mixed voices, which he has christened the “Cäcelienverein.” Its main purpose is to rehearse new larger compositions and Lieder [part-songs]. To-morrow, the invitations go out—may they be greeted with many positive re-sponses. I hope this is the case, for since the Sing- akademie chooses only sacred compositions, there is so little opportunity for performing this genre of music. It would make me very happy if in this way Robert created an agreeable area of activity for himself, as just such a task is well suited for him.4
34 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
SCHUMANN'S CHOICE SCHUMANN'S CHOICE
Clara’s comment about the intended repertory to be studied—“new larger compositions and Lieder”—is noteworthy, as she and Robert certainly must have been discussing the diffi culty in fi nding perfor-mance opportunities for works such as his recently completed Fausts Verklärung, a set-ting of the fi nal scene of Goethe’s drama for soloists, mixed chorus, and orchestra. Clara, in fact, was just fi nishing a piano reduction of the orchestral score, which she played in its entirety for her husband on New Year’s Eve 1847.5
Robert’s correspondence shows how he began collecting repertory for his new group during the weeks before it fi rst met. On December 1, only a few days after his fi rst thoughts about forming a new choir, he wrote the publisher Whistling asking him to send, as soon as possible, part-songs for mixed voices by Mendelssohn, Fanny Hensel (Gartenlieder), Gade, Taubert, Spohr, and Marschner.6 He followed up on December 22, asking Whistling for copies of sacred choral music, and urging him to send any part-songs he had located right away:
I need most urgently the second and third volumes of Commer’s Musica sacra (Bote und Bock), as well as the second par t of the Sammlung vorzüglicher Gesangstückeby F. Rochlitz (Schott). Send them to me immediately through the
mail, and include what you yourself have procured for me in four-part songs. Of the latter, I do not need everything at once, but what you have located, send to me. To my joy, my new choral society is growing greatly (over 100 members); I am also taking joy in the Liedertafel. In other words, this activity is exactly well suited for me. Answer me immediately.7
On the same day, he wrote Franz Brendel, asking for the loan of older choral pieces for his mixed chorus. This inquiry produced a Psalm setting by Giovanni Clari, a small piece by Giovanni Maria Nanini, an Improperiaand Miserere by Allegri, and an anthology edited by Christian Karl Gottfried von Tucher containing works by Palestrina, Anerio, and Vittoria.8
From these letters, it is clear that Robert conceived of three broad types of repertory for his mixed choral group: new, larger secu-lar pieces; part-songs; and classical sacred choral music. According to Marie von Linde-man, one of the group’s singers, Schumann specifi cally noted his intentions to survey a comprehensive repertory at his fi rst meeting with the choir :
It was on the fi fth of January 1848 that, at the written invitation of Dr. Robert Schumann, a company of
ladies and gentlemen gathered in the Garden Room of the Gesellschaft “Harmonie” in Dresden to found a new choral society. Having been greeted and welcomed by Robert and Clara Schumann, the assembled immediately received a personal impression through both of these artists that gave this fi rst gathering a notable solemnity. After a short speech, in which Robert Schumann expressed the v iew that the foremost foundation of a choral society ought to be the cultivation of tone, we sang a choral solfege that Schumann had composed for this purpose (I sang alto with them). It was a lyrical piece of music, built on the foundation of the musical scale. Then, before we proceeded to other choral pieces, Robert Schumann also expressed his chief intent was to cultivate newer music in the new society without, however, excluding older classical works. We next deliberated about the name of the new society. At fi rst, Schumann wanted to call it the Cecilian Society. But since at that time a Choral Society with this name was already in existence in Dresden, so it was called, at Robert Schumann’s suggestion, simply Choral Society [Chorgesangverein]. From then on, the Society gathered every Wednesday evening and its members increased.9
Schumann’s choice of specifi c reper-tory and his rehearsal organization in the new group is thoroughly documented in primary sources such as correspondence, daily entries in his Haushaltbücher, and above all, in the still unpublished Chorgesangverein Notizbuch, now located in the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau.10 Into this notebook, Schumann meticulously entered the repertory for each rehearsal and con-cert of his Chorgesangverein in Dresden and later, the Gesang-Musikverein in Düsseldorf (Tables 1and 2). The Notizbuch shows that in Dresden, Robert usually selected three or four pieces for each rehearsal, typically including both contemporary and classical literature, and both larger and shorter works.
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* Partial performance of the work.Numbers in brackets represent rehearsals or/and performances not conducted by SchumannAll data is compiled from the Chorgesangverein Notizbuch, currently housed at the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau, Sig. 4871 VII C, 7 A3. Title variants have been confl ated into a single entry, and individual titles have been inferred when Schumann notes comments such as "Die früheren Stücke," "Dasselbe," "Desgleiche," etc. for a particular date.
Entries that show a performance, but no rehearsal in Dresden probably fall into one of three situations: (1) The piece was sight-read at an informal performance, (2) The piece was rehearsed at an informal rehearsal that was not noted in the Chorverein Notizbuch, as happened the evening before the fi rst Sängerfarth (see note 20 of this article), or (3) The piece was rehearsed by one of Schumann's assistants, and he did not enter it into the Chorverein Notizbuch.
NOTES
1 Schumann lists "Über allen Gipfeln" at the fi rst rehearsal in the Chorgesangverein Notizbuch; it is not known if the group repeated this work or learned other pieces by Hauptmann in later rehearsals.
2 The program for the group's second concert on April 30, 1848, list "Morgengebet," "Der erste Frühlingstag," and "Abschied vom Walde" as specifi c part-songs by Mendelssohn (Robert Schumann, Tagebücher, 4:765, Note 637). What other part-songs they may have learned is not known.
3 Anna Zinggeler, a blind singer from Zurich (see Tagebücher, 4:923).
Table 1 -Repertoire Rehearsed and Performed in Dresden
Composer
AnerioBach, J. S.Bach, J. S.Bach, J. S.Bach, J. S.Bach, J. S.Bach, J. S.BaiBeethovenBeethovenCherubiniClariGadeGadeGallusHandelHauptmannKrugMendelssohnMendelssohnMendelssohnMendelssohnMendelssohnMendelssohnMerkel, G.NaniniNaumannPalestrinaPalestrinaSchubertSchubertSchubert SchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumann SchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumann, ClaraSeiffertZingerle
Work
Christus factus estBefi ehl du diene Weg (Chorale)Du Hirte Israel [Cantata 104]Gottes Zeit is die allerbeste Zeit [Cantata 106]Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht [Cantata 105]Psalm 117 [Lobet den Herrn; Motet No. 6]St. John PassionMiserere für 2 ChöreMeerestille und glückliche FahrtMissa solemnisRequiemDe profundisComalaPart-Songs (unspecifi ed)Medio in vitaJepthePart-Song(s)1
FestgesangAthaliaPart-Songs (unspecifi ed)2
Motet, Op 69/1 [Herr, nun lässet Du]Motet, Op 69/2 [Jauchzet dem Herrn]Motet, Op 69/3 [Mein Herz erhebet Gott]Motet für Frauenstimmen [Op 39?]Motetunspecifi ed piecePart-Song(s)Fratres ego enimLauda anima meaMiriams SiegesgesangPsalm für Frauenstimmen Op 123Ständchen ( Alt Solo mit Chor)Adventlied[Szenen aus Goesthes Faust]. Fausts Verklärung[Szenen aus Goesthes Faust]. Ach neige & Scene in DomNachtliedPart-Songs (unspecifi ed)Part-Songs, Op. 29*Part-Songs, Op. 55*Part-Songs, Op. 59*Part-Songs: An die Sterne [Op. 141/1]Part-Songs: Canons für Männerstimmen [Op. 65]Part-Songs: Patriotische Gesänge [Op. 62]Part-Songs: Patriotische Gesänge [WoO 4/2-3]Part-Songs: Romanzen und BalladenPart-Songs: Romanzen fur FraüenchorDas Paradies und die PeriRequiem für MignonPart-SongsPart-Song(s)Gesang der blinden Sängerin3
Rehearsals
113135
32 + [5]288
14 + [5]1
13 + [5]131142073259151101271
4 + [5]1 7
26 + [1]4225843 1111314173201
Performances
000000
3***001*1*0
1, 1*30001144200001200200 210411100 000021210
36 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
The only exceptions to this pattern occurred when the group was preparing a large work for performance, and then entire rehearsals were devoted to that single piece.
As the Chorgesangverein began rehears-als, two “new larger works,” as Clara called them, almost immediately came to the fore. The fi rst of these was Niels Gade’s can-tata Comala. Schumann had attended the premiere performance of this work with Mendelssohn in Leipzig two years earlier and had noted a favorable impression of it in his diary.11 The work’s “Ossianic” style clearly appealed to him, since he later adopted many of its stylistic traits when he composed
his own choral-orchestral ballads in the early 1850s.12 Schumann made the deci-sion to feature Comala in the group’s fi rst performance quite quickly, for he rehearsed it consistently from the second week until the choir’s maiden concert in late March. Robert’s choice of his new Faust music as the second larger work undertaken by the choir is not surprising. Small sections of it were rehearsed on February 23 and March 29, 1848, but in early May, the choir began concentrated rehearsals of the entire com-position, leading to its fi rst complete perfor-mance in late June. This was a much larger undertaking for the choir than Comala, not
only because the music was more demanding, but also because Schumann determined to use full or-chestral accompaniment in this performance. He employed the Dresden Cour t Orchestra for this purpose, as well as a string quartet to assist in one of the fi nal rehears-als.13 The private nature of this performance, like all others done by the Dresden group, can be seen in an invitation that Schumann sent to his friend Carl Banck:
If you should be free next Sunday at 11:00 in the morning, I invite you to a small private performance of the Cho r ge s an g ve r e i n i n w h i c h , a m o n g other things, we will present (or, in reality, rehearse) a new piece of mine, the closing scene from Part II of Goethe’s Faust (Faust’s Redempt ion) ,—for s i n c e t h e c h a p e l musicians join us out of courtesy, more than one rehearsal is not possible. Therefore I also ask you to regard
the whole as a private thing, which I do not want repor ted in the public newspapers; at the same time, however, as a beginning of reestablishment of earlier sociable re la t ionsh ips between us , the abrogation of which neither I nor perhaps you yourself intended. At least, I want to believe it so.14
This successful performance of the daunting Faust music represented a new ze-nith for the Chorgesangverein. Both Comala and Fausts Verklärung became staples for the Dresden Chorgesangverein: choruses from
Performances
[1]*111
3†††[1]1†111*1111111†
1 10111†11
[1]1*11112
Rehearsals
96 + [3]15 + [1]
5 112685
7 + [1]8 + [1]
11351
10 + [3]4110
3 + [1][2]5
5 + [1]3
6 + [3]43
4 + [1]9 9
Composer
Bach, J. S.Bach, J. S.Bach, J. S.BeethovenBeethovenBeethovenCherubiniGadeGluckHandelHandelHandelHandelHandelHauptmannHaydnHaydnHillerMendelssohnMendelssohnMendelssohnPalestrinaSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumannSchumann
Work
B Minor MassSt. Matthew PassionSt. John PassionChoral FantasyMesse in CNinth SymphonyMesse in CComalaOrpheus, aus der 2ten ActDettinger Te DeumIsrael in EgyptJoshuaMessiasPsalm 100Messe in G MollJahreszeitenMesse Nr. 1 in B fl at ["Harmoniemesse"]O weint um sieweint um sieElias. ChöreErste WalpurgisnachtLoreley. FinaleResponsorienAdventliedDer KönigssohnFaust. Scene in DomMesseNachtliedNeujahrsliedRequiem für MignonRose PilgerfahrtVom Pagen und der Königstochter
Table 2 -Repertoire Rehearsed and Performed in Düsseldorf
* Partial performance of the work. † Liturgical Performance in one of the churches.Numbers in brackets represent rehearsals or/and performances not conducted by Schumann
All data are compiled from the Chorgesangverein Notizbuch, currently housed at the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau, Sig. 4871 VII C, 7 A3. Title variants have been confl ated into a single entry, and individual titles have been inferred when Schumann noted comments such as "Die früheren Stücke," "Dasselbe," "Desgleiche," etc. for a particular date.
Entries that show a performance, but no rehearsal in Düsseldorf were probably rehearsed by Schumann's assistant, and the rehearsals were not entered into the Chorverein Notizbuch.
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 37
Comala made their way into occasional re-hearsals, and the fi nal chorus was performed again in February 1849. The group returned to Fausts Verklärung during the summer of 1849, culminating in a second complete performance for the Goethe centenary celebrations.15 Intermittently, Schumann also tried out several new Faust scenes with his choir as he completed them.
