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The 17th Century Meets the 21st: Magnificat Now on Facebook and Twitter

Magnificat has launched a Facebook Page and you are all encouraged to become "fans" (including all who already are!) The page currently has a discography, notice of upcoming events, and lots of other information about Magnificat. Soon we will have the capability to post mp3s and videos. Our page can be visited by clicking here.

We are also on Twitter, so those of you who dwell in Twitterspace please follow us @MagnificatMusic. We are working to develop a discussion of Baroque music and culture in this new medium as a way of increasing interest in Magnificat and early music in general.

Georg Muffat's Birthday and David Wilson's Translation and Commentary

Georg Muffat was born on June 1 in 1653. A special day for Jubilate personnel manager, Magnificat violinist, Muffat expert and all around great guy David Wilson, who, in 2001, published a translation of texts from Florilegium Primum, Florilegium Secundum, and Auserlesene Instrumentalmusik together with very enlightening commentary on performance practice issues.

Born in Savoy, Muffat studied with Lully in Paris in the 1660s and then studied law at Ingolstadt. According to the biographical blurb at Goldberg Magazine, he later traveled to Vienna but could not obtain an official appointment and subsequently appeared in Prague (1677), ultimately finding a position in Salzburg in the service of Archbishop Max Gandolf, a post he held for over ten years.

He was given leave to travel in the 1680s and studied in Rome with Pasquini ; some of his compositions were performed in Corelli 's house. From 1690 until his death he was Kapellmeister to Johann Philipp von Lamberg, Bishop of Passau.

Muffat was instrumental in bringing the French and Italian styles into German- speaking countries, the prefaces to his published works providing details about Lully 's and Corelli 's practice for his German audience. David's book was reviewed by Kris Worsley in the Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, excerpted below. The full review can be read here. Several pages can be read at Google Books. It can be ordered here.

The complex diversity of Georg Muffat’s musical inheritance causes many problems for the modern performer. The significance of his studies in France (with Lully) may be weighed up against that of his later affinity to Austria and Italy. This book provides an extremely useful translation of Muffat’s own instructions on the correct approach to his works. David K. Wilson (who was handed the project by the late Thomas Binkley) sets out to provide a complete, self-contained guide to Muffat’s writings on performance practice, prefacing the translations with a biographical sketch of Georg Muffat, and following them with a commentary which discusses the implications of these writings on Muffat's Intentions, Instruments, Pitch and Temperament, Techniques, German Performance Practice, and Performance Settings.

The thoroughness of the study does help to clarify the confusion that all too easily results from Muffat’s own cosmopolitan style (Wilson admits that "questions can be asked about how representative of French music of the seventeenth century Muffat’s writings actually are" (page 119)). The biographical sketch that opens the volume stresses the importance of the political circumstances that framed Muffat’s life, from his beginnings in Savoy, his presumed studies with Lully in Paris, and his further travels to Vienna, Salzburg and Rome and his eventual settling in Passau. This emphasis on Muffat’s travels brings a welcome sense of clarity to the problem of the composer’s stylistic diversity and enlightens many of his comments in the texts in a most direct way.

Suzanne Cusick's "Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court" to be Published Next Month

Magnificat will open our 2009-2010 season with Francesca Caccini's opera "The Liberation of Ruggiero". I am looking forward to reading New York University Professor Suzanne Cusick's new book about this remarkable composer. The book is available for order on the University of Chicago Press website. The synopsis provided by the publisher follows:

A contemporary of Shakespeare and Monteverdi, and a colleague of Galileo and Artemisia Gentileschi at the Medici court, Francesca Caccini was a dominant figure of musical life there for thirty years. Dazzling listeners with the transformative power of her performances and the sparkling wit of the music she composed for more than a dozen court theatricals, Caccini is best remembered today as the first woman to have composed opera. Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court reveals, for the first time, how this multitalented composer established a fully professional musical career at a time when virtually no other women were able to achieve comparable success.

Suzanne Cusick argues that Caccini’s career depended on the usefulness of her talents to the political agenda of Grand Duchess Christine de Lorraine, Tuscany’s de facto regent from 1606 to 1636. Drawing on Classical and feminist theory, Cusick shows how the music Caccini made for the Medici court sustained the culture that enabled Christine’s power, thereby also supporting the sexual and political aims of its women. A CD of rare recorded samples of Caccini’s oeuvre, specially prepared, further enhances this long-awaited study.

In bringing Caccini’s surprising story so vividly to life, Cusick ultimately illuminates how music making functioned in early modern Italy as a significant medium for the circulation of power.

Magnificat Looking Forward to the Return of the Puppets

On the weekend of October 16-18, 2009, Manificat will join forces with Northwest Puppet Theater in a production first mounted in Seattle in 2007. Below is a review of that production from the Seattle Post Intelligencer. We look forward to working with the Stephen and Chris Carter and their troupe of wooden friends!

Marionettes Make Fine Work of Italian Opera

by Phillipa Kiraly (originally posted on April 22, 2007 at the Seattle Post Intelligencer)

Kudos to the Northwest Puppet Center for doing it yet again: opera in miniature with all the trimmings. On Friday night, "The Liberation of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina," by Francesca Caccini, opened at the center with five singers, four musicians, more than 30 puppets and a wave machine.

"Ruggiero" was one of the earliest operas, written in 1625; the first written by a woman -- Caccini was a younger contemporary of composer Claudio Monteverdi; and the first to be presented outside Italy -- in Poland in 1628.

Like many Baroque operas, it was originally presented full size on a lavish scale with complicated stage machinery and effects, and the story is a legend complete with sorcery, battles, gods, animals and talking trees.

Northwest Puppet Center's production includes a dragon that blasts smoke, dancing fish and seahorses, a sea creature spewing forth the character Pulcinella, a goddess flying in on a griffin and a sheep that, well, I'm not giving away what it does.

Sung in Italian with supertitles, with the spoken words in English, the opera is largely recitative, but with duets and trios as well.

Read the Entire Article at The Seattle Post Intelligencer

Puppets, Nuns, Melodies, and Masterpieces: Magnificat’s 18th Season Takes a Tour of Italy

[UPDATE: Magnificat's February Concerts will feature music by the Venetian composer Alessandro Grandi.] Magnificat’s 18th Season will be a grand tour through four Italian cities: Florence, Milan, Venice, and Mantua. Along the way, we will hear a delightful puppet opera, a glorious mass for Christmas, a program of madrigals and motets, and perhaps the greatest masterpiece of the early Baroque. The season feature music by two remarkable women and two pioneers of the new music of the seventeenth century.

The notion of constructing a season as a tour of Italy began in a trip I took in the summer of 2008. While in Milan I made a pilgrimage to Cozzolani’s convent, Santa Radegonda, now a multiplex cinema ("Sex in the City" was premiering that day) and wandered around the marvelous Duomo. I also visited Florence, where so many of the radical ideas that shaped the music of the seventeenth century were first articulated. Throughout the journey, I was struck by how strongly the aesthetic of the seicento survives in spite of the noise of the intervening centuries.

So much of what we consider to be “modern” has its roots in the new ideas of the seventeenth century. The Earth went from being the center of the universe to a speck in the midst of an infinite eternity. Artists and poets sought to depict the subtleties of human emotion through jarring contrast and exaggeration. Composers gave us opera, the virtuoso, and art music for the masses. And almost every bold new idea began in the collection of duchies, independent cities, republics, and colonies that we now know collectively as Italy.