Almost immediately after the fi rst Faust performance in early summer 1848, a spe-cial opportunity to perform Das Paradies und die Peri led to intensive rehearsals on that work from mid-September through the beginning of December. The Peri revival was to take place as a benefi t concert in early January and would feature Schumann’s choral group augmented by members of the
Dresden Kreuzchor and the Court Chapel. Immediately following the Peri performance, Schumann decided to devote the Chorge-sangverein’s forthcoming concert, coinciding with the group’s second-year anniversary, to Mendelssohn’s complete incidental music for Jean Racine’s play Athalia. This performance, another large venture, took place on January 31, 1850, after six rehearsals devoted solely to it. Thus, during almost seven months—July 1849 to January 1850, the Chorgesangverein focused on a few large-scale choral-orchestral works rather than a more varied mixture of repertory that characterized rehearsals and concerts before and after this time period. Other large-scale secular works in the choir’s repertory included Beethoven’s Meerestille und glückliche Fahrt, which the Verein never
performed, despite eight rehearsals, and Schumann’s newly composed Requiem für Mignon, which they premiered in a version with piano accompaniment during their fi nal performance under his direction on May 8, 1850.
The Notizbuch shows that part-songs constituted a major part of the Dresden Chorgesangverein’s repertory, and that Robert frequently used them in rehears-als to balance longer, more diffi cult pieces. Schumann had previously composed a num-ber of part-songs, many of which had not yet received a public performance. These included the Op. 29 Geibel songs with piano accompaniment, the part-songs to texts by Robert Burns, Op. 55, and the Vier Gesänge, Op. 59, written in early 1846 for Felix Men-
38 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
delssohn’s newly founded Liederkranz in Leipzig. As seen in Table 1, Schumann soon incorporated all of these earlier part-songs into the Chorgesangverein’s repertory. Even more signifi cantly, he began to compose new part-songs with his own group in mind, notably four sets of Romanzen und Balladen for mixed voices and two sets of Romanzen for women’s voices.16 At times, Robert introduced his own part-songs to his choir immediately upon composition. On April 5, 1849, for example, he rehearsed “Patriotisches Gesänge,” which must have been the “Freiheitslied”and “Schwarz, Roth, Gold,” which he had just fi nished compos-ing.17 The same week, he also scheduled an extra rehearsal on Sunday, April 1, devoted
solely to his newly completed Balladen and Frauenromanzen. In cases like these, early rehearsals of new pieces no doubt served as trial performances, giving the composer the opportunity to evaluate his new creations and revise them. Next to his own part-songs, part-songs by Mendelssohn and Niels Gade were most frequently rehearsed. Several amateur composers who were members of the Chorgesangverein also contributed part-songs, often for commemorative oc-casions. Notable among these was a set of three songs Clara set to texts by Emanuel Geibel.18 She had composed them and had fi rst had them performed by a few members of the choir as a surprise birthday present for Robert in June 1848.19 Later, the full choir
rehearsed her set four times and performed them twice.
Part-songs occupied a prominent place in informal performances, such as the one on September 12, 1848, celebrating Clara’s 29th birthday, or during one of the group’s Sängerfarthen to the country. In these sur-roundings, the genial style of the part-song repertory blended perfectly with the con-viviality of the excursion and the German Romantic love for nature. Marie von Linde-man left a description of the fi rst of these excursions, held on Sunday, July 16, 1848, after a short rehearsal the evening before:20
In order always to provide a close bond among the Society, social
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gatherings and outings were also ar ranged, pr imar i ly through a manager [Eduard Bertheldes] who was very skilled at doing this. The fi rst of the latter, which I can never forget, had as its destination Meissen, which was interesting from many standpoints. A steamboat brought us there on a beautiful summer morning. Schumann was in the most cheerful spirits, possessed by a gentle humor…. Having arrived in Meissen, we fi rst climbed the many stairs towards the cathedral plaza and sang there in a grape arbor, from which there was the most magnifi cent view of the lovely Elbe valley. Here, the songs rang out fresh and festive in the clear morning air. Then we entered the magnifi cent cathedral, where we had acquired permission to sing as well. A somber chorale solemnly sounded through these vaulted halls. The Albrechtsburg was not yet rebuilt at that time, so without visiting it, we wandered in the lovely Triebischthal, where a good lunch awaited us; also here we enjoyed singing. Even a thunderstorm did not disturb our merriment, and in the evening we went back on the railway to our beloved Dresden.21
The Chorgesangverein Notizbuch lists the repertory for this outing as part-songs by Robert, Clara, Mendelssohn, and Gade. In a second summer outing a few weeks later, the group went to Pillnitz, where the group sang for King Friedrich August II of Saxony at his summer palace. The choir had planned to return to Dresden in the royal gondolas. This perk had been offered by Prince Albert, the King’s nephew and a former law student of the choir’s business manager, August Otto Krug. Unfortunately, bad weather stymied this plan.22 Repertory for this trip included part-songs by Robert, Mendelssohn, and Gade, and a motet by Mendelssohn. On a third Sängerfarth, on June 24, 1849, the group traveled to Kreischa, where Robert had just stayed for a month during the revolutionary uprisings in Dresden. Here, the group sang part songs by Schumann, Men-delssohn, and Gade, Mendelssohn’s motet Jauchzet dem Herrn, and a birthday song by
August Otto Krug.As signifi cant as secular choral music was
to the repertory of the Chorgesangverein, Robert was equally devoted to sacred choral music, which provided opportunities for the group to explore stylistic diversity and to delve into classical repertory from the past. Schumann brought a rich knowledge of this classical repertory from his own self-study, as well as his encounters with Justus Anton Thibaut in Heidelberg,23 from his work as reviewer and editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and from his active participation in the rich concert life in Leipzig. Schumann explicitly acknowledged his commitment to historicism in a diary entry from July 9, 1841:
For a long time I have also thought about looking back even further at earlier music (from before Bach’s era) with Clara. We have but little knowledge of the early works of the Italians, the Netherlanders, and even the Germans. And indeed, it is so necessary that an artist be able to account for the entire history of his art.24
Schumann clearly saw his study of classical choral music with the Dresden choir as
part of his responsibility to provide the singers with a broad background in choral masterworks from the past. The group nev-er performed a substantial number of these classical choral pieces, and some were only rehearsed once or twice. Indeed, Schumann specifi cally focused some of his attention on sight-singing challenging repertory in order to acquaint the choir members with a broader range of music. On July 5, 1848, he confi ded to Franz Brendel:
My [choral] societies bring me much joy, especially the one for full chorus. We are now sight-singing Beethoven’s Missa solemnisso that one can at least become knowledgeable about it, and it makes me happy when they must plow through it through thick and thin. But it will also be rehearsed when the time for it comes. Also Gade’s Comala.25
Schumann first broached religious choral repertory with his Dresden choir by introducing them to sixteenth-century Italian church music. By the end of January 1848, the group began rehearsing Palestrina’s “Lauda anima mea” and soon afterwards,
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42 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Palestrina’s “Fratres ego enim,” which Robert selected to conclude their fi rst concert. He wrote Brendel:
With many thanks, I am in your debt for the music scores that you sent, especially for Palestrina. At times, his music truly sounds like music of the spheres—and what art there is along with it! I truly believe that he is the greatest musical genius that Italy has produced.26
Schumann also rehearsed early Italian church music by Felice Anerio, Giovanni Maria Nani-ni, Tommaso Bai, and J. Gallus with the group.
The religious work that engendered the
most enthusiasm from Schumann was J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion. “Do you know Bach’s St. John Passion, the so-called little one?” he wrote fellow-conductor Georg Otten:
Of course! But do you not fi nd it much bolder, powerful, and more poetic than the one according to the Gospel of Matthew? The latter seems to me to be written about 5–6 years earlier, not free from tedium, and then most of all, massively long. The other, by contrast: how concise, how ingenious, especially in its choruses, and what art! If only the world could see such things clearly. But no one writes about it—only the musical journals possibly take a stab at it at times, but once again they falter precisely because those who write for them lack the proper knowledge and conviction. And so it goes, and so it will always be. But something must be left for the few scattered, genuine men of art. So it is with Palestrina, Bach, and with the late Beethoven quartets, etc.27
Although Schumann was mistaken in his understanding of the place of the St. John Passion in Bach’s compositional chronology and stylistic development, his great love for the work resulted in it receiving the most rehearsals of any single piece that he did with his Dresden choir. However, while choruses from the St. John Passion were included in three different programs, no complete performance of the work emerged until Schumann began work in Düsseldorf.
The Dresden choir also studied larger religious works such as Cherubini’s C Mi-nor Requiem (the fi rst three movements of which were performed), Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (of which only the Kyrie was performed), and Handel’s Jepthe, (which was rehearsed fourteen times, but never performed). Smaller religious choral pieces included works such as Schubert’s setting of Psalm 23 for women’s voices with piano accompaniment and a cappella motets by Mendelssohn and J. S. Bach. Rehearsal fre-quency suggests that Mendelssohn’s three motets, Op. 69, were among Schumann’s favorite religious works. The group began
work on No. 1, “Herr, nun lässest Du deinen Diener in Frieden fahren,” in late February 1848 and spent all of March polishing it. Ultimately, it was rehearsed nine times and included in four programs—the most of any single shorter work except possibly some part-songs, which were rarely identifi ed by title. In February 1849, the choir then moved on to No. 2 in the set, “Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt,” which they rehearsed eleven times and performed twice. In April 1850, they fi nally arrived at No. 3 in the set, “Mein Herz erhebet Gott, den Herrn,” but with Schumann’s impending move to Düsseldorf, it was not rehearsed again and was never performed by the group.
Just as Schumann’s choral conducting work in Dresden led him to turn more of his compositional attention toward secular part-songs and choral/orchestral music, his intensive work with sacred choral music became an important impetus in his deci-sion to begin composing religious choral music. His fi rst self-described venture in this area, a setting of Friedrich Rückert’s Advent-lied, was a devotional piece, and it started him on the path that would lead to more traditional and formidable religious projects, such as the Mass, Requiem, and the never realized Luther oratorio. Schumann signaled this turning point in his compositional career in a letter to Eduard Kruger in late 1849, in which he wrote: “I have also turned to the church, and not without trepidation. Take a look sometime at my setting of Rückert’s Adventlied, although from the beginning it was written for a weaker chorus (weaker in performance).”28
Schumann’s fi nal years in Dresden were extremely productive, not only in his work with his choir, but also in his compositional output. Yet his work with the Chorgesang-verein did not offer the benefi ts of a formal, paid position, and when such an opportunity arose in Düsseldorf, he took it after an extended period grappling with the decision.29 The move from Dresden to Düsseldorf marked a major dividing point in Robert’s career. Despite his concerns about the provincial nature of the city and the quality of the musicians, the job offered him a title, with its accompanying prestige, a chance to work with a well established
SCHUMANN'S CHOICE SCHUMANN'S CHOICE
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 43
choir as well as a community orchestra, and perhaps most importantly for him, a salary that would provide income over and above his sale of compositions. This benefi t would have become increasingly attractive to him with the strained resources created by his growing family.
Even before his arrival in Düsseldorf, Robert wrote to Joseph Euler, chair of the board of directors of the Allgemeiner Musikverein, about his ideas for perfomance repertory during the forthcoming season: Bach’s St. John Passion, Mendelssohn’s last three motets, and Gade’s Comala or Man-gold’s Hermannsschlacht.30 Not surprisingly, Schumann focused on familiar repertory that he had already performed with the
Dresden choir : his fi rst program in Düs-seldorf featured a complete performance of Comala with orchestral accompaniment, and the following spring, he conducted a complete performance of his beloved St. John Passion for a subscription concert on Palm Sunday.31
Despite returning to these two favorites, however, Schumann’s repertory in Düssel-dorf shows a marked shift from the Dres-den years due to a number of distinctive circumstances. First, he had the benefi t of an affi liate orchestra, the Allgemeiner Musikv-erein, which traditionally performed with the Gesang-Musikverein in an established cycle of subscription concerts and liturgi-cal Mass performances. Furthermore, the
Gesang-Musikverein had been in existence for more than thirty years, and therefore had a substantial, established repertory of music. The rehearsal schedule in Düsseldorf was more intensive than in Dresden, with rehearsals scheduled twice a week, except for occasional cancellations when more time was needed with the orchestra prior to a concert. And the performances themselves were public events, scheduled long ahead as a subscription series, placing Schumann un-der increased pressure to prepare repertory in relatively short bursts of time and limiting turn-around time between performances.32
The effect of these constraints can be seen in the choral repertory Schumann chose during his tenure in Düsseldorf
Herff Jones
44 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
(Table 2). The association with the orchestra focused the repertory almost completely toward larger-scale choral-orchestral works and consequently away from the part-songs and a cappella church music that consti-tuted a signifi cant part of the repertory in Dresden. Entries in the Chorgesangverein Notizbuch from the Düsseldorf period show that Robert seldom rehearsed works that the group did not perform. Even the organization of individual rehearsals changed substantially: each session typically included only two pieces, as opposed to the broader, more varied approach in Dresden, which often included three, four, or more pieces each rehearsal. These constraints may have been one reason that led Robert to establish an informal, but short-lived, Singekränzchen of about 30 singers in October 1851, which rotated meetings among the homes of its members. Clara reported in her diary that the purpose of this group was primarily to sing compositions that weren’t rehearsed in the larger groups, such as “part-songs, pieces from operas, social pieces [Stücke
für Begleitung], etc.”33 Although Clara wrote that the Singekränzchen was to meet fort-nightly, entries from Robert’s Haushaltbücher indicate that they actually met almost every week from October 1851 through Febru-ary 1852, typically on Sunday evenings. One additional rehearsal was noted on April 18, 1852. Unfortunately, Schumann did not enter rehearsal details in his Chorgesangverein Notizbuch; therefore, the few indications we have about this group’s repertory come from occasional comments in his Haus-haltbücher. In each of those cases, the group tried out one of Robert’s new compositions notably Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, Der Königssohn, and the Mass.34 This suggests that other functions of the Singekränzchen were to provide trial rehearsals of Schumann’s new pieces before introducing them to the full choir and to familiarize a core group of sing-ers with a new piece in order to expedite its initial rehearsals with the larger group.