Given the 400th anniversary of the great and complex masterpiece of the seicento, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, it seemed like an excellent idea to explore the various strands of the new music of the seventeenth century in the context of four cities: Florence, Milan, Venice, and Mantua. While certainly not a comprehensive list, these cities offer a broad perspective on the many artistic trends that so powerfully shaped the music of the entire continent.

October 18-20, 2009 - Florence: “The Liberation of Ruggiero” by Francesca Caccini
with The Northwest Puppet Theatre

Magnificat welcomes back the Northwest Puppet Theatre for a production of the only surviving opera by Francesca Caccini. The daughter of the father of the nuove musiche of the 17th century, Giulio Caccini, Francesca had a remarkable career in her own right, arguably the first “diva”, an accomplished composer, and an independent woman centuries ahead of her time.

December 4-6, 2009 - Milan: Christmas Mass by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani.

By popular demand, Magnificat will revisit the music from the remarkable Benedictine nun, Chiara Margarita Cozzolani. In this program, Cozzolani’s setting of the Mass will be performed together with seasonal motets for solo voices and traditional chant.

February 12-14, 2010 - Venice: "Celesti fiori" by Alessandro Grandi

A student of Giovanni Gabrieli, Grandi served as an assistant to Monteverdi at San Marco and was a prolific composer of vocal chamber music in the evolving concerto style of the first qurter of the 17th Century. His unfailing gift for melody and daring use of harmony resulted in initimate and deeply expressive music that speaks across the centuries with clarity and power. Most of the motets and madrigals performed on this program will be modern premieres.

April 23-25, 2010 - Mantua: Vespro della Beata Vergine by Claudio Monteverdi

With his famous Vespers of 1610 Monteverdi, consciously melded the competing styles of old and new that fueled the great musical debate of the new century. Based on ancient psalm tones, the polyphonic settings of the Vespers liturgy offer a kaleidoscopic tour through the new musical styles that were evolving at the time. Magnificat will be joined by The Whole Noyse in these performances.

Details of the season will be available soon on Magnificat's new website.

San Francisco Chronicle Review: 'Venere, Amore e Ragione'

by Joshua Kosman

This review was published in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 7, 2009.

The thing about love, as most people learn sooner or later, is that it stubbornly refuses to be guided by the precepts of logic and rationality. A pretty smile, an enticing gaze, some shapely body part or other, and boom - there goes common sense.

Not so in "Venere, Amore e Ragione" ("Venus, Cupid and Reason"), the comely little musical entertainment presented over the weekend by the early-music ensemble Magnificat. In Alessandro Scarlatti's serenata, probably first performed in Rome in 1706, Cupid throws off his blindfold, and amid great rejoicing by the pastoral crowds, embraces Reason as his mentor.

Uh-huh. And you thought 19th century operas were unrealistic.

The charms of this work, scored for three singers in the title roles and a complement of six instrumentalists, are slight but genuine. Compared with composers writing even 10 or 20 years later, Scarlatti works on a compact scale, writing terse little arias that make their points and hurry away again.

Paradoxically, perhaps, his music is better appreciated in full-length operas, where these gemlike miniatures acquire dramatic heft through sheer accumulation. In a modest pastoral like "Venere, Amore e Ragione" - which includes scarcely an hour's worth of music - a listener can sup contentedly enough on musical canapes while waiting in vain for a meatier dish.

Still, there is no denying the vigor, stylishness and sheer beauty of Scarlatti's score, which moves briskly through its set pieces and culminates, like some Baroque version of "Der Rosenkavalier," with a lushly scored trio for the three female voices. There's also a surprise ending (musical, not textual) to rival anything concocted by O. Henry.

Saturday's performance at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley brought out these appealing qualities without alleviating the essential modesty of the undertaking. The instrumental playing, led from the harpsichord by Hanneke van Proosdij, was lively and evocative, with occasional bursts of recorder to leaven the string textures.

The vocal casting was evidently done in accordance with a principle whereby only singers named Jennifer need apply. Among these, soprano Jennifer Ellis Kampani was the standout, singing the role of Cupid with a bright, sweeping tone and effortlessly negotiating the sometimes daunting thickets of coloratura writing in the part. One aria, "D'amor l'accesa face" ("The burning torch of love"), proved to be the dramatic climax of the evening, a bravura showpiece that Ellis Kampani brought home superbly.

Soprano Jennifer Paulino made a cool, sweet-toned but rather impassive Venus. Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane's recessive performance as Reason made that luminary's ultimate triumph seem all the more implausible.

E-mail Joshua Kosman at jkosman@sfchronicle.com.

SFCV Review of Scarlatti Concert: In Light of Reason

by Joseph Sargent

This review was posted at San Francisco Classical Voice on April 6, 2009.

An unmistakable allure surrounds concerts that bring long-neglected music into the new light of day. Aside from the sheer novelty of presenting repertory otherwise seldom available in concert or on recordings, these efforts can prove highly memorable for the listener, who comes away with a distinct feeling of having experienced something special. Such encounters happen frequently with Warren Stewart’s Baroque ensemble Magnificat, whose penchant for seeking out hidden treasures often yields delightful performances of music by underappreciated composers.

For Magnificat’s latest concert set, the presumptive diamond in the rough was a genre rather than a composer. Alessandro Scarlatti’s Venere, Amore, e Ragione (Venus, Cupid, and Reason) is a “serenata” — a term with slippery historical connotations but that in Scarlatti’s day denoted a festive, cantatalike work associated with important occasions, from grand state affairs to more intimate celebrations. Its text, by the Roman poet Silvio Stampiglia, details a dispute between Venus and Reason involving the latter’s newfound influence over Cupid, with Venus conceding in the end that love guided by reason yields better lovers.

Although Scarlatti wrote nearly two dozen serenatas during his lifetime, these pieces tend to play second fiddle to his better-known operas and solo-voice chamber cantatas. Compounding the obscurity of Venere, Amore, e Ragione is a lack of information about its original performance context. (Educated guesses place the work around 1706, in association with the composer’s election to the Roman literary academy/cultural institution Accademia dell’Arcadia.)

Of course, the act of reviving seldom-heard works loses some luster if the piece itself lacks charisma. Hearing Magnificat’s performance on Friday in Palo Alto’s First Lutheran Church, I was struck by the generic, repetitive quality of much of this music. Certainly this can be attributed, at least partially, to the relentless alternations of recitative and arias and to standardized da capo aria structures typical of Baroque practice. But even allowing for these structural rigidities, Scarlatti’s music comes off as merely serviceable: pleasant but largely uninspired.

Persuasive Proponent of Scarlatti

All this should take nothing away from Magnificat’s actual performance, which lived up fully to this ensemble’s usual high standards. If any ensemble were to advocate for Scarlatti’s serenatas through compelling performances, this is the one. Magnificat’s sterling trio of vocalists and sextet of instrumentalists approached the piece with great elegance, imparting a sense of grace, fluidity, and intimacy. Vocal qualities were exquisitely matched to the characters portrayed, with soprano Jennifer Paulino’s warm, vibrant sound perfectly suited to the sensual Venus. Jennifer Ellis Kampani’s bright, clarion soprano ably captured the youthful Cupid, while the rich, magisterial quality of mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane offered a fine counterbalance as the more grounded Reason.

Amid Scarlatti’s pervasive stylistic homogeneity, select moments of variety proved to be the evening’s highlights. Reason’s aria “Quella ninfa d’accese pupille” (That nymph with inflamed eyes) featured Lane in a zestful performance, emphasizing the nymph’s “beautiful eyes” and “passionate splendor.” The exclusive use of low-sounding instruments for accompaniment offered an appealing contrast, even if intonation issues occasionally marred the texture.

The performers handled isolated instances of florid coloratura expertly. Kampani’s confident declamation of “D’amor l’accesa face” (If the burning torch of love), in perfect counterpoint with violinists Rob Diggins and Jolianne von Einem, invigorated the pyrotechnics of this paean to love blended with reason. All three vocalists triumphed in the serenata’s finale, “Impari ad amar bene” (Learn to love well), coming together in a virtuoso display of vocal agility, impeccable blend, and fine balance, right up to the surprisingly inconclusive final chord.

The instrumental consort, solid throughout, shone brightest in a dance movement that perfectly captured the rustic character of nimble nymphs and shepherds in jubilant celebration. Especially engaging were the delightful string portamentos and the ever-steady harmonic support from the dynamic duo of harpsichordist Hanneke van Proosdij and theorbist David Tayler.

Joseph Sargent, a doctoral candidate in musicology at Stanford University, is a professional writer and editor as well as a performer, conductor, and scholar of early music.

Alessandro Scarlatti’s Serenata Venere, Amore e Ragione

By the 17th century the term serenata had lost its original association with the custom of offering a musical tribute to a beloved woman. Already in the 16th century, compositions entitled serenata were composed to amuse a sophisticated, aristocratic audience to satirize the custom, especially as practiced by the lower classes. In mid 17th century Rome, the serenade became associated with magnificent events produced for civic or diplomatic occasions. At the same time, serenades were also written for more intimate environments.

Manuscript scores and libretti survive for 22 cantatas for two or more voices by Scarlatti bear the term serenata. Like most of Scarlatti’s vocal chamber works, these serenatas were heard in highly exclusive, aristocratic circles. The precise circumstances of the first performance of Venere, Amore, e Ragione are unknown. Musicologist Thomas E. Griffin has suggested that the serenata is associated with Scarlatti’s induction in the Accademia dell'Arcadia in 1706.

The libretto for Venere, Amore, e Ragione is attributed to the Roman poet Silvio Stampiglia, a fellow member of the Accademia dell'Arcadia who collaborated with Scarlatti on many occasions. The libretto recounts a dispute between Venus and Reason over the conduct of Venus’ son Cupid. Distressed at finding her son among the nymphs and shepherds of Rome and a changed under the influence of Reason, Venus fears that he will lose his power. After much discussion Cupid, with the support of Reason, persuades his mother that the quality and quantity of his followers has only improved since he adopted Reason as his guide.

The elegant and highly mannered style, both Scarlatti’s music and Stampiglia’s language are well suited to the aesthetic espoused by the Arcadians, who explicitly rejected what they perceived as the artificiality of the seventeenth century literary style associated with the poet Giambattista Marini. The “Marinists” sought novel and striking contrasts and the poetic inventiveness that created bold and unexpected conceits. The Arcadians sought simplicity and “naturalness” and Scarlatti’s music expresses this sensibility in its sparing use of coloratura and preference for lyrical melodies in conjunct motion.

Scarlatti was born in famine-stricken Sicily in 1660 and it has been suggested that his humble origins made his a compulsive worker and contributed to his prolific and varied output. While his reputation as the founder of the Neapolitan school of 18th century opera may be somewhat over-stated, his works in the genre are highly skilled and original, and marked by innovations in orchestration, strong dramatic characterization and, above all, an unfailing melodic sense. It is in the genre of chamber works for voice and instruments that Scarlatti’s most perfectly realized and imaginative music is to be found, as he excelled in the art of the soliloquy, in detailed imagery, and in dialogue between voice and instruments.

As a boy of 12, Scarlatti had the good fortune of moving to Rome where he most likely studied with Iacomo Carissimi. He married in 1678 and later that year was appointed maestro di capella of San Giacomo degli Incurabili. The composer’s career was established in Rome with the acclaimed production of his second opera Gli equivoce nel sembiante at the Collegio Clementino in 1679, after which he was appointed maestro di capella to the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden.

After several successful operas in Rome, Scarlatti was appointed in 1684 as maestro di cappella at the vice-regal court of Naples, at the same time as his brother Francesco was made first violinist. It was alleged that they owed their appointments to the intrigues of one of their sisters, who were both opera singers, with two court officials, who were dismissed. During his nearly two decades in Naples, Scarlatti wrote a steady output of operas, typically two each year and his reputation grew as many of these operas were performed elsewhere in Italy.

With the death of Charles II in 1700, the political tension that had been brewing was ignited into what would become known as the Wars of the Spanish Succession, and consequent undermining of the privileged status that many his noble patrons in Naples (a contested Spanish territory) had enjoyed, Scarlatti began looking in earnest for employment elsewhere. He was especially eager to find a position for his talented teenage son Domenico, with whom he traveled first to Florence after obtaining his release from his engagement in Naples. After a brief there, he accepted a position as assistant to Antonio Foggia, the music director of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

While the role of church musician suited Scarlatti poorly and the papal ban on operas restricted what had been his primary musical focus, the composer’s second tenure in Rome proved to be very important. He had the chance to work together with great instrumental virtuosi including the violinist Corelli, the violoncellist Franceschino, and harpsichordists like Pasquini and Gasparini.

With the production of operas limited to occasional private performances staged by noblemen, Scarlatti turned his attention to the genres of the cantata and serenata. In 1706 he was elected, along with Pasquini and Corelli, to the Accademia dell'Arcadia, which encouraged a lively and sophisticated audience for chamber music, and, along with the enlightened “conversazioni” of patrons like the Cardinals Ottoboni and Pamphili, gave Scarlatti the opportunity to compose many of his finest vocal works.

Towards the end of 1708 he accepted the Austrian Viceroy's invitation to return to his position in Naples, taking the place of Francesco Mancini, who had served in Scarlatti's prolonged absence. Scarlatti remained in Naples for the rest of his life, but maintained close contacts with his Roman patrons and made several visits there, some of them of long duration. In 1716 he received the honor of a knighthood from Pope Clement XI. His final opera, La Griselda, was written for Rome in 1721, and he seems to have spent his last years in Naples in semi-retirement until his death in 1725.

"The Three Jennifers" – Magnificat Performs Scarlatti’s Venere, Amore e Ragione

On the weekend of April 3-5, Magnificat will concludes our 2009-2010 season with performances of Venere, Amore e Ragione, a delightful serenade by Alessandro Scarlatti that will feature three Jennifers: Jennifer Ellis Kampani, Jennifer Paulino and Jennifer Lane. Together with instrumentalists Rob Diggins, Jolianne von Einem, Vicki Gunn Pich, David Tayler, and Hanneke van Proosdij, they will perform a work that Scarlatti wrote during the years he spent in Rome at the turn of the 18th century.