With the full Gesang-Musikverein, Schumann delved intensively into large-scale choral-orchestral works by Bach and Handel,
no doubt spurred on by the availability of an orchestra.35 The sole Handel work Robert had selected in Dresden was Jepthe, and no part of it was ever performed. By contrast, the Düsseldorf choir mounted performances of Israel in Egypt, Joshua, and Messiah, in ad-dition to Psalm 100 and a major portion of the Dettinger Te Deum.36 While the Gesang-Musikverein had previously performed many of these pieces, the performance of Israel in Egypt on December 21, 1850 was a fi rst for them. This oratorio, with its surfeit of cho-ruses, affected Schumann so much that he described it as his ideal of a choral work in a letter to Richard Pohl, his prospective libret-tist for a never realized Luther oratorio. Rob-ert further instructed Pohl that he wanted the chorus to play as important role in Lutheras it did in Israel in Egypt, including the use of double choruses in the closing numbers of each major part of the work.37Schumann had fi rst initiated contact with Pohl about possible collaboration on a Luther oratorio on January 19, 1851,38 shortly after the per-formance of Israel in Egypt and the receipt of a letter from August Strackerjan, a young army lieutenant, who urged him to write an oratorio in the tradition of Handel. “Your labor has been so extraordinary in the realm of instrumental and vocal music,” Strackerjan wrote on December 28, 1850,
that the only wish I yet nurture is to see you produce a large oratorio, through which, better than any other form, you might be able to win the acknowledgment and the hearts of all true friends of music. The era of sacred oratorios appears to be past; however, you have been called to give a new impetus to this branch of music as well. Might not your friends, the friends of noble and serious music, hope that you will fulfi ll their wish?39
Schumann responded on January 13, 1851:
To turn one’s energies toward sacred music surely remains the highest goal of the artist. But in youth, we all are still so fi rmly rooted to the ground with its joys and sorrows;
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[however] with increasing maturity, our branches endeavor to grow higher. And so I hope that this time for my endeavor is also not too far in the future.40
Although the Luther oratorio never pro-gressed past the initial planning stages, it represents a prime example of how signifi -cantly Robert’s work as a choral conductor infl uenced his own compositional plans.
In the performance of choral works by J. S. Bach, two concerts that stand out during Schumann’s tenure as a conductor in Düs-seldorf were complete renditions of the St. John Passion on Palm Sunday 1851 and of the St. Matthew Passion on Palm Sunday the
following year. With Schumann’s particular fondness for the St. John Passion, it does not come as a surprise that he contemplated the ambitious task of performing this work in its entirety even before he arrived in Düsseldorf.41The preparation to mount this performance was formidable, not only in rehearsing the diffi cult music with the sing-ers, but also in preparing a working edition of the piece itself. Schumann’s copy of the 1831 fi rst edition of the full score, the only published edition available at the time, is full of his markings for this performance, includ-ing cuts, annotations, and modernization of the orchestral scoring.42 The annotated score indicates that Schumann omitted No. 18, 26, 33, and 34 in this performance; No.
32 was originally cut, but later restored.43
Notwithstanding these omissions, Robert chose to include the full recitative passages that were usually not performed at the time. As he returned borrowed performance material to Moritz Hauptmann, cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, he offered some details about his concert and about his editorial decisions in adapting the work for a modern performance:
With much thanks, I am returning the parts for the St. John Passion. They ser ved my purpose ver y well and above all, what a festivity it was to hear all of the music, complete and with orchestra! …
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As much as I concur with most of your cuts, especially the recitatives; nonetheless, I have performed almost the entirety of it as it stands in the original. The closing chorale alone I would never omit in any event: it has the greatest effect after the elegiac C Minor chorus. Otherwise the performance, which, by the way, cost me much effor t, went very well. We strengthened the chorales with 50 boys’ voices…. I think often about the Bach Foundation, and being far away from Leipzig, regret being able to do so little for it. I have not heard anything about the original manuscript of the B-Minor Mass. Where I might be able to do
something in editing this or another work, send it to me, and I will do it to my best ability….44
The success of the St. John Passion no doubt led Schumann to decide to mount the St. Matthew Passion during the following Easter season. However, Robert was out of town for some of its rehearsals and sick during others, so that much of the rehearsal was led by the group’s assistant director, Julius Tausch.
In addition to his concert performances with the Gesang-Musik Verein, Schumann was required to conduct liturgical per-formances of concerted Masses in local churches as an additional requirement of his contract in Düsseldorf. The Haushaltbücher
and Notizbuch indicate that these occurred twice annually, once during the early summer at the Lambertuskirche on the feast day of Corpus Christi, and once in the fall at the Maximilianskirche on the Sunday nearest October 12, the feast day of St. Maximilian, Bishop of Lorch. With pressure to rehearse works for the subscription concerts, espe-cially during the fall, Schumann seems to have chosen works that presumably were already in the group’s repertory and that did not require extensive rehearsal: Beethoven’s Mass in C (which he used 3 times), Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, Cherubini’s Mass in C Major, and Moritz Hauptmann’s Mass in G Minor. Additionally, it appears that responsories or similar works were performed in one of the
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 47
churches on Maundy Thursday: Schumann directed a performance of responsories attributed to Palestrina on April 15, 1851.45
The following year, Schumann was ill during Holy Week, but the Chorgesangverein No-tizbuch shows that his assistant Julius Tausch rehearsed Lotti’s Crucifi xus, along with an unspecifi ed sixteenth-century responsory. Schumann had apparently selected these pieces, since one of his planning notebooks lists a Miserere by Orlando di Lasso and a Crucifi xus by Lotti under the heading “Music for a Thursday.”46
Robert’s church responsibilities in Düs-seldorf no doubt provided an impetus for composing his own Mass in February 1852, after which he also wrote a Requiem Mass in April. Two program drafts in the Düsseldorf Notizbuch show that Schumann had con-sidered including the fi rst two movements of his new Mass in a concert performance during one of the fi nal two programs of the 1851–52 season.47 However, the liturgical performance of a concerted Mass in the Lambertuskirche on Corpus Christi in 1852 offered an ideal opportunity to premiere the entire work. Several events suggest that he began the composition of his Mass with this event in mind. The structure of his partly autographed full score indicates that Robert took the unusual step of giving his working draft to his copyist in sections as he complet-ed them, rather than after fi nishing the entire work. This allowed him to begin orchestra-tion of the copied parts much more quickly. Furthermore, a payment to the copyist for vocal parts recorded in the Haushaltbücher on March 23 shows that Schumann had initiated the preparation of performance parts even before the work was fully orches-trated. These elaborate preparations suggest that Robert regarded the projected partial performance in the concert series as a step toward presenting the entire work shortly thereafter on Corpus Christi. A further in-dication of this plan was the inclusion of an part for organ in the orchestration, which would have only been possible in a church performance. But despite these efforts, Schumann reverted to Beethoven’s C Major Mass as a old standby when he conducted the liturgical performance on June 10, 1852, and a partial concert performance of the
fi rst two movements of his own Mass was delayed for another year until his benefi t concert in April 1853.
Secular choral repertory played a less signifi cant role in Schumann’s Düsseldorf repertory than sacred music. Robert’s own
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48 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
SCHUMANN'S CHOICE SCHUMANN'S CHOICE
works came to dominate the secular part of the repertory, including several short pieces composed in Dresden, the Nachtlied and Requiem für Mignon, his new secular orato-
rio, Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, and several choral-orchestral ballads, largely patterned after the style of Gade’s Comala that he admired so much. Two of these were performed,
Der Königssohn and Vom Pagen und der Königstochter. Few secular works by other composers appear: notably Gade’s Comala, which was featured in his fi rst concert with the group, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Ninth Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Erste Walpurgisnacht and the fi nale to Loreley.
Robert’s work with his Dresden choir probably best represents his own ideas and conceptions about organization and repertory choice for both rehearsals and performances, since the group was com-pletely independent and under his control. His work there shows a strong systematic bent, exploring both recent and older reper-tory, both large-scale and small-scale pieces, and both diffi cult and more simple music. In Düsseldorf, conditions of his employment led to abandoning a cappella repertory, both sacred and secular, and focusing on larger-scale choral orchestral works, notably by J. S. Bach and Handel. Not only did Schumann’s work as a choral conductor bring him great personal joy, but it also infl uenced his stylistic development and compositional plans, par-ticularly in writing more large-scale choral-orchestral pieces and religious works.48
Schumann touched on both these infl u-ences in advice he gave to Ludwig Meinar-dus, an aspiring young composer. After urging Meinardus to locate scores and study the works of old Italian masters, Robert cau-tioned that it was not enough “to imagine the impact of these musical masterworks at the keyboard or by score-reading. Instead, one ought to hear them performed well, even better to rehearse them yourself with a choir” for “that is precisely the essence of the song.”49 And then in late December 1852, only weeks before his breakdown, he advised his young friend, “Choir and orches-tra lift us above ourselves. You now have the opportunity to observe this lofty terrain yourself and to use it for your own success. Write for orchestra, and especially for cho-rus”!50 Although Schumann did not live to see it, Meinardus became a respected choral director at the Singakademie in Glogau. As a composer, he was best known for his fi ve oratorios. And in what became the most famous of these, Luther in Worms, he real-ized one of his mentor’s unfulfi lled dreams.51
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 49
NOTES
1 Letter dated May 31, 1840 in Eva Weissweiler, ed. The Complete Correspondence of Clara and Robert Schumann, Critical Edition, vol. 3, trans. Hildegard Fritsch, Ronald L. Crawford, and Harold P. Fry (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 212.
2 See Schumann’s diary entry from November 21, 1843 for his sanguine evaluation about his debut as a conductor at the premiere of his secular oratorio, Das Paradies und die Peri (Robert Schumann, Tagebücher, 4 vols., ed. Georg Eismann and Gerd Nauhaus [Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1971–82], 2:270).
3 Tagebücher, 4:445. 4 Ber thold Litzmann, Clara Schumann: Ein
Künstlerleben nach Tagebüchern und Briefen, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1902–10), 2:175.
5 Ibid., 2:175. 6 Letter dated December 1, 1847 in Hermann
Erler, Robert Schumann’s Leben aus seinen Briefen geschildert, 2 vols. (Berlin: Ries & Erler, 1887), 2:37. For more information on Fanny Hensel’s Gartenlieder, Op. 3, which was especially singled out by Schumann, see Sean Michael Hamilton Wallace, “The Gartenlieder, op. 3 of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805–47)” (DMA disser tation, Michigan State University, 2000).
7 Letter dated December 22, 1847 in Erler, 2:40. See Bernard R. Appel, “Schumann und die klassische Vokalpolyphonie,” in Der späte Schumann, Musik-Konzepte Sonderband, Neue Folge, ed. Ulrich Tadday (Munich: editions text + kritik, 2006), 117–32 for a full discussion of scores of old Italian church music owned by Schumann and the precise sources for the specific pieces that he rehearsed. The second volume of Commer’s Musica sacra contained works for 2-, 3-, and 4-part male chorus, and was therefore likely destined for the Liedertafel, while the third volume contained works for mixed chorus, and therefore intended for possible use with his new group. Schumann still had these loaned anthologies in the summer, for his wrote Whistling on June 17 asking if he could keep them longer (Erler, 2:43). Appel notes, however (p. 121), that no piece from either Commer or Rochlitz was ever known to be rehearsed by the Dresden choir. An autograph manuscript from the Brahms Nachlaß at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
dating from this period shows that Schumann himself copied out nine motets from one of these anthologies into keyboard format for study and use in rehearsal. See Margit L. McCorkle, Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, Robert Schumann, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke VIII/6 (Mainz: Schott, 2003), 754, item O9. Appel reproduces a page from this manuscript on p. 125.
8 See Appel, 121–24. Schumann’s original letter to Brendel is not extant, but he summarized its contents in his Briefverzeichnis (Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, 4871/VII C, 10-A3).
9 Renate Brunner, ed., “Erinnerungen von Marie von Lindeman,” in Alltag und Künstlertum: Clara Schumann und ihre Dresdner Freundinnen Marie von Lindeman und Emilie Steffens Erinnerungen und Briefe (Sinzig: Studio Verlag, 2005), 55–56. Litzmann (2:175-76) reproduces Clara’s comment from her diary: “Robert’s welcoming address could have turned out to be a little longer. But as he always managed to say much with few words, so it was also this time.” For information on the solfege manuscripts, see McCorkle, 723–24, item L1.
10 Sig. 4871 VII C,7 A3. Franz Grasberger provides a facsimile reproduction of one page from the Notizbuch in his article “Der Dirigent Robert Schumann,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 22,
no. 10 (Oct. 1967): 587.11 See his diary entry for March 17, 1846, Tage-
bücher, 2:398-99.12 See John Daverio, “Schumann’s Ossianic Manner,”
19th-Century Music 21, no. 3 (Spring 1998): 247–73.
13 See the Haushaltbücher entries for June 21 and 24; (Tagebücher, 4:463).
14 Letter of June 24, 1848 in Erler, 2:45. See also Schumann’s letter to Whistling on June 17,1848, with a postscript written on June 26 (Ibid., 2:43).
15 For details about the festivities and the place of Schumann’s Faust within them, see Hans John, “Die Dresdner Goethefeierlichkeiten 1849 und ihre musikalischen Aktivitäten: Eine Dokumentation,” in Musik und Szene: Festschr ift für Werner Braun zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Bernhard R. Appel, Karl W. Geck and Herbert Schneider (Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, 2001), 333– 47.
16 Published at Op. 62, 75, 145, and 146. Clara noted (Litzmann, 2:184) the special character of the romances and ballads for mixed choir, observing that “most adhere to folk style, some are in Scottish character, which ought to make them very attractive in choral performance.”
17 Tagebücher, 4:457. The two songs, together with a third written later in the month, constitute
“Serving the choral profession since 1979”
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50 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
31 See Paul Kast, Schumanns rheinische Jahre (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1981), 51 for a repro-duction of a newspaper announcement advertising the performance.
32 Schumann’s performance repertory in Düsseldorf has been the subject of several studies, including Kast (cited above) and Bernhard R. Appel, “Robert Schumann als Dirigent in Düsseldorf,” in Robert Schumann: Philologische, analytische, sozial- und rezeptionsgeschichtliche Aspekte, ed. Wolf Frobenius, Ingeborg Maaß, Markus Waldura, and Tonbais Widmaier (Saarbrücken: Saabrücker Druckerei und Verlag 1998), 116–37. The latter includes an appendix (“Robert Schumanns Auftritte als Dirigent: Eine Übersicht,” complied by Appel and Gerd Nauhaus) showing dates, places, and repertory for all known performances which Schumann conducted during his lifetime.
33 Litzmann, 2:235.34 See the entries in the Haushaltbücher for
December 7, 1851 and January 18, 1852 (Rose), January 26, 1852 (Der Königssohn), and April 18, 1852 (the Mass).
35 See Matthias Wendt, “Bach und Händel in der Rezeption Rober t Schumanns,” Paper Presented at the “Tag der mitteldeutschen Barockmusik 2001 in Zwickau,” available online at http://www.schumann-ga.de/freie-texte/86-bach-und-haendel-in-der-rezeption-robert-schumanns.html.
36 In addition to these works, Schumann noted in his Haushaltbuch on April 5, 1851 that he became acquainted with Handel’s Esther.
37 See his letter to Richard Pohl dated February 14, 1851 in Jansen, 336; see also Wolfgang Boetticher’s overview of the Luther project in his “Das ungeschriebene Oratorium Luther von Robert Schumann und sein Textdichter Richard Pohl,” in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel: Festschrift Günther Massenkeil zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. by Rainer Cadenbach and Helmut Loos (Bonn Bad Godesberg:Voggenreiter, 1986): 297–307.
38 Jansen 335–36.39 Letter No. 4081 in vol. 22 of the “Schumann-
Correspondenz” located at the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Krakow.
40 Jansen, 335.41 See the letter to Joseph Euler, note 30 above.42 McCorkle, 745–46, item O1. 43 Bodo Bischoff, “Das Bach-Bild Robert Schumanns
in Bach und die Nachwelt, I: 1750–1850,” ed. Michael Heinemann and Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1997), 477.
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the Drei Freiheitsgesänge, WoO 4 (see McCorkle, 634–36). They were fi rst published posthumously in April 1913 as 3 Choeurs de Robert Schumann, pour la Revolution de 1848, in a supplement to La Revue musicale.
18 Fir st published as Drei gemischte Chöre nach Gedichten von Emanuel Geibel für vierstimmigen Chor a cappella, ed. by Gerd Nauhaus (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1989).
19 Robert recorded in his Haushaltbuch entry for 8 June (Tagebücher, 4:462): “Morning serenade Kl[ara]’s Lieder.” For the most complete history of these pieces, see Gerd Nauhaus’s Preface to his edition cited above.
20 Ibid., 4:465. Schumann noted this “short rehearsal” in the entry for July 15 in his Haushaltbücher, but did not record it in the Chorgesangverein Notizbuch.
21 Brunner, 58–59.22 Ibid.23 See Bernhard R. Appel’s overview of Schu-
mann’s background in classic choral repertory in “Schumann und die klassische Vokalpolyphonie,” 117–20. Eduard Baumstark provides a complete list of this group’s repertory as it was rehearsed, month by month, in an appendix to his Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut: Blätter der Erinnerung für seine Verehrer und für die Freunde der reinen Tonkunst (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1841).
24 Tagebücher, 2:177; entry for July 9, 1841. See also Richard David Green, “Robert Schumann’s Historical Consciousness” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1978) and Bernhard Meissner, Geschichtsrezeption als Schaffenskorrelat: Studien zum Musikgeschichtsbild Robert Schumanns (Bern: Francke, 1985).
25 Jansen, 285–86. Even small annotations in the Chorgesangverein Notizbuch often suggest an academic approach, such as one in July 1848 stating “Second Semester,” and another at the group’s year mark, noting the selection and inscription of new members.
26 Ibid.27 Letter dated April 2, 1848 in Jansen, 300-01; see
also Schumann’s letter to Moritz Hauptmann dated May 8, 1851 in Jansen, 341 and Erler, 2:144-45. Erler’s volume parenthetically adds an excerpt from an 1832 letter from Hauptmann to Franz Hauser explaining why Hauptmann believed the St. Matthew Passion to be the later, more mature work.
28 Letter dated November 29, 1849 in Jansen, 321, written right after Breitkopf & Härtel had published the vocal parts and a piano reduction of the orchestral score in October, and just as preparations were being made for the work’s premiere performance in Leipzig on December 10. According to his Haushaltbücher, Schumann began his initial draft of the Adventlied almost exactly one year earlier on November 26, 1848, and he fi nished orchestrating it on December 19. By the time he wrote to Kruger, Schumann had also completed a second devotional work, also set to a text by Rückert: an a cappella motet for double male chorus, Verzweifl e nicht im Schmerzenthal.
29 See John Worthen, Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 307–11.
30 Unpublished letter dated August 6, 1860; Heinrich-Heine-Institut, Düsseldorf, 49.3750.
SCHUMANN'S CHOICE SCHUMANN'S CHOICE
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 51
44 Letter dated May 8, 1851 in Jansen, 341–42. See also Schumann’s letter dated February 21, 1851 requesting performance materials from Hauptmann in Jansen, 337.
45 Tagebücher, 4:558. Franz Xaver Haberl later established that a large group of responsories previously attributed to Palestrina were actually composed by Marc’ Antonio Ingegneri (“Marcantonio Ingegneri: Eine bio-bibliographische Studie,” Kirchenmusikalishes Jahrbuch 13 [1898]: 78–94). Brahms made copies of two of these works in April 1854: Velum templi scissum est and Tenebrae factae sunt; his source almost certainly being a copy in Schumann’s library; see Virginia Hancock, Brahms’s Choral Compositions and His Library
of Early Music (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1983), 47–48.
46 Düsseldorf Notizbuch, Robert-Schumann-Haus, Sig. 4871 VII C,7 A3, p. [38].
47 Ibid., p. 35.48 See Charles Chulsoo Buck, “Robert Schumann
and the Stile Antico” (Ph.D. disser tation, Stanford University, 1994) for a detailed study of Schumann’s use of the stile antico style in his compositions.
49 Ludwig Meinardus, Ein Jugendleben, vol. 1: Das elterliche Haus Lehrjahre (Gotha: Perthes, 1874), 420, quoted in Appel, “Schumann und die klassiche Vokalpolyphonie,” 123.
50 Letter dated December 28, 1853 in Jansen, 388.51 Two major studies of Meinardus have recently
appeared: Christa Kleinschmidt’s Ludwig Meindardus (1827–96): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der ausgehenden musikalischen Romantik (Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen, 1985) and Deiter Holden’s Ludwig Meinardus (1827–96): Komponist, Musikschriftsteller, Chorleiter (Bielefeld: Bethel-Verlag, 2007).
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 53
Schumann’s Eusebius:His Beethovenian Origins in the
Christian Liturgical YearTheodore Albrecht
Theodore Albrecht is professor of musicology at Kent State University. From 1980 to 1992, he was professor of music at Park College and music director of the Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City. His translation/edition of Felix Weingartner’s On the Performance of the Symphonies of Schubert und Schumann (1918) was serialized in the Journal of the Conductors Guild in 1986. His three-volume Letters to Beethoven and Other Correspondence (Nebraska, 1996) won an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award in 1997 [email protected].
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 55
The fi rst issue of the Neue (Leipziger) Zeitschrift für Musik, appeared on April 3, 1834, “published by a society of artists and friends of art” that included the twenty-three-year-old Robert Schumann and his teacher Friedrich Wieck (1785–1873).1 Schumann often signed his articles as Florestan, Eusebius, and Raro—“the impulsive, impatient, decisive and effu-sive Florestan, the moderate, cautious, slower, some-times skeptical Eusebius, and the mature, detached, paternal Master Raro.”2 These names had already emerged in June and July, 1831, as Schumann’s imaginary friends.3 While Florestan derived from a character in Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Meister Raro was Wieck, the origins of Eusebius—not much more of a household name in the 1830s than it is today—
have always seemed unclear. Most early authors writing about Schumann and
his works simply avoided the topic, but in 1985, psy-cho-biographer Peter Ostwald noted that Schumann modeled the pairing of Florestan and Eusebius after the twins Vult and Walt in Jean Paul Richter’s Flegel-jahre. He further theorized that when Schumann was researching materials for an unfi nished play on the tragic twelfth-century romance of Abélard and Hé-loise, he encountered the name of a Christian saint Eusebius. Ostwald mentioned that the names “Flo-restan and Eusebius” occur in “a treatise on music by the neo-Platonist writer Aristides Quintilianus.”4 In fact, Quintilianus’s treatise Peri musikes (On Music) addresses his friends Eusebius and Florentius—not
Schumann's Eusebius: His Beethoven Origins in the
56 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Florestan.5 Ostwald then seemed to theorize that Schumann may have found the name Eusebius in the liturgical calendar on August 14, only two days after the feast of St. Clara on August 12, with “Aurora” on the 13th.6 In his Robert Schumann (1997), John Daverio agreed with Ostwald on several points and indicated that these entries appear in Schumann’s Haushalt-bücher (household account books),7 rather than in any formal liturgical context. In his article for the second edition of New Grove (2001), Daverio clarifi ed that “Schumann noted these namedays … as late as 1853.”8 Daverio’s parting observation on the subject at hand, however, was that it is diffi cult to know what precise connotations the name “Eusebius” might have had for Schumann in 1831.9
Friedrich Wieck’s Visit to Beethoven in 1823By naming the first of his literary trio “Florestan,”
Schumann may have refl ected an almost personal relation-ship with Beethoven, as seen through the eyes of his teacher Friedrich Wieck.
In the late morning or early afternoon of Tuesday, July 8, 1823, in the company of piano maker (Matthäus) Andreas Stein (1776–1842), Wieck had visited Beethoven at his sum-mer apartment in Hetzendorf, a mile south of Schönbrunn palace.10 Stein had long been acquainted with the composer and had repaired his Broadwood piano as recently as spring, 1820.11 Wieck later admitted that without Stein to introduce him, Beethoven probably would not have received him.12 Stein began the conversation and reported to Beethoven that the fee for a manuscript copy of the composer’s Missa solemnis had arrived from the Russian Czar.