All three Jennifers are well known to Bay Area audiences. Jennifer Ellis Kampani, who with sing the role of Amore, first appeared with Magnificat in the role of “Jealousy” in our production of Il Capriccio in 1997. She enjoys an international career that has included appearances with the period instrument groups American Bach Soloists, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Opera Lafayette, Apollo's Fire, Musica Angelica, Magnificat, Washington Catherdral Choral Society, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Solamente (Budapest, Hungary), Ensemble Tourbillon (Prague, Czech Republic), and Musica Aeterna (Bratislava, Slovakia). In addition, Ms. Kampani has sung with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Charlotte Symphony. Opera highlights include leading roles in Handel's Acis and Galata, Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona, Duron’s zarzuela “Salir el Amor del Mundo”, Handel's "Semele", and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

Jennifer Paulino, who will sing Venere, has performed frequently with Magnificat since singing the role of “Daniele” in our production of Stradella’s La Susanna in 2007. In addition to her work with Magnificat, Jennifer has appeared with the Leiden Baroque Ensemble (Netherlands), and the Catacoustic Consort (Cincinnati), and is a founding member of the Baroque ensemble Les grâces. She has sung Messiah selections and Vivaldi's Gloria with the Southwest Florida Symphony, the title role in Acis and Galatea (Handel), and a concert at the Bach Festival of Gliwice, Poland. She was a founding member of The Choral Scholars (1999-2004), a vocal ensemble dedicated to the study and performance of early music and new works. Her tenure with the ensemble culminated in a recording and concert in collaboration with Trio Mediæval and the Washington National Cathedral girls choir.

Jennifer Lane sings on Magnificat’s rcordings of the music of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, but will mark her Magnificat concert debut with these performances. Jennifer, who will sing the role of Ragione in Magnificat's performances, is recognized internationally for her stunning interpretations of repertoire ranging from the early Baroque to that of contemporary composers. She has appeared at festivals worldwide, with such noted conductors Michael Tilson-Thomas, Mstislav Rostropovich, William Christie, Nicholas McGegan, Andrew Parrott, Christopher Hogwood, Marc Minkowski, Helmut Rilling, and Robert Shaw, among others. Her performances have brought acclaim from audiences in opera and concert at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Salzburger Bachgesellschaft, National Arts Center in Ottawa, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Tanglewood Festival, Caramoor Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Bethlehem Bach Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, the New Getty Center, the Frick Collection in New York, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Opernhaus Halle, Opernhaus Dessau, Utah Opera and Opera du Caen.

A noted early music specialist, Jennifer Lane appears frequently with many of the most noted period instrument orchestras: Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, New York Collegium, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik, American Bach Soloists, Boston's Handel & Haydn Society and Le Parlement de Musique. She is also a frequent guest with symphony orchestras and has performed with the Jerusalem Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Honolulu Symphony and the Orchestra della Toscana. She has been seen in opera at Opernhaus Halle, Opernhaus Dessau, Santa Fe Opera, Utah Opera and in New York City Opera, where she has performed over twenty roles, including the role of Amastre in NYCO's acclaimed production of Georg Frideric Handel’s Xerxes, directed by Stephen Wadsworth and voted "opera production of the year" by USA Today. She joined the Metropolitan Opera in productions of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Janacek's Katya Kabanova in 1999.

SFCV Review: When the Audience is the Congregation

by Anna Carol Dudley

This review appeared in the February 10, 2009 edition of San Francisco Classical Voice.

Heinrich Schütz suggested that his Musikalische Exequien could be a substitute for a German mass. Warren Stewart has taken him at his word, incorporating the work into a full-length church service. Stewart’s Magnificat, complete with two organs, a continuo group, and eight singers (including a preacher and a deacon), performed the mass Saturday night at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley. The so-called audience served as congregation, joining in on some verses of the chorales.

Nowadays, chorales are called hymns, and in American churches are usually sung in English. The congregation was invited to applaud at the end, but that increasingly happens routinely in American church services. And lo, nobody was turned away for not singing or not knowing German or not caring much for sermons. In fact, the congregation seemed to enjoy singing chorale verses and listening to the more elaborate verse settings. Preacher Hummel chanted the Epistle and spoke the sermon in German, risking encouragement of the traditional practice of sleeping through the sermon.

Schütz, born a hundred years before J.S. Bach, was a prolific composer. Greatly esteemed in his own time, he retained a sort of connoisseurs’ fame long after musical tastes had changed, and now his music — all available in good modern editions — is as highly regarded as it ever has been.

A Splendid Team, Artfully Deployed

The Musikalische Exequien is a masterwork, and Magnificat gave it superb voice. Every singer rose magnificently to the occasion: tenor Martin Hummel (the preacher) and bass Hugh Davies (the deacon), tenor Paul Elliott and bass Peter Becker, altos Daniel Hutchings and Kristen Dubenion Smith, and sopranos Ruth Escher and Jennifer Paulino.

The work (whose opening was preceded by unison chanting of an introit from the Psalms) began with the extraordinary “Nakket bin ich von Mutterleibe kommen” (Naked I came out of my mother’s womb). The tenor preacher began with a solo line, to be joined by the other male voices, followed by the full sextet, then by a two-soprano duet. And so the music continued, weaving from the eight distinctive voices a tapestry of small ensembles, flashes of solo singing, and full choral sound, and ending on a text by Martin Luther with all eight singers.

“Exequien” (obsequies) are burial masses, but this mass was commissioned by the widow of Prince Heinrich Reuss Posthumus, and the text was not the usual mass, but rather a collection of scriptural verses from both Old and New Testaments, plus quotations from several Protestant leaders, Luther prominent among them. One of my personal favorite moments in the great feast of sound was a duet by the two basses, who sang of life’s labor and sorrow but “delighted therein.” And the Messiah-singing soprano in me was charmed by a tenor rendition of the German text that translates as “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

Schütz included two motets in the Musicalische Exequien. The singers moved into two quartets to sing the polychoral “Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe” (Lord, if I only have you). The second motet was a setting of two separate texts. From the front of the church a quintet (altos, tenors and one bass) sang “Lord, now let Thy servant depart in peace,” and at the back, two sopranos and a bass sang “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” — a lovely antiphonal moment.

The continuo players were Katherine Heater on organ, John Dornenburg on violone, and David Tayler on mandora (a kind of lute). Davitt Moroney, at the back of the sanctuary, played the splendid St. Mark’s Flentrop organ. He provided elaborate chorale introductions by Scheidt, Schein and Praetorius, and began and ended the service with a ricercar prelude and a toccata postlude, both by Johann Jacob Froberger.

Davitt Moroney to Perform with Magnificat

For our performances in February, Magnificat will be joined by organist Davitt Moroney who will perform works by Froberger, Scheidt, and others. Magnificat worked with Davitt last summer in two memorable performances at the Berkeley Early Music Festival.

Davitt was born in England in 1950. He studied organ, clavichord, and harpsichord with Susi Jeans, Kenneth Gilbert and Gustav Leonhardt. For over twenty years he was based in Paris, working primarily as a freelance recitalist in many countries. In 2001 he moved to California as a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is Professor of Music, University Organist, and Director of the University Baroque Ensemble.