Wieck was every bit as charming as history credits him;
his fi rst entry in Beethoven’s conversation book asks for a glass of water. He noted that Beethoven’s symphonies were heard every winter in Leipzig, and “the public would take it very badly if the direction were negligent in them.” Stein and Beethoven turned to his piano: “How heavily must you play in order to hear it?” Wieck chimed in with gratuitous advice concerning a cure for Beethoven’s increasing deafness—by doctors in Leipzig, of course. Beethoven probably mentioned his stomach cramps as supposedly associated with his deaf-ness, and the Besserwisser (know-it-all) Wieck replied, “My wife suffered from the severest cramps, and was completely cured within four weeks.”
Turning to another subject that always irritated Beethoven, Wieck fl atteringly asked the composer if he would soon give his admirers another symphony. Of course, Beethoven had already made signifi cant headway in sketching the Ninth Symphony, but seldom spoke about the compositional process itself. Pushing his luck further, Wieck asked Beethoven if he wouldn’t give one of his “immortal works” to Peters in Leipzig, “one of the fi nest publishers I know.”13 Beethoven had been corresponding with Peters for over a year. After Peters made an anti-Semitic remark about the Berlin publisher Adolf Martin Schlesinger in a letter of June 15, 1822, the composer silently retaliated by padding his shipment to Leipzig with several old or trifl ing pieces, at which Peters had recently balked in indignation.14
At any rate, Beethoven must have behaved hospitably to Wieck, who concluded, “This day is one of the fi nest in my life,” and eventually “May Heaven protect you!”15
Not only was Beethoven a hero to Schumann and his generation in general, but Wieck’s reminiscences of his meeting with the composer (which ultimately lasted three
hours) must have provided Schumann himself with an un-imaginable sense of proximity to the titan.16 Thus his naming of Florestan after Beethoven’s imprisoned hero in Fidelio now appears all the more logical.
A Century of EusebiusesEusebius, however, is a
much more diffi cult associa-tion to make, especially given the number of historical per-sonages by that name in the early Christian era, and espe-cially (though not exclusively) in the fourth century A.D. Previous authors have cited one or two of them, often confusing and confl ating them
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 57
through no particular fault of their own,17
and so a longer list probably full of its own errors might be appropriate here.
(1) Eusebius of Laodicea, bishop of Laodicea (today Latatkia, Syria) from ca. 264 to ca. 269, was a defender of Christians in his native Alexandria in 250 and 257, and saved his fellow citizens from starvation in 261.18
(2) Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260/263-340), called “Pamphili” after his teacher Pamphilus, was bishop of Caesarea and an advisor to the Emperor Con-stantine, and is considered the fi rst historian of the Church.19
(3) Eusebius of Myndus (4th C.), neo-platonist philosopher, was a pupil of Aedesius of Pergamum, but exercised comparative sobriety, rationality, and contempt for religious magic to which other members of the Pergamene school were addicted.20
(4) Eusebius of Nicomedia (d. ca. 342), a Greek bishop, supporter of Arius and leader of an Arian group called “Eusebians.” He had been Bishop of Beirut, but in ca. 318 became Bishop of Nicomedia (today Izmit, Turkey). He shared many philosophical views with Eusebius of Caesarea and was promoted to the see of Constanti-nople in 339.21
(5) Eusebius of Emesa (died ca. 359), a writer on doctrinal subjects and student of Eusebius of Caesarea. He often ac-companied the Emperor Constanius on campaigns and was appointed to the see of Emesa (today Homs, Syria) in ca. 339. St. Jerome criticized him for his rhetorical exhibitionism.22
(6) Eusebius of Dorylaeum, the bishop of that city (today Eskisehir, Turkey) in the fi fth century. In 429, while still a layman, he entered the controversy concerning whether Mary should be called Mother of Christ or Mother of God. He was bishop by 448, deposed in 449, and rehabilitated in 451.23
In addition to the six aforementioned Eusebii, there are no fewer than three (or even four) Saints Eusebius, all of them from the fourth century!
(7) The earliest St. Eusebius was pope for four months, from April 18 to Au-gust 17, 309, when politics between the Church and the Roman Empire
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Schumann's Eusebius: His Beethoven Origins in the
58 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
demanded that he abdicate. He died in exile in Sicily shortly thereafter, and is commemorated as a martyr on August 17.24
(8) The second St. Eusebius, chronologically, was a priest in Rome. His efforts centered on the battle against Arianism and, according to legend, the Arian emperor Constantius II had him murdered in ca. 350. A church in his name dates back to 474, and stands in the Piazza Vit-torio Emanuele in Rome. His feast day is August 14.25
(9) The third is St. Eusebius of Samosata, who became bishop of the ancient city of Samosata (modern Samsat, Tur-key) in 361. In that year, the Arian emperor Constantius threatened Eusebius with the loss of his right hand if he refused to surrender the offi cial record of St. Meli-tius’s election to the see of Antioch. Eusebius took the
threat in stride and, in disguise, went about his churchly business. In 374, he was banished to Thrace, remaining there until 378, when his greatest adversary died, and he was welcomed back by his fl ock. He died in ca. 379 from a head wound infl icted by an Arian woman who still viewed him as an enemy, though he forgave her on his deathbed. His feast day is June 21 in the west and June 22 in the east.26
(10) The fourth and slightly latest St. Eusebius, however, is probably of the greatest importance for our purposes. St. Eusebius of Vercelli was born on Sardinia, the larger of the two large islands to the west of Italy. Educated and ordained in Rome, he was appointed Bishop of Vercelli in northern Italy (ca. 40 miles west of Milan) in 345, and became the fi rst western bishop to unite monastic life with the priestly ministry. In 355, he was
Christian Liturgical Year
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 59
a representative at the council of Milan, from which he was sent into exile because of his beliefs. Attending the council of Alexandria in 362, he returned to his post in Vercelli during the last years of his life, dying in 370 or 371. His feast is celebrated on December 16.27
And December 16, 1770, was Beethoven’s birthday!28
Schumann’s Knowledge of Beethoven’s Birth Date in 1831
While it is diffi cult to determine what Schumann may have known about St. Eu-sebius of Vercelli in 1831, even Beethoven’s actual birth date was (and to some extent still is) open to question. Most of the standard lexica and biographical sketches Choron & Fayolle, Gerber, Schlosser, etc.—had given Beethoven’s birth year as 1772, but no birth date. The Viennese conductor Ignaz von Seyfried (1776–1841), however, had followed Beethoven’s baptismal record and asserted that he had been born on December 17, 1770.
When compiling his Biographie Universelle des Musiciens in the 1830s, François-Joseph Fétis contacted the publisher Nikolaus Simrock in Bonn. Simrock (1751–1832) had been fi rst horn in the Electoral orchestra at Bonn in Beethoven’s youth and gave the young composer lessons on the instru-ment. Simrock supplied Fétis with a copy of Beethoven’s baptismal certifi cate on De-cember 17, 1770,29 but somebody (presum-ably Simrock, but possibly Seyfried) wrote to Fétis, that Beethoven always said that he had been born on December 16, 1772, and at-tributed the baptismal record of December 17, 1770, to an older brother who died at an early age and who was also named Louis [or Ludwig].30 When Beethoven died in 1827, an assistant in Simrock’s music publishing house in Bonn made a note on the back of a newspaper obituary “Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770.”31 This in-formation almost surely came from Nikolaus Simrock himself.
Similarly, on December 15, 1796, Georg
Albrechtsberger (1736–1809), organist at St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna and Beethoven’s sometime teacher, wrote him
the following, “My dear Beethoven! I wish you all the best on your name-day tomor-row. God give you health and happiness,
60 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 60 CHORAL JOURNAL L Volume 51 Number 2
Schumann's Eusebius: His Beethoven Origins in the
and grant you good luck.”32 The Feast of St. Louis [Ludwig], Beethoven’s actual name-day, was August 25, and so Al-brechtsberger meant a birthday in the modern sense, and indeed either Beethoven or one of his brothers (also resident in Vienna by this time) must have informed him of the date.
When and how Schumann might have learned that Beethoven’s birth date was probably December 16 remains a mystery. Unless it was refl ected in the periodical literature of the time, it may have been transmitted orally or through letters. Simrock may have communicated the date to any number of students and business acquaintances, especially in North Germany. The date (or approximate date) was not unknown in the north: in 1819, the musical Müller family in Bremen sent Beethoven birthday greetings.33 In Vienna, Albrechtsberger may have told his many students, who in turn may have told others. During his visit to Vienna in July, 1823, Friedrich Wieck may have learned it from Andreas Stein or even from Beethoven himself,34 and passed it on to Schumann. The networking might be complex, and we may never know the answer.
ConclusionThus, while John Daverio’s decade-old observation that
“it is diffi cult to know what precise connotations the name Eusebius might have had for Schumann in 1831,”35 remains valid today, perhaps—in identifying at least one Feast of Saint Eusebius on December 16 with Beethoven’s birthday on the same date—we have advanced another step toward an ex-planation that both Florestan and Eusebius had Beethovenian connotations in Schumann’s creative mind.
NOTES
1 A fi ne survey of the journal’s history during Schumann’s lifetime is Leon Plantinga, “Schumann and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik,” in Alan Walker, ed., Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music, 2nd edition (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1976), 162–78, especially 170–71.
2 Henry Pleasants, “Schumann as Critic,” in Walker, Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music, 181.
3 Gerald Abraham, “Schumann, Robert,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 20 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie (London and Washington, D.C.: Macmillan, 1980), Vol. 16, 832–34; and Peter Ostwald, Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985), 74–79. Abraham’s survey is comfortingly factual; Ostwald’s psycho-biography, like so many in its genre, often slants factual material selectively to suit its purpose.
4 Ostwald, Schumann: Inner Voices, 78. 5 Thomas J. Mathiesen, “Aristides Quinti l ianus,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,2nd edition, 29 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie , latter ly by John Tyrrell (London and New York: Macmillan, 2001), Vol. 1, 905– 07. Mathiesen noted that these are typical Christian names of the time, as we shall see below in the case of Eusebius. 6 Ostwald, Schumann: Inner Voices,79. “Aurora” (Dawn) is the Roman goddess of the morning, and does not appear in any of the Christian liturgical literature at my disposal. Ostwald failed to clarify the word’s meaning. August 14 is the feast day of St. Eusebius, the Roman priest (No. 8 in the list below). 7 John Daverio, Robert Schumann, Herald of a New Poetic Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 37–41, 73–75, 509–10, and 514. Like Ostwald, Daverio failed to explain the signifi cance of the word or name “Aurora” on August 13. 8 John Daver io, “Schumann,
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 61 CHORAL JOURNAL L Volume 51 Number 2 61
Christian Liturgical Year
Robert,” New Grove, 2nd ed., Vol. 22, 763. In this article, however, Daverio treated “Aurora” as if she were a Christian saint. New Grove 2’s many editorial problems are exemplifi ed at this point, when it divides the word Haushaltbücher as “Haush-altbücher,” making hash of musical scholarship. Similarly, Felix Weingartner’s manual Ratschläge für die Aufführungen klassischer Symphonien: Schubert und Schumann is confl ated with another item in New Grove 2 and rendered as “On the Performance of the Symphonies of Mozart”! See Ronald Crichton and José Bowen, “Weingartner, Felix,” New Grove, 2nd ed., Vol. 27, 241.
9 Daverio, Robert Schumann, 75.10 Karl-Heinz Köhler et al., eds., Beethovens
Konversationshefte, 11 vols. (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1968–2001), Vol. 3 (1983), 365–68 and 466 (Heft 35, Blätter 31r–35v). Beethoven’s list of errands on Blatt 31r probably signals the initial entries on the morning of July 8. Stein and Wieck probably arrived shortly thereafter.
11 Beethovens Konversationshefte, Vol. 1 (1972), 324–25 and 360–62, etc.
12 Wieck’s reminiscence was published post-humously in the Dresdener Nachrichten (December 6, 1873) and the Signale für die musikalische Welt 31 (1873), 897–98. It was reprinted in Albert Leitzmann, ed., Ludwig van Beethoven. Berichte der Zeitgenossen, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1921), I, 338–40; and Oscar Sonneck, ed., Beethoven, Impressions by His Contemporaries (New York: G. Schirmer, 1926; repr. New York: Dover Publications, 1967), 207– 09. In his old age, Wieck recalled the place as Hietzing rather than Hetzendorf (an understandable confusion) and the time as May, 1826 (an easy mistake, fi ve decades later); otherwise, his account accurately refl ects the entries in the conversation books.
13 Beethovens Konversationshefte, Vol. 3 (1983), 365–67 and 466 (Heft 35, Blätter 31r–35v).
14 Theodore Albrecht, ed., Letters to Beethoven and Other Correspondence, 3 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), especially No. 290 (June 15, 1822) and No. 313 (March 4, 1823).
15 Beethovens Konversationshefte, Vol. 3, 368. This last phrase (or a variant) was a fairly common element of parting gestures in 1823. Even today, it is spoken among family and intimate acquaintances.