His scholarly career started with a study of the vocal music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd for his doctoral thesis (UC Berkeley, 1980), and has ranged widely over repertoires from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, with particular attention to the music of Byrd, Bach, and various members of the Couperin family. His many scholarly editions include Bach’s The Art of Fugue with his own completion of the final unfinished fugue (Henle, 1989), the complete harpsichord works of Louis Couperin (1985) and of Louis Marchand (1987), as well as the collection of harpsichord pieces by Purcell discovered in 1994, now known as the “Purcell Manuscript” (1999). His monograph Bach, An Extraordinary Life—a short introduction to the composer’s life and works—was published by ABRSM Publishing in 2000 and has since been translated into French, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Dutch. In 2005 he rediscovered Alessandro Striggio’s long-lost Mass in 40 and 60 Parts, dating from 1565-66; he conducted the first modern performance of this massive work at London’s Royal Albert Hall in July 2007 and conducted two further performances at the Berkeley Early Music Festival in June 2008. His recent published articles have been studies of the music of François Couperin and Alessandro Striggio. This year he is also visiting director of a research seminar in Paris at the Sorbonne’s École pratique des hautes études.

His international performing career has lead him in recent years to give organ and harpsichord masterclasses at the Paris Conservatoire, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, the Juilliard School in New York, and Oberlin Conservatory, as well as in South Korea, Finland, Belgium, and Switzerland. Other recent concerts have included recitals in Germany, Holland, Italy, England, and Scotland. He is regularly invited as a jury member for international organ and harpsichord competitions.

He has made nearly sixty commercial CDs, especially of music by Bach, Byrd, and various members of the Couperin family. Many of these recordings feature historic organs and harpsichords dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His recordings include several devoted to Henry Purcell, including the first recording of the “Purcell Manuscript” (Virgin). He has also recorded Bach’s French Suites (two CDs; Virgin), The Well tempered Clavier (four CDs; Harmonia Mundi), the Musical Offering (with Janet See and John Holloway; Harmonia Mundi), the complete Bach sonatas for flute and harpsichord (with Janet See; Harmonia Mundi) and for violin and harpsichord (with John Holloway; Virgin), as well as The Art of Fugue (a work he has recorded twice). Among his most substantial recordings are William Byrd’s complete keyboard works (127 pieces, on seven CDs, using six instruments; Hyperion), as well as the complete harpsichord and organ music of Louis Couperin (over 200 pieces, on seven CDs, using four historic instruments). His recent recordings include: the complete harpsichord works of Louis Marchand and Louis-Nicolas Clérambault (Plectra, 2007), a CD that includes Nicolas Lebègue’s Les Cloches; a two-CD album of pieces from “The Borel Manuscript” (Plectra, 2008), comprising pieces from a recently discovered manuscript of French harpsichord music acquired in 2004 by UC Berkeley’s Hargrove Music Library; and the first of a 10-CD series devoted to the complete harpsichord works of François Couperin (234 pieces).

His recordings have been awarded the French Grand Prix du Disque (1996), the German Preis der Deutschen Schallplatenkritik (2000), and three British Gramophone Awards (1986, 1991, 2000). In 1987 he was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre du mérite culturel by Prince Rainier of Monaco and, in 2000, Officier des arts et des lettres by the French government.

Martin Hummel Returns for Magnificat Concerts

It is always a pleasure to welcome German baritone Martin Hummel back for another Magnificat set. I first met Martin in 1980, when he was still a teenager. I had met his brother Cornelius (a very fine cellist) at the Aspen Music Festival, and ended up staying with his family in Würzburg over the Christmas vacation. I had gone to Germany to work with composer Karlheinz Stockhausen on a cello transcription of his work In Freundschaft (this was before my conversion to baroque cello!) I remember being charmed by Martin's voice as he sang christmas carols and folk song, accompanying himself on guitar. 

Many years later I saw his name on a recording on Schütz's Weihnachtshistorie (the definitive recording of that work, by the way) and set about finding him. Martin sang the Evangelist role of the Weihnachtshistorie in Magnificat's first season in December of 1992. Two years later he returned for Schütz's Auferstehungshistorie. He has been back three times since, and it is always a pleasure.

Martin was born into a musical family and had his training in Würzburg and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Kurt Widmer and René Jacobs. He further continued his music study with Margaret Hönig, Peter Schreier, Julia Hamari, Hans Hotter, and others. After his studies, Martin Hummel embarked on a career of song recitals and concerts that has taken him to a number of European countries, to the USA, and to Asia. He has taken part in first performances under leading conductors, and has undertaken broadcasts and television engagements, in addition to his recordings for major record companies. He teaches at the Würzburg and Bayreuth Musikhochschule.

Welcome back Martin!

Heinrich Schütz's "Slight Work"

"This slight work consists of only three pieces... anyone liking this work of mine may find that it can be used to good effect as a substitute for a German Missa, and possibly for the Feast of the Purification..."

Thus did Heinrich Schütz hope to give the three pieces he composed for the funeral of Prince Heinrich Reuss Posthumus a life beyond their specific commission. Our intention in this program is to realize Schütz's suggestion, and incorporate the three pieces known collectively as the Musikalische Exequien, along with music by Schütz’s musical colleagues, into a Lutheran Mass for the Feast of the Purification, following the liturgical practice of the Dresden Court Chapel of the mid-1630s.

Shortly after the death of the prince in December 1635, Schütz received a commission from the widow to set the nearly two dozen scriptural verses and chorale strophes that the prince had ordered engraved on the copper coffin in which he was interred. Not only the choice of texts but also their order was prescribed, presenting Schütz with the formidable task of devising a coherent musical structure from an disparate array of texts. His ingenious solution to the architectural and musical problems was to manipulate the texts into "the form of a German Burial Mass", parsing them so as to paraphrase the Kyrie and Gloria. Thus resulted one of his finest masterpieces, the vocal concerto for six voices and continuo Nakket bin ich von Mutterleibe kommen (SWV 279). Schütz also provided two motets for the funeral service, one a setting of the verses from Psalm 73 which served as the sermon text, Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe (SWV 280), the other a setting of the Canticle of Simeon, Herr, nun leßestu deinen Deiner in Friede fahren (SWV 281), which the prince wished to have sung during the interment of his coffin. The three works were later published together in an elegant edition as the Musikalische Exequien.

Fulfillment and farewell are the themes of the Feast of the Purification, also called the Presentation in the Temple, which commemorates the presentation of the Christ child by Mary, in fulfillment of Jewish law. The central figure in the event is the old man Simeon, who after a long life of waiting has the joy of taking in his arms the child whom he recognizes as the promised one. The Canticle of Simeon, as recorded in Luke, "Lord, now let your servant depart in peace...” expresses the old man's joyful acceptance of death and welcome to a new life. This feast, with its intersection of welcome and farewell, union and separation, was a traditional day for funerals for German nobility in the 17th century and, in fact, was the date that marked the beginning of the funeral observances that included the first performance of the Musikalische Exequien. Thus, Schütz's suggestion of Purification as an appropriate feast on which to use his "slight work" is not surprising.

Our reconstruction follows the order of service for the Feast of the Purification described in the Ordung der Christlichen deutschen Gesänge so auf alle Fest- und Soontagsevangelia gerichtet und in der SchloßKirchen zu Dreßden gesungen werden... 1581, which was the basis for liturgical practice in Saxony throughout the first half of the seventeenth century We have also used this document as a source for the prayers and readings, and to determine which chorales were sung. The chorale melodies are drawn from the Dresden hymnal published by Gimel Bergen in 1625 and 1632, while their harmonizations are adapted from publications by Samuel Scheidt, Michael Praetorius, and Johann Hermann Schein. In common with all Reformation chapel orders, the Dresden liturgy allowed for considerable flexibility in many details of the service, reflecting Luther's desire to create a liturgy that remained responsive to local tradition and developing interpretation. The resulting structures form a beautiful setting for a wide variety of music, from the simple folk-song derived chorales to the latest Italian concerted style.

Mass begins with an organ prelude and an introit, sung to accompany the entry of the clergy. The Kyrie and Gloria followed immediately, paraphrased in our program by the first part of the Musikalische Exequien. The pair of readings, proper to the feast day, which followed were retained essentially unchanged from the pre-Reformation church, and established the themes for the entire service. The Gradual, sung between the two readings in the pre-Reformation church, was replaced in Lutheran practice by congregational hymns that varied according to the season. Purification was the last day on which the Christmas Gradual-Lied Gelobet seistu Jesus Christ was sung.

Luther encouraged the continued use of Latin alongside the vernacular and so the Dresden chapel order calls for either the Latin and the German Credo, and typically Luther's metrical paraphrase "Wir gläuben all in einen Gott" was sung by the congregation in unison. The first and third strophes of Luther’s chorale will be sung by the congregation in our program, while the second strophe is drawn from Schütz’s second collection of Kleine Geistliche Konzerte, published in 1639. After the German Credo a motet was often sung, and it is here that we have placed the second part of Schütz's Musikalische Exequien.

A chorale verse, the Our Father, and a recitation of the text on which the sermon was based, most often, the gospel of the day, introduced the sermon. We will perform the recitation of the Sermon text in a setting by Schein that employs a technique known as falso bordone, a type of harmonized chant. A polyphonic setting of that same text often followed the sermon, and the third part of the Musikalische Exequien serves perfectly in this role. A chorale, benedictory prayer, and blessing follow. Luther's chorale Mit Fried und Freud, a paraphrase of the Canticle of Simeon, was universally associated with Purification, and served as the basis for Michael Prætorius's motet that will conclude our program. The three musical jewels that are the Musikalische Exequien fit gracefully into this noble setting so beloved by Schütz, enriching the liturgy even as the liturgy reveals their most profound beauty.

Giovanni Antonio Rigatti

by Jeffrey Kurtzman

Giovanni Antonio Rigatti is a name that until recent times was virtually unknown to music history. Living in Venice in the first half of the 17th-century, he has been overshadowed by his famous contemporaries, the chapel masters and vice chapel masters of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice: Claudio Monteverdi, Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Rovetta and Francesco Cavalli. Thanks to the research and publications of an international coterie of scholars, Jerome Roche (England), Linda Maria Koldau (Germany), Metoda Kokole (Slovenia) and Gianluca Viglizzo (Italy), both the biography and music of this fascinating composer of the mid-17th century are at long last coming to light. I am especially grateful to Gianluca Viglizzo for sharing with me his as-yet-unpublished article on Rigatti containing new biographical data. Much of the information below is derived from this article and an earlier one by the late Jerome Roche.

Baptized on October 15, 1613 in the Church of San Severo in Venice, Rigatti became a boy singer in the chapel of St. Mark’s under Monteverdi’s direction on September 25, 1621. As with many such boy choristers, his early training led to a musical career as a singer, organist and composer. It is unknown how long he remained at St. Mark’s, but he must have been composing from at least his late teenage years, for his first book of motets for 2, 3 and 4 voices and ripieno choir was published in 1634, and the dedication of his first published collection of madrigals for 2, 3 and 4 voices, issued in 1636, refers to pieces composed “in the spring of my youth.” Also in his teenage years he entered the Patriarchal Seminary in Venice, finally attaining the rank of deacon in 1637. Even before becoming a deacon, Rigatti served for eighteen months (1635-1637) as chapel master at the cathedral in Udine in the Friuli region north of Venice, being cited at his installation as “one of the best musicians of Venice,” certainly a distinction for someone barely 22 years old!

In March of 1637 Rigatti left his post in Udine to return to Venice, where in August of 1639 he was appointed organist, master of the choir and music teacher to the girls at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti (beggar’s refuge), one of the Venetian orphanages for girls where music was such an important factor in their education (in the 18th century Vivaldi was for many years director of music at the Ospedale della Pietà, which attracted many Venetian and foreign visitors because of the quality of its concerts). Rigatti, however, was released from his post at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in the late summer of 1642 because of moonlighting at other Venetian Ospedali. While retaining a relationship with the Ospedale degli Incurabili (refuge of the incurables), he went to work before the year was out for Monsignor Gian Francesco Morosini, a member of one of the most distinguished patrician families of Venice, who became the Patriarch of Venice in 1644 and a Procurator (one of three ruling officers) of St. Mark’s in 1645.

As Patriarch, Morosini was in charge of the church of San Pietro in Castello, the cathedral of Venice (St. Mark’s was the ducal basilica, and of much greater importance than the official cathedral). San Pietro did not have its own professional choir, but rather a group of canons who sang under the direction of the organist. Once Morosini became a Procurator of St. Mark’s, Rigatti was named “Sottocanonico” of the basilica in 1646, a position he assumed in July 1647. This was an administrative post, so that Rigatti’s musical activity was mostly limited to his ongoing association with the Ospedale degli Incurabili. At the height of his career, and having survived the terrible Venetian plague of 1630-31, Rigatti suddenly took sick with a fever on October 18, 1648 and died six days later at the young age of 35.

During his short career, Rigatti was very active as a composer. In addition to the motet and madrigal prints of 1634 and 1636 mentioned above, a truly monumental collection was published in 1640, comprising a mass and many psalms for different combinations of voices, two violins and other instruments, dedicated to the Hapsburg emperor Ferdinand III in Vienna. This is the primary source, in a modern edition by Linda Maria Koldau, of the music of Magnificat’s December concerts. In the next few years Rigatti published even further music: in 1641 a set of secular monodies; in 1643 a collection of psalms and a mass for three solo voices and ripieno choir as well as a separate collection of motets for solo voice; in 1646 psalms and other pieces for the Office of Compline; in 1647 motets for solo voice and a mass and motets for two and three voices; and in 1648, the year of his death, another collection of psalms and a mass for three voices, two violins and ripieno choir.

Rigatti’s music, published by the most prominent publishing houses in Venice, circulated widely. Copies can still be found not only in Italy, but also in England, Poland, Germany and France. His 1647 motets are even found in the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, though obviously not acquired at the time of their publication! But the research of Metoda Kokole in the archives of the cathedral in Capo d’Istria (Koper in Slovenian), down the Istrian peninsula from Trieste, has turned up not only copies of some of Rigatti’s publications, but also a number of compositions in manuscript that are not found in his published works. Rigatti’s music was obviously much prized in Koper, for his repertoire constitutes a major part of the cathedral’s musical archive, far more than any other Venetian composer, and may have arrived there through personal connections with Rigatti’s publishers and other Venetian acquaintances.

Today, only a small number of Rigatti’s compositions have been recorded on CD. Indeed, Magnificat’s December concerts may well represent the largest assemblage of Rigatti’s music performed at one time since the 17th century. The style of his music, especially the concertato psalms to be heard in these concerts, is akin to Monteverdi’s concertato psalms, performed on many occasions by Magnificat, but with a particular emphasis on passages for small numbers of voices, often in parallel thirds; a prominent role for the violins and other strings, who sometimes take the lead in introducing new motives and frequently play in counterpoint to the voices; a simpler harmonic language; longer passages of rapid text declamation; more repetitive patterning of melodies through such means as sequences and four-square rhythms in ornamental passages, as well as more emphasis on triple meter with graceful melodies; and systematic construction of overall form by such devices as ostinato basses, “walking” basses and other repetitive bass patterns. At times Rigatti’s music reveals weaknesses in contrapuntal technique, but its attractiveness overcomes any such faults.