16 Wieck, reminiscence, in Beethoven, Impressions byHis Contemporaries, 207– 09.
17 Confl ations of historical fi gures were common in earlier times. We need only recall that, when Wagner was composing his Tannhäuser in the early 1840s, the historical Minnesinger Tannhäuser (ca.1205 – ca.1270) was still confused with his contemporary Heinrich von Ofterdingen. See Burkhard Kippenberg, “Tannhäuser,” New Grove, Vol. 18, 565– 66, and his “Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” New Grove, Vol. 8, 444.
18 Thomas Valentine Bermingham, “Eusebius of Laodicea,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 24 vols. (Chicago and London, 1965), Vol. 8, 893.
19 James Stevenson, “Eusebius of Caesarea,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 8, 892–93. Augustine Rock, “Eusebius of Caesarea,” Catholic Encyclopedia for School and Home, 10 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), Vol. 4, 158–59. The Catholic Encyclopedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica used here coincidentally appeared in the same year.
20 Arthur Hilary Armstrong, “Eusebius of Mindus,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 8, 893.
21 “Eusebius of Nicomedia,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 8, 893– 94 (unsigned).
22 Thomas Valentine Bermingham, “Eusebius of Emesa,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 8, 893.
23 Thomas Valentine Bermingham, “Eusebius of Dorylaeum,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 8, 893.
24 Will iam Mar tin King, “Eusebius, Saint,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 8, 892; Mary Carol Schroeder, “Eusebius, St.,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, 158. In some areas, possibly northern Germany, his feast may be celebrated on August 14, as it may have been in Schumann’s Haushaltbücher (Daverio, Schumann: Herald, 74 and 514, called him “Saint Eusebius the Confessor” and said that he was “pope from 309 to 310.”).
25 Vera Schauber and Hanns Michael Schindler, Die Heiligen im Jahreslauf (Munich: Weltbild—Bücherdienst, 1985), 427. They may have him conflated with the foregoing St. Eusebius (d. 309), or vice versa.
26 Thomas Valentine Bermingham, “Eusebius, Saint, of Samosata,” Encyclopaedica Britannica(1965), Vol. 8, 892.
27 Victor Cyril de Clercq, “Eusebius, Saint, of Vercelli,” Encyclopedia Britannica (1965), Vol. 8, 892.The unsigned “Eusebius of Vercelli, St.,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, 159, confl ated details concerning Saint Eusebius of Samosata and Saint Eusebius of Vercelli into one person.
The feast date of St. Eusebius of Vercelli is confirmed in Missale Romanum (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1961), xlix; and Liber Usualis, with Inroduction in English, ed. Benedictines of Solesmes (Tournai: Desclée, 1952), xlix (coincidentally the same pagination). Neither the New York
62 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
Schumann's Eusebius: His Beethoven Origins
altar-sized Missal nor the Liber Usualis includes the other three Sts. Eusebius. None of the four Sts. Eusebius discussed here appears in Missale (Venice, 1519; facsimile repr. Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1963), calendar.
Schauber and Schindler, 399–400, placed St. Eusebius of Vercelli’s feast on August 2, gave relatively precise dates for his life (ca. 283–August 1, 371), and said that he became martyred when an Arian woman stoned him, therefore possibly confl ating him with St. Eusebius of Samosata.
Ostwald, Schumann: Inner Voices, 78–79. In a manner reminiscent of Fétis at his most careless, Ostwald confl ated details in the lives of Saints Eusebius of Samosata and Vercelli with those of the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, even referring to “his fi nal execution,” proper to St. Eusebius, the priest of Rome. Ostwald did not mention Eusebius’s early or intermediate executions, but instead, without differentiating between the nominative and genitive forms, confl ated the fates of the martyr Pamphilus (d. 310) and Eusebius of Caesarea (aka “Pamphili”).
28 Theodore Albrecht and Elaine Schwensen, “More Than Just Peanuts: Evidence for December 16 as Beethoven’s Bir thday,” The Beethoven Newslettter (later renamed Beethoven Journal) 3, No. 3 (Winter, 1988), 49 and 60–63.
29 In the liturgical year, December 17 is not a feast day.30 François-Joseph Fétis, “Beethoven,” Biographie Universelle des Musiciens,
8 vols. (Brussels: Meline, Cans et Compagnie, 1837), Vol. 2, 100–101. Essentially the same information appears in the 2nd edition, 10 vols. (Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot et Cie., 1889), Vol. 1, 208–09. Fétis has a modern reputation for fabricating “facts” in the absence of documentary evidence, but in the case of Beethoven’s birth date, he reviewed the literature up to that point and presented the new documents and accounts that he
had collected, concluding that the composer had been born on December 17, 1770.
31 Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Ludwig van Beethovens Leben, ed. by Hermann Deiters and Hugo Riemann, 5 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1908–17), Vol. 1 (1917), 122, fn. 1, citing Werner Hesse, “Die Familie van Beethoven in Bonn und ihre Beziehungen,” Monatsschrift für die Geschichte Westdeutschlands 5 (1879), 219. Hesse notes that this same assistant had dealt with Beethoven in 1818.
32 Albrecht, Letters to Beethoven, No. 21.33 Albrecht, Letters to Beethoven, No. 266. Dr. Wilhelm Christian Müller
(1752–1831), music director of Bremen’s cathedral, had contacted the historian-theologian Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860), who had been appointed professor at the University of Bonn in 1818. Arndt, in turn, sent them copies of Beethoven’s baptismal record, and so they celebrated the composer’s birthday on December 17. Müller and his daughter Elise (d. 1849) occasionally corresponded with and through Nannette Streicher (1769–1833), sister of Andreas Stein, who introduced Wieck to Beethoven.
34 The conversation books hardly account for every word said in any given conversation, which must also have included a fair amount of loud speech and gesticulation on the part of Beethoven’s friends.
35 Daverio, Robert Schumann, 75. Daverio’s untimely death in 2003 robbed the world of one of its fi nest Schumann scholars.
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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 65
Ethnic and Multicultural PerspectivesSharon Davis Gratto, National Chair
More Than “Politically Correct:” Accuracy And Authenticity In World
Choral Music Study And Performance
Accuracy and authenticity in the study and performance of world choral music is not, as some often say, about needing to be “politically correct.” It is, instead, about cultural sensitivity, precision, and validity. It is about being an informed choral director/mu-sic educator who is able to lead ensembles through the study of diverse repertoire that results in enriched musical experiences, a broader worldview, and an increased level of understanding of other peoples and cultures. Choral directors must assume responsibility to know and understand multicultural choral literature in the same way they have been educated to know and understand “tradi-tional” or “standard” choral works.
In selected world choral music, the role of the ensemble director tends to shift in performance. No longer should the con-ductor always stand in front of a choir and conduct in the traditional way. The culture of origin may include an expectation that the conductor remain with the choir and sing, stepping out in front of the group only to start a piece and to bring a selection to its conclusion. In some cases the conductor may not even face the choir but may stand and lead with his or her back to the group. For many traditionally trained choral conductors, this means letting go of one way to lead a group and giving the choir the freedom to perform the music as it is presented in its
country or culture of origin. The conductor must assume a new role in the performance and get out of the choir’s way as much as possible. “Letting go” of one’s ensemble can take great courage.
Understanding and learning about what are probably new languages in world choral music for many choral directors can be a daunting task. An understanding of world history and geography can help with the learning process. Take Africa, for example, a huge continent that includes multiple races, religions, and cultures. Many African countries were established with artifi cial borders determined by colonizing countries, including France, England, Portugal, Holland, and Germany. The borders were political divisions that did not take into account the multiple tribal groups that comprise expan-sive geographic regions in Africa.
Swahili, a Bantu language spoken primar-ily in countries on the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa, is often found in American choral music that is identifi ed as “multicultural” and sometimes assumed to be synonymous with all of Africa and its diverse populations. Swahili is actually a common language of commerce and of the African Union. It is spoken primarily in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with British English, “pidgin” or “bro-ken” English, and many tribal languages. A Tanzanian colleague once explained that the word “Swahili” may have three different pre-fi xes. Kiswahili refers to the Swahili language, Waswahili to the people who speak Swahili, and Uswahili to the culture of those who speak Swahili.
In the West African country of Nigeria, which was colonized by the British beginning in 1900 and became independent in 1960, there are multiple groups that live side by side and spill over into neighboring countries. The Federal Republic of Nigeria, as it has been known since 1963, includes over 250
ethnic groups, three of which (the Fulani/Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo) comprise nearly 70 percent of the population. Approximately 521 languages are spoken in Nigeria. As the language of the colonizing country, British English is the primary language of education, government, and commerce, which means that most Nigerians speak at least two and often more than two languages, including English. While some Nigerians may speak and understand Swahili, Swahili is not one of the languages of the country, nor is it a language common to many other African countries.
All of this information means that iden-tifying the text of a choral work from Africa by its country name (Nigerian, Kenyan, South African, etc…) is inaccurate. The country cannot be the language in the same way that German is the language of Germany or French is the language of France. It also means that published music written in Swahili may not actually be “African.” Fur-thermore, it is presumptuous of Americans to identify all languages other than English as “foreign” when they are, in fact, only “for-eign” to American English speakers. Some colleges and universities have addressed
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66 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
on the voice. Accompanying body percus-sion and movement must be executed musi-cally and accurately in a way that represents the culture. For example, there are different styles and ways of clapping one’s hands; fi nger snapping may not be appropriate to accompany certain types of ethnic music.
Selecting accompanying instruments can be a challenge. Contrary to common belief and practice, not all African choral music should be accompanied by drums. Furthermore, every choral director may not have the funding to support purchases of authentic instruments from the country or culture of a piece’s origin. Some instru-ments may not be available even if there is funding to purchase them. In these cases, instruments with similar sounds may be substituted as long as the singers and the audience understand the reasons for the substitution. For example, a cabasa may be used to create the sound of a shekere, or a Latin American agogo bell may be played in place of a West African double bell gan-gogui (or gankogui). Many Caribbean and Latin American instruments, in fact, have their origins in instruments of West Africa because of the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. This is yet another instance in which an understanding of history can help inform one’s work with a choral ensemble and with world music repertoire.
Choral directors who work with world music must consider all issues of authen-ticity, accuracy, and cultural sensitivity in performance. They need to be aware that the preparation needed to learn about and prepare this specialized repertoire is no different from the preparation needed to learn about and to prepare a Bach motet or a Samuel Barber song. Unfortunately, choral conductors' education and training do not always include instruction in multicultural repertoire and the music of diverse cultures and ethnic groups. Greater diversity in col-lege and university curricular and ensemble offerings, however, and increased availability of multicultural resources, especially those accessed through audio, DVD, and Internet technology, can remedy the situation.
this issue by changing from foreign language departments to departments of languages and by changing foreign language require-ments to “language two” requirements, even though some students may already speak two languages and may be studying a third or fourth language. This leads to two other common descriptors that can be problematic and controversial in regard to countries outside of Europe, Canada, and the United States—“non-Western” and “Third World.” The former is a puzzling term that is diffi cult to defi ne and explain; the latter can be considered derogatory and would be better replaced with “developing” when speaking or writing about countries that are struggling economically or politically. Regarding languages and program informa-tion, it is imperative for choir members to know what they are singing about and audiences to know what they are hearing in a concert. Even when opera companies perform works in English, they project English texts on surtitles to be certain audi-ences understand what is being sung. While
printed choral programs do not always in-clude texts of works in English, they should at least include all non-English texts and their translations. If the material is not printed, it must be announced to the audience prior to the singing of each piece. When conductors do not print or speak information about a world music selection’s country of origin, its historical and cultural context, and the lan-guage in which it is sung, they do a disservice both to the performers and the audience and abdicate their responsibility as choral music educators.
Rehearsal and performance practices with world choral music also need to be as authentic and accurate as possible, with common sense and musicianship dictating practice. Choirs whose focus is on ethnic or multicultural repertoire need to warm-up in rehearsal and before performances, just as choirs do that sing other repertoire. Healthy vocal preparation may be even more impor-tant in these specialized ensembles because of the unique demands that some ethnic and world choral music singing styles can make
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 67
ship and music making. In preparation for these biennial gatherings, members of the leadership team and conference planning
College and University ChoirsWilliam McConnell
Examining Ourselves: Are We Living Up
To Our Own Standards?
Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living” (Apology 38a). As performing musicians, examination by peers, students, adjudicators, and self is an integral and ap-propriate part of daily professional life. Uni-versity policies and standards of professional practice require that faculty members evalu-ate, assess, and grade the work of students. Promotion and tenure committees, by what-ever moniker they are known, ask that the portfolios of colleagues be evaluated for the possible awarding of merit raises, promotion, or tenure. But, do we hold ourselves to as exacting a standard as we hold our students and colleagues?
Professional standards, developed and published by the College and University Repertoire & Standards Committee, enu-merate specific points of examination. Standard I.C encourages conductors to “Seek out both standard and more obscure repertoire of historical signifi cance that is challenging and interesting to college and university-level singers” In a similar vein, Standard I.D challenges ensemble leaders to “Select repertoire that allows ensembles to experience both historic choral repertoire and new compositions.” http://acda.org/rep-ertoire/college_university/standards
Do These Standards Defi ne and Inform Our Performing Decisions?
Every other year, ACDA gathers as a national organization to hear and perform great music, celebrate achievements among colleagues, rekindle professional relation-ships, learn from colleagues and other ex-perts, and generally recharge our batteries for the next two years of ensemble leader-
committees spend untold hours planning the events. Simultaneously, colleagues submit their choirs’ fi nest work in the form of audi-
Eastman’s many performance opportunities for voice students include symphonic choruses, chamber choruses, and opera productions. Undergraduate and graduate degrees are offered in vocal performance, choral conducting, music education, and many other areas.
CHORAL ENSEMBLESWilliam WeinertPaul O’DettePhilip Silvey
VOICESteven Daigle, chairKatherine CiesinskiKathryn CowdrickRobert McIverJan OpalachRita ShaneRobert SwensenCarol Webber
VOCAL COACHINGBenton HessRussell Miller
OPERASteven Daigle, head of operaJohnathon Pape, assistant professor, operaBenton Hess, musical director
Application deadline December 1
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68 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
tion recordings, while others develop ideas for interest sessions addressing pressing is-sues in our fi eld. Only the very fi nest of the auditioning choirs are chosen to perform. Only the most cutting-edge and pertinent of the interest session proposals are approved for presentation. Our standards are unapolo-getically exacting and extraordinarily high. But, within the conference concerts, are we doing as our published repertoire standards require? Have audiences heard and choirs performed both standard and more obscure repertoire? Have conductors chosen to perform selections that “allow ensembles to experience both historic choral repertoire and new compositions?” In an evaluation of college and university choir performances at national conferences in the twenty-fi rst century, the answer is an unfortunate No.
Since the beginning of the twenty-fi rst century, the American Choral Directors Association has gathered in national confer-ences on fi ve occasions. National confer-ences held in San Antonio (2001), New York (2003), Chicago (2005), Miami (2007) and Oklahoma City (2009) were events of a lifetime for performers, presenters, and par-ticipants. All of these conferences boasted large numbers of registrations, great artistry in performance, and tremendous effort by all concerned. Nothing in this evaluation should be taken to denigrate the level of artistry presented on the concert stage.
In examining the stylistic variety of
performed repertoire, the published confer-ence program books served as the source documentation. It should be noted that this evaluation addresses only college and university ensembles of mixed voices invited to perform in the context of conference concert sessions. Single gender ensembles, jazz ensembles, and ensembles invited to participate in special conference events are excluded.
In quantifying selections presented, a multi-movement work presented in its en-tirety is counted as a single selection. Sets of pieces published in such a way that compo-sitions could be performed individually are calculated as individual selections. Selections are classifi ed, as closely as possible, within the style period in which they were composed. Compositions by composers whose output spanned two style periods are classifi ed in the period in which the composer is most readily identifi ed. There can certainly be room for discussion of specifi c classifi cations; however, these data provide a forum for much needed discussion.
Over the course of these fi ve national conferences, fi fty-three (53) college and university choirs of mixed voicing have presented concert session performances. In these performances, ACDA audiences heard a total of 321 selections from these choirs. Table One illustrates, in aggregate, the historical variety within those performances.
By disaggregating these data, the trends
emerge with even more clarity. Table Two illustrates fur ther the disproportionate performance of music composed after 1900 with music composed before. It is acknowl-edged that the “Post-1900” category is far broader than the periods music historians defi ne as Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. As styles within the post-1900 era are de-fi ned and categorized, this category may be able to be divided.
A realization that 80.69% of all selections performed by college and university choirs of mixed voicing were drawn from the pe-riod after 1900 is no refl ection on the quality of the performances presented. Likewise, the stark reality that no compositions from the classical era have been presented by the same group of choirs is not a refl ection on the diffi culty of that music, or its suitability for the venue of a national conference. These data do not make any effort to represent the variety of music being taught and performed in college and university choral ensembles.
These observations do confi rm what is already perceived. Music of the common practice period presents tremendous chal-lenges. Having dissected, studied, and per-formed much of this music while students, conductors readily acknowledge its incred-ible depth and challenge. Those grappling with the limitations of presenting a twenty-fi ve minute program to a national confer-ence audience understand that many in the audience share this intimate knowledge of
Selections Performed Within The Style Period
Total Selections Performed
Percent by style period
Pre-1600 Baroque Classical Romantic Post-1900
14
321
4.36%
30
321
9.35%
0
321
0.00%
30
321
9.35%
259
321
80.69%
Table 1 Historical Variety in ACDA Performances
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 69
the repertoire. Performances of repertoire known by the majority of listeners will be closely scrutinized and carefully evaluated. Likewise, much of the newer music chosen for performance is also well crafted, challeng-ing to conductor, ensemble, and audience alike, and requires skill sometimes equal to, or even greater than that required for music of the common practice period. But there is safety and notoriety in the unknown. If the performance at an ACDA national confer-ence is a composition’s fi rst exposure to such an audience, a choir and its conductor
have set the standard for its performance. These data call for thoughtful self ex-
amination. They require a careful evaluation of the musical menu presented at national conferences.
Can a national conference audience congratulate the courage and confi dence re-quired to perform familiar repertoire before respected colleagues? Will that same audi-ence celebrate the presentation of an “old chestnut” performed with freshness, vitality, and integrity? Can the audience allow a composition from the standard repertoire to
be approached in a new and different way? Let the reasoned discussion begin with a deep and abiding commitment to the music we present and to the musicians we teach.
8
9
21
11
4
College/University Choirs selected
Total No. of Selections
Pre-1600
Baroque (c 1600- 1750)
Classical ( c 1750-1820)
Romantic (c 1820 - 1910)
Contemporary (c 1910- present)
2001
2
5
0
3
27
Table 2 The Number of Performances of Music from Various Periods at ACDA National Conventions
37
73
124
65
22
Selections
5.41%13.51%
0%8.11%
72.97%
PeriodsYear
% of TotalSelections
2003
Pre-1600
Baroque (c 1600- 1750)
Classical ( c 1750-1820)
Romantic (c 1820 - 1910)
Contemporary (c 1910- present)
1
4
0
6
62
1.37%5.48%
0%8.22%
84.93%
3.23%
9.68%
0%
12.10%
79.03%
Pre-1600
Baroque (c 1600- 1750)
Classical ( c 1750-1820)
Romantic (c 1820 - 1910)
Contemporary (c 1910- present)
2005 4
12
0
15
98
Pre-1600
Baroque (c 1600- 1750)
Classical ( c 1750-1820)
Romantic (c 1820 - 1910)
Contemporary (c 1910- present)
2007 4
6
0
6
49
6.15%
9.23%
0%
9.23%
75.38%
Pre-1600
Baroque (c 1600- 1750)
Classical ( c 1750-1820)
Romantic (c 1820 - 1910)
Contemporary (c 1910- present)
0
2
0
1
19
0%
9.09%
0%
4.55%
86.36%
2009
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If you have a favorite article from a state or division ACDA
newsletter to recommend for inclusion in ChorTeach
Email Terry Barham [email protected]
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Here are the 27 articles Currently posted on ACDA’s Web site.Here are the 27 articles Currently posted on ACDA’s Web site.
A Choral Director's First TaskA Choral Director's First Task
A Time for Sowing and Planting Your Musical GardenA Time for Sowing and Planting Your Musical Garden
Beginning Part Singing in Middle SchoolBeginning Part Singing in Middle School
Beyond the Bass-ics in JH MS ProgramsBeyond the Bass-ics in JH MS Programs
Choir Lite: Less Time, Still FulfillingChoir Lite: Less Time, Still Fulfilling
Collaborative RehearsalsCollaborative Rehearsals
Cultural Awakenings in a Diverse WorldCultural Awakenings in a Diverse World
Discipline in the ClassroomDiscipline in the Classroom
How Music Affects the BrainHow Music Affects the Brain
Inclusion of Special Needs Students in ChoirsInclusion of Special Needs Students in Choirs
Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing in SchoolsKeeping the Main Thing the Main Thing in Schools
Mix it Up--You Won’t' Believe What HappensMix it Up--You Won’t' Believe What Happens
Music Teachers & Vocal Health--How's Your Voice Doing?Music Teachers & Vocal Health--How's Your Voice Doing?
New Bridges to Multicultural Choral MusicNew Bridges to Multicultural Choral Music
Programming is an ArtProgramming is an Art
Repertoire Search StrategiesRepertoire Search Strategies
Rhythmic Integrity in Choral RehearsalsRhythmic Integrity in Choral Rehearsals
Serenity for the Middle School Choir DirectorSerenity for the Middle School Choir Director
Taming the TextTaming the Text
The "Call" -- Teaching singers to ProjectThe "Call" -- Teaching singers to Project
The Best Things in Life Are Free, Especially Choral MusicThe Best Things in Life Are Free, Especially Choral Music
The Vocal Edge --a Richard Miller interviewThe Vocal Edge --a Richard Miller interview
Using the National Standards for Choral TeachingUsing the National Standards for Choral Teaching
Warm-ups, Repertoire & Resources for Male ChoirsWarm-ups, Repertoire & Resources for Male Choirs
What My Blind Conducting Student Taught MeWhat My Blind Conducting Student Taught Me
Where Have All the Altos Gone?Where Have All the Altos Gone?
Where the Wild Things Are-- MS/JH Boys!Where the Wild Things Are-- MS/JH Boys!
ChorTeachChorTeachwww.acda.org/publications/chorteachwww.acda.org/publications/chorteachA great resource for choral directors at all levels. New articles appear quarterly.A great resource for choral directors at all levels. New articles appear quarterly.
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 73
Church choirs have their foi-bles! But there is little new about their “performance practice.” Two centuries ago, when the America church choir tradition was just beginning to touch most commu-nities, the ensemble descriptions seem remarkably familiar.
During the fi rst century of U. S. history, about 1 out of 14 people lived in cities. In rural areas, the rough-hewn music of New England singing schools was the literature of church choirs (think Billings or Wyeth or the horse-breeder Morgan). Then, into the nineteenth century, it was music learned from traveling singing school teach-ers like William Walker (Southern Harmony) or Benjamin Franklin White (Sacred Harp).
Here is an 1856 description of a church choir by an anonymous writer in Dwight’s Journal of Music:
Singing masters itinerate from village to village, to give instruction in the tuneful art, but the most they can muster is a score or two of men and maidens to sing in church on Sunday. Brother Jonathan is awkward at the business, and sings only on set occasions. Let him be enrolled in the ranks of the choir and placed in the front of the gallery, and he will stand up like a grenadier, and roll out lustily the strains of a psalm.
Sound familiar? What church choir
director has not had Brother Jonathan in the male section? Or struggled to fi nd two dozen singers?
However, there was an attempt at quality. According to Nathaniel Gould (Church Music in America, 1853) the students of the singing school teacher had a kind of audition before becoming a church choir :
[The meeting house was] the place assigned for the fi rst appearance of the scholars in public, there to give parents and patrons an opportunity of judging of their profi ciency and their fitness to perform on the Sabbath.
Gould went on to describe how, at the close of the singing school, each voice part would choose a leader (sometimes more than one if “quarreling necessitated”) to assure the
group’s continuing. The choir, he says, fi rst sat in the front pews and faced each other to sing “in order that their voices might mingle and harmonize.” Then they moved to the gal-lery—fi rst on the side because “the front gal-lery was usually made into pews owned by individuals,” then into the front gallery with a center aisle, ladies on one side, men on the other. Eventually, he
notes, curtains were placed in the gallery in a position to hide the tunebooks, music stands and, in some churches, the singers. An early choir loft.
B. F. White and E. J King, authors of what is perhaps the most famous and enduring of the instruction books, The Sacred Harp (1860), also asked for a level of expertise, or, at the least, not to annoy:
The gift of a talent to sing, implies an obligation to improve it, and not to offer unto the Lord the halt and lame, but to cultivate the voice that they may sing to edifi cation, and not to be an annoyance to every one near them.
Charles Finney, the traveling camp meet-ing Presbyterian preacher, who later became an Oberlin College professor, presented
Church Choirs, a Nineteenth-Century Heritage
by
Richard J. Stanislaw
The Church Choir A woodcut drawing from the 1876 edition of Tom Sawyer
Richard Stanislaw, editor [email protected]
74 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
a series of lectures on revival (1858). He identifi ed a controversy caused by having a church choir, especially with young people leading the way:
O how many congregations were torn and rent in sunder, by the desire of minister s and some leading individuals to bring about an improvement in the cultivation of music, by forming choirs of singers. People talked about innovations and new measures, and thought great evils were coming to the churches, because the singers were seated by themselves, and cultivated music, and learned new tunes that the old people could not sing.