The Office of Vespers

by Jeffrey Kurtzman

When St. Benedict established the first monastic order in Western Christendom in the sixth century A.D., he prescribed round-the-clock prayers for his monks consisting of eight separate services, one every three hours. These services, the primary texts of which were the Old Testament Psalms of David, comprised the Office Hours, and the most prominent became the evening Office, Vespers, from the Latin word for evening.
All of these Offices were sung throughout to music commonly known as Gregorian Chant—a large repertoire of single-line melodies that dates back to the earliest years of the Catholic Church.

At some unknown point in history it became a frequent practice to perform the Vespers service not only in monasteries and monastic churches, but also in public, so-called “secular” churches as well as in the private chapels of nobles and high clerics. Moreover, Vespers services came, in the 15th century, to be occasionally performed at least partly in polyphony rather than exclusively Gregorian Chant. The 15th century was a period of rapid expansion in the quantity of polyphony used in the central public service of the Catholic Church, the Mass, and by the end of the century, polyphony had become more prominent in Vespers services as well.

The advent of music printing in 1501 in Venice led by the middle of the century to Italian published collections of music for Vespers, which now could circulate widely to monasteries, churches and chapels. Indeed, the interest in polyphonic music for Vespers expanded so rapidly in the late 16th century that by the early 17th century more music was being published in Italy for Vespers than for the Mass itself. That trend continued throughout the century until the publishing of sacred music in Italy gradually died out in the early 18th century.

The liturgy of Vespers is somewhat complicated (see the Table below). The very first item in the service is an unchanging versicle and response asking for the help of the Lord. But the primary elements are five psalms, a hymn and the Magnificat—a song (canticle) from the Gospel according to Luke in which the Virgin Mary rejoices in the news that she will bear the Christ Child. The Magnificat is sung as the last major element in every Vespers service, but the five psalms and the hymn vary according to the category of feast (feasts of the Virgin, feasts of Martyrs, etc.) or the specific feast (Christmas, Feast of St. John the Baptist, etc.).

Early in the history of the Office Hours, the practice developed of singing a separate short text and melody in conjunction with each psalm, both before and after the psalm, and sometimes interpolated between psalm verses as well. These short chants are called antiphons, and each psalm and the Magnificat has its own antiphon, which like the psalms themselves, vary according to the category of feast or specific feast.

Main Elements of a Vespers Service

1. Versicle and Response: Deus in adiutorium meum invariable
2. First Psalm with Antiphon both variable
3. Second Psalm with Antiphon both variable
4. Third Psalm with Antiphon both variable
5. Fourth Psalm with Antiphon both variable
6. Fifth Psalm with Antiphon both variable
7. Hymn variable
8. Magnificat with Antiphon Magnificat invariable, Antiphon variable

Some of these main texts of the Vespers service were often still sung in Gregorian Chant in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially the versicle and response and the antiphons. In addition, there are a few other minor elements in the Vespers service that are either spoken or sung: the New Testament Chapter reading, which precedes the hymn, and a few further short versicles and responses, including a closing series after the Magnificat. Vespers is the penultimate Office Hour of the daily Hours, with Compline following three hours later. But if Compline is not sung and Vespers is the last Office performed in the day, then one of four seasonal prayers to the Virgin Mary, called Marian Antiphons, which normally follow Compline, is sung at the conclusion of Vespers.

By the 17th century antiphons were no longer sung between verses of the psalm and Magnificat, but only before and after. Moreover, it also became common practice to substitute a vocal motet or even an instrumental piece for the official antiphon text either before or after the psalm or Magnificat.

From its humble beginnings, the Vespers service had grown by the 17th century into a concert of polyphony, sometimes very elaborate polyphony with soloists, multiple choirs, instruments and the organ. It is such elaborate Vespers services that have been reconstructed and performed on numerous occasions by Warren Stewart and Magnificat.

San Francisco Classical Voice: Royal Delights

by Joseph Sargent in the October 7, 2008 issue of San Francisco Classical Voice.

For several years now, the Baroque ensemble Magnificat has made seventeenth-century French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier into something of a cottage industry. A regular fixture on the ensemble’s season calendars, this composer embodies Magnificat’s stated mission of uncovering the “‘new music’ of the early Baroque” — masters of the era who have yet to receive their due. Few composers indeed may fit the description of “hidden treasure” more aptly than Charpentier, who is often upstaged in performances today by Jean-Baptiste Lully but was highly regarded in his lifetime by such giants as King Louis XIV and Molière.

With Saturday’s brief concert of two divertissements (short operatic entertainments) at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley, Magnificat Music Director Warren Stewart and company took another decisive step toward reclaiming Charpentier’s reputation. Delivering a crystalline performance marked by luscious vocal purity and elegant instrumental support, Magnificat captured the vitality and freshness of these charming works, turning the evening into an impeccably refined affair.

Les Plaisirs de Versailles (The pleasures of Versailles; 1682) is house music in the literal sense, originally performed for Louis’ thrice-weekly “fêtes of the apartments” in the main rooms of the Great Apartment of Versailles. Its dramatis personae comprise various pleasures that the Sun King evidently enjoyed in these digs: music, conversation, gambling, and that perennial favorite chocolate. Striking contrasts in instrumentation and style — lyrical airs for La Musique, prattling recitative for La Conversation, solemn tones for the temptations of Comus, the god of festivities — accentuate the central debate over which of these elements best satisfies the king’s pleasures.

Both vocally and in their gestures, sopranos Laura Heimes (as Musique) and Jennifer Paulino (as Conversation) nicely captured the comedic aspects of their characters’ arguments. Finely matched tone colors, keen attention to melodic shape, and vivid stage presence accentuated the elegance of even their most stinging put-downs. Both singers deserve credit for creating vivid personifications of Musique’s campy haughtiness and Conversation’s irksome blabbering. As the purveyor of chocolates, wines, and other delectables, bass Hugh Davies added an appealingly robust and seductive quality to the mix.

Considerably less resounding was the evening’s vocal projection, the one flaw marring an otherwise finely polished gem. Many singers (Heimes and Davies excepted) had difficulty carrying over the orchestra, a crackerjack group of eight players whose superlative accompaniment should not have posed particular problems. St. Mark’s acoustic didn’t help matters, but placement of the vocalists in front of rather than behind the orchestra might have alleviated the problem.
Pastoral Pleasures

Also with a connection to royalty was the evening’s other divertissement, La Couronne des fleurs (The crown of flowers; 1685), a work likely composed for the singers of Marie de Lorraine, Duchesse de Guise and cousin to Louis. Freely adapted from the prologue of Charpentier’s comedy-ballet Le Malade imaginaire (The imaginary invalid; 1673, with text by Molière), this work emphasizes the pastoral over the allegorical. A cast of gods and shepherds celebrates the arrival of springtime with a contest to see who can extol the king’s virtues most beautifully, the winner receiving a crown of flowers.