Even rhythmic youth music turned up at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Rev. John Lyle wrote in his dairy of 1801:
Went to the meeting house, found a number of boys and girls singing and shaking hands, a sort of wagging that appeared like dancing at a distance…. I told them to sing the same hymn and not sing different ones so near together.
Mark Twain (1876) described a Missouri
country church choir in Tom Sawyer’s ex-perience:
The congregat ion being fu l ly assembled, now, the bell rang once more, to warn laggards and stragglers, and then a solemn hush fell upon the church which was only broken by the tittering and whispering of the choir in the gallery. The choir always tittered and whispered all through the service. There was once a church choir that
was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in some foreign country.
Today’s church choirs carry on those
nineteen century traditions—concerns about seating, wagging like dancing, resisting innovation, avoiding annoyance, and whisper-ing through the service. What is amazing is that church choirs not only continue, but thrive. They have a built-in audience—a dis-tinct advantage. But mostly it is because, with whatever level of ability, they carry on the joy of making music with fellow worshipers and amateur musicians. Encourage your church choir and enjoy the music.
Do you care about choral music’s future in worship? So does ACDA. Our art transcends the stage, classroom and sanctuary to reveal that which is most profoundly human and divine. That intersection is the setting for “ONE SONG”—a unique, affirming learning experience designed to impact professional, amateur and bi-vocational conductors who lead choirs in sacred spaces. Over three days we will explore the “… worthy things” which dignify the calling of sacred music:
• Ample lab chorus time for all participants with one-on-one conducting coaches
• Literature for “real life” situations • Technology for learning• Musical literacy• Administration / Time Management• Approaching a major work• Rehearsal strategy• Networking / Mentoring
Sponsored by the American Choral Directors’ Association And
American Classic Tours and Music Festivals
October 21-23, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia
Marietta First United Methodist Church
O n e S o n g
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 75
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 77
Turn Darkness Into LightKammerchor Consono, CologneHarald Jers, conductorSpektral SRL4-08037 (2008; 66’ 17”)
Lux BeatissimaKammerchor Constant, CologneHarald Jers, conductorSpektral SRL4-08042 (2008; 52’ 37”)
This may be an odd question to pose in this forum, but why do we purchase CDs? Some recordings allow us to revisit favorite pieces. Others assist in the preparation of new or unfamiliar works. Still others are purchased on speculation. If we are indeed in the twilight of the compact disc era, thanks to universal access to I-Tunes and similar sources, it is this last category whose purchase is most threatened. We are unlikely to buy discs of largely unknown music in order to trawl for new favor-ites or programming ideas. Browsing may survive through the Internet, but it will be much easier to skip unlikely sounding tracks after thirty second samples, rather than to persist in listening to pieces that seem initially unappealing.
So, while we are still able to enjoy idiosyn-cratic collections, pay attention to these two from the gifted young conductor Harald Jers. Few discs are as enjoyable and rewarding. These two chamber choirs from Cologne benefi t from his impeccable and sure-footed work, and their explorations of remarkably diverse unaccompanied reper toire are constant delights. Kammerchor Consono perhaps has the edge in the quality of its performance, but both ensembles are well recorded and produced by Spektral (www.spektral-records.de).
A few tracks on each disc will be well
known to CJ readers: Consono give a gor-geous reading of Reger’s Abendlied and a riveting performance of Trond Kverno’s Ave Maris Stella; likewise Constant’s and Pou-lenc’s Hodie Christus Natus Est settings and Lauridsen’s O Nata Lux. The slightly stilted English of Consono’s There Is Sweet Music by Edward Elgar or Constant’s Make We Joy by William Walton may arouse some reserva-tions. The inclusion by Consono of Moses Hogan’s Elijah Rock is brave, if ultimately un-convincing. Any qualms about pronunciation are dispelled, however, by Constant’s raptur-ous performance of Jean Berger’s The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee. With sonority like this, who cares about the occasional odd text infl ection?
There remain a considerable number of rarely heard gems that more than justify the purchase. Each disc features a beauti-ful work by American composer William Hawley. Consono performs additional works by Randall Stroope, Augusta Read Thomas, Howard Helvey, and Frank Ferko. More
recondite, perhaps, but equally rewarding are the selections by Irish composers, includ-ing Constant’s performance of Séamas de Barra’s Ave Maria.
Harald Jers is a gifted choral director whose ability to craft fascinating programs is evident. These recordings are not only use-ful as reference tools, but also as immensely enjoyable invitations to repeated listening.
Philip BarnesSt. Louis, Missouri
Sechs Motetten nach Worten von Franz Kafka Ernst Krenekchoral works op. 22, 72, 87, 97. RIAS Kammerchor, Hans-Christoph Rade-mann, Caroline Stein, Philip Meyers.
This recording of selected choral works by Ernst Krenek explodes with brilliance, gloom, and humor. RIAS Kammerchor led by Hans-Christoph Rademann dispels the notion of Krenek the academician and revels in the composer’s expressive capabilities.
David Castleberry, editor [email protected]
78 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2
This recording is creatively programmed and wonderfully sung. The ordering of the works allows the listener to experience Krenek’s idiosyncratic twelve-tone technique fi rst, followed by his early experimental tonality. All works circle about the motif of fate, and the inclusion of Krenek’s adapta-tion of Lamento della Ninfa points directly to the Medieval and Renaissance music that colors so much of Krenek’s output. The Five Prayers op. 97 for women’s voices, for example, is composed over a cantus fi rmus which frames the work. The choir moves deftly in and out of the chant idiom, singing with power and lyricism.
Even the Sechs Motetten nach Worten von Franz Kafka op. 169 has chant-like moments, though this fi ercely Modern-era work ex-plores, both in conception and performance, the irony and sarcasm embedded in Kafka’s metaphoric aphorisms. The Kantate von der Vergänglichkeit des Irdeschen op. 72 for soprano, chorus, and piano likewise burns with energy of performance and deserves to be better known. This fascinating eighteen-minute work connects poetry of the Thirty Years War to 1930s Austria and serves as a frightening reminder of our current military entanglements.
The Kantate is an apt pairing with Krenek’s unpublished adaptation of Lamento della Ninfa from Monteverdi’s Madrigali Guerrieri e Amorosi, another joining of the distant past
and the twentieth century. Krenek’s interest as scholar and composer in music of the past is clear and Rademann’s choice of vocal color is appropriate to both Krenek and Monte-verdi. While Krenek’s continuo realization is much simpler here than in his presumably later work on Monteverdi, it is appropriate to the text and is handled with sensitivity by Philip Mayers. The Monteverdi adaptation allows the ensemble, together with soprano Caroline Stein, to draw our ears to the possi-bility of beautiful consonance between music of the past and music of today. The recording demonstrates that twelve-tone choral music need only be well done to be well enjoyed and that it runs the same expressive gamut as tonality, pre-tonality, or extended tonal-ity. It can be beautiful. This recording is all
David Fanshawe1942 – 2010
Composer · Explorer · Friend
African Sanctus00312005
Pacific Song08747009
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 2 79
anyone need hear to believe it. (I am grateful to Benjamin Thorburn, Ph.D.
candidate at Yale University, for his insights into Krenek and Krenek’s relationship with Monteverdi’s music.)
Jeremiah CawleySeattle, Washington
Martin: GolgothaJudith Gauthier, Marianne Beate Kielland, Adrian Thompson, Mattjis van de Woerd and Konstantin Wolff, soloistsCapella AmsterdamEstonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir Estonian National Symphony OrchestraDaniel Reuss, conductorHarmonia Mundi (2010; 47’47” and 46’41”)
Alas, Frank Martin’s passion oratorio, Gol-gotha, is one of those rarefi ed masterpieces that have little chance of ever winning wide public acceptance. Composed immediately after World War II (1945–48), the work stands proudly in a long tradition. It bears distinct echoes of Bach, Debussy, and Fauré, but—like the stark Rembrandt etching that inspired it—is austere and lacks the splashes of Technicolor that make the oratorios of Martin’s fellow French-Swiss composer, Arthur Honegger, so appealing.
Martin selected his texts from all four Gospels and aug-mented them with passages from the Meditations and Con-fessions of St. Augus-tine. Like Bach and many others before him, he assigned the roles of Jesus and other participants in the Gospel narrative to soloists, and set them in rather free recitative (the infl uence of Pélleas et Mélisande is especially noticeable here), with Christ usually accompanied by a halo of strings. Martin’s harmonic idiom is occasion-ally modal, especially in the narrative sections, while the frequently contrapuntal choruses tend to be more astringent.
The work is divided into 10 broad sec-tions, extending from Christ’s triumphant arrival in Jerusalem to a fi nal meditation on
the resurrection. There are some unusual touches along the way, such as the assign-ment of the narrator’s role during the Geth-semane movement (No. 5) to not one but two voices—alto and tenor mostly linked in thirds, anticipating a similar effect created several years later in Britten’s Abraham and Isaac. The writing for divided men’s voices in “Jesus Before the Sanhedrin” (No. 7), the only movement not in a basically slow tempo, is splendid and is balanced by equally evocative SSAA voicing in the subsequent meditation.
This new recording competes with several others in the catalog, including the earliest, originally released on Erato, that was supervised by the composer. Daniel Reuss and his team hold their own in a surprisingly crowded fi eld. The soloists, although an inter-national lot, sing with very good French, as do the Dutch and Estonian choral forces. The orchestra accompanies with great sensitivity. The sparse woodwind writing is realized particularly well and is captured effectively by the recording engineers. Tenor Adrian Thompson, whose meditation immediately after Christ’s death is heartbreakingly sung, deserves particular praise. Baritone Mattjis van de Woerd brings gravitas and solemnity to the role of Christ. The chorus, alternately dramatic and compassionate, is splendid in meeting the technical challenges of Martin’s dense chromatic writing effortlessly and con-veying the sense of the more homophonic passages with utter naturalness.
Harmonia Mundi’s production, recorded in Tallinn’s magnifi cent Estonia Concert Hall, sounds superb. The two discs are held in a sturdy cardboard box and are comple-mented by a 90-page booklet that includes an introductory essay, texts and translations, artists’ bios and lists of performers. This is a worthy recording of a twentieth-century masterpiece that deserves to be better known.
Frank K. DeWaldHaslett, Michigan
May 26-30, 2011Charleston, W.Va.
presentsThe Fifth Annual
Rollo Dilworth,Composer in Residence
Selina Midkiff,Artistic Director
Please visit festivalofyoungvoices.com
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appalachian childrens
Choral ReviewsAACDACDA Advocacy ResolutionWHEREAS, the human spirit is elevated to a broader understanding of itself through study and performance in the aesthetic arts, and
WHEREAS, serious cutbacks in funding and support have steadily eroded state institutions and their programs throughout our country,
BE IT RESOLVED that all citizens of the United States actively voice their affirmative and collective support for necessary funding at the local, state, and national levels of education and government, to ensure the survival of arts programs for this and future generations.
ACFEA Tour Consultants 64
Alfred Kunz Music 56
Amer. Musicological Society 31
Appalachian Children's Chorus 79
Chorus America 70
Classical Movements 76
Concept Tours 28
Cultural Tour Consultants 34
DCINY 52
Eastman School of Music 67
Emory University 16
Gladde Music Publications 9
Hal Leonard Publishing 45, 78
Hawaii Music Festivals 61
Herff Jones/Collegiate Apparel 43
Houghton College 10
Indiana University 57
Interkultur Foundation 46
Int'l Boys & Men Choral Fest. 29
Kingsway International 17, 66, BC
Lee's Music Gifts 20
Lyric Choir Gowns 12
Manhattan Concert P. IFC, 40, 41, 60
Nat'l Collegiate Choral Org. 38
One Song 74
Pendgragon Press 75
pepperdine University 14
Prague Choral Festival 65
randy pagel IBC
raro Press 42
Small World Musicfolder.com 63
SolidColorNeckties.com 77
Southeast. Performance Apparel 59
The interculture Tours 39
University Music Service 49
University of Cincinnati 47
University of So. California 48
University of Texas-Austin 58
Valiant Music 11
Wayne State University 50
Westminster Choir College 27
Witte Travel & Tours 44
World Cultural Tours 37
Advertizing Index
Submission InformationArticles submitted for publication in the Choral Journal should meet estab-lished specifications. Although the length of articles varies considerably, submissions generally consist of ten to twenty typed, double-spaced pages. Referenced material should be indicated by superscript and end notes. Any artwork and a one- to two-sentence professional identifica-tion of the author should also be included. Complete writer’s guidelines can be found on the ACDA Web site at <www.acda.org/choral_journal/writer%27s_guidelines>. Articles submitted via e-mail attachment should be sent to <[email protected]>.
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Book Reviewers
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