A graceful orchestral introduction, establishing the pastoral mood, segued into the spring goddess Flora’s declamation of that season’s arrival and the rules of the contest, delightfully captured in Haimes’ pitch-perfect performance. Four characters then made their cases to win the crown, with fine contributions from sopranos Paulino and Ruth Escher and tenors Paul Elliott and Daniel Hutchings. Especially appealing were the alternating trios between women and men, the airtight ensemble singing flawless in intonation and blend. The divertissement concludes with Flora declaring all participants to be equally worthy of the crown and dividing its flowers among them, a judgment also well suited to the evening’s performances as a whole.

Du chocolat! Dieu nous en garde!

In Charpentier's delightful divertissement Les plaisirs de Versailles, Comus, the “God of Feasting” seeks to calm a dispute between the haughty diva Music and the loquacious Conversation by offering the delights of marzipan, fine wine, and above all, Chocolate. Music is aghast, but Conversation is quite eager to sample the delicacy.

Comus: Let your disputes not cause commotion here! Let us play. To both of you beauties I shall give chocolates.

La Musique: Chocolate! God forbid that he give any to this chatterbox. As for me, I tell you, I do not wish to taste any. She would never cease her hot-air chatter.

La Conversation: Chocolate is good, dear Comus. By your influence I long to taste a little.

La Musique: No, Comus!

La Conversation: Comus, to listen to her is to waste good time. Chocolate!

Music’s concern about the effect of chocolate on the “babbling divitnity” Conversation, is understandable to anyone who has spent Halloweeen in the company of a 5-year-old.

Columbus brought cacao to Europe when he returned in 1502, but it was not until the 1615 wedding of Louis XIII to Anne of Austria (the daughter of Phillip II of Spain) that the French court discovered the strange brew known for its revitalizing and aphrodisiacal properties and declared chocolate as the drink of the French court. In France, as elsewhere in Europe, chocolate was met with skepticism and was considered a "barbarous product and noxious drug". As with coffee, not everyone was eager to accept the mysterious new drink.

Initially, Chocolate was seen as having largely medicinal properties. In the first official statement about chocolate is made by Bonavontura Di Aragon, brother of Cardinal Richelieu, described the use of chocolate as stimulating the healthy functioning of the spleen and other digestive functions. 1659
Louis XIV gives the chocolate monopolies of the Paris chocolate drink trade and the French Royal Court to David Chaillou, a baker who made costly biscuits and cakes with chocolate—France’s first “chocolatier.”

Charpentier's Music for the Grand Dauphin

Notes by John Powell. Magnificat will perform to of Charpentier's divertissements for the Dauphin, Les Plaisirs de Versailles and La Couronne de Fleurs on the weekend of October 3-5, 2008.

From late 1679 until mid-1683, Charpentier composed music for the establishment of the eldest son of Louis XIV and Queen Marie-Thérèse. Also named Louis, he was popularly known as the Grand Dauphin and referred-to at court as “Monseigneur”. Monseigneur had been given a musical establishment of his own a few months prior to his wedding (on 7 March 1680) to Maria Anna of Bavaria, and for several years he remained loyal to Charpentier and his musicians—who would provide music throughout the 1680s.

“The Dauphin’s Music” consisted of three vocalists: Magdaleine Pièche, a high soprano (haut-dessus); Marguerite Pièche, a soprano (dessus); and Antoine Frison, a bass (basse). They were accompanied by two treble instruments—usually flutes, played by Antoine and Pierre Pièche—and basso continuo. Charpentier had known the singers from his collaborations with Molière in the early 1670s, when the Pièche sisters (then ages 7 and 9) had danced in, and Monsieur Frison had sung in, Le Malade imaginaire (1673).

So taken was Monseigneur with his Music, and so eager was he to please his new bride (who had a fine voice and extensive vocal training), that he began taking singing lessons himself. The Dauphin, “in his extreme youth, where the generosity and the kindness of his heart were continually appearing, thought only of his pleasures and left the cares of the Crown to the King his father.” By contrast, the Dauphine was proving to be “a princess with a great deal of wit, but she did not permit its breadth to be seen in all sorts of situations. She kept her eyes on the King, wanting to let his wishes entirely rule hers, and to do nothing that would appear disagreeable to him.” (Sourches, I, 11)

The Dauphin’s education was all but over by the final months of 1682, and his Bavarian bride was becoming quite outspoken about her musical and theatrical tastes. Mirroring this change in focus, Madame de Guise ordered some entertainments for the coming winter season, when she would be in residence at Versailles. One of these court events was the “Fête of the Apartments”, an innovation by Louis XIV himself that began in November of that year and continued well into January. Three times a week, from 6 until 10 in the evening, a variety of entertainments were held in the principal rooms of the Great Apartment of Versailles: billiards, cards, games of chance, refreshments (including fruits, sorbets, wine and liqueurs, and hot coffee and chocolate), plus “symphonies” and “dancing”. Throughout the fête, only a few guards were present, and the King, the Queen, and all the royal family stepped down from their grandeur, to gamble with some of those present, who have never before been so honored…[The King] goes to one game or another. He allows no one to rise or stop the game when he approaches. (Mercure, Dec. 1682)

During this fête, an “opera” was performed every Saturday (Mercure, Jan. 1683). Les Plaisirs de Versailles and La Couronne des Fleurs were most probably performed on these occasions. In an annotated list of the manuscripts that Charpentier bequeathed to him, the composer’s nephew Jacques Edouard claimed that Les Plaisirs de Versailles was a “piece for the King’s apartments”—for those evening entertainments in the royal palace at Versailles hosted by the King (and referred to generally as “the apartments”). Indeed, on his manuscript title page Charpetier includes the rubric: “la scène est dans les app[artements] ”.

These two works are examples of the operatic divertissement: a short entertainment that is sung throughout in the manner of an opera, but has only one act and lasts a mere half-hour. As common in the divertissements of French opera, the main characters of Les Plaisirs de Versailles are all allegorical—La Musique, La Conversation, Le Jeu, a “Choeur des Plaisirs”—and one mythological figure, Momus, the god of festivities. The singing of La Musique is interrupted by La Conversation, who cannot stop prattling. They argue at length and with increasing heat: which of them is more essential to pleasure…expecially the King’s pleasure? Fearful that they both will leave the château of Versailles in anger, the Chorus of Pleasures calls upon Comus to mediate. He offeres them chocolate, fine wine, exquisite pastries. No use. He then pleads for help from Le Jeu, who is equally unsuccessful, for La Musique and La Conversation continue their bickering. Finally, however, they are reconciled, and the Chorus of Pleasures sigh with relief: Music, Conversation, “our flutes and our voices” can continue to help distract the great King from his military pursuits.

The most striking thing about this lightweight mini-opera, besides its witty and sparkling text, is the sharpness with which Charpentier portrays each character musically. La Musique is languid, tender, sensuous. La Conversation has to admit that she is a “sociable siren”. La Conversation is a nonstop chatterbox, and something of an idiot: she cannot tell a minuet from a courante. La Musique confesses, however, that she is a “babillarde divinité”. Comus, a bass, is a gourmand of small sensibility and Falstaffian bluster. Le Jeu (perhaps played by Charpentier himself) is a wheedling card-sharp.

La Couronne de Fleurs was most probably also performed at Versailles for such an occasion. Names of singers from the musical establishment of the king’s cousin, Marie de Lorraine, Duchess of Guise, known as “Mademoiselle de Guise”—which she shared with her cousin/aunt Isabelle d’Orléans, Duchess of Alençon, known as “Madame de Guise”—appear in the margins of Charpentier’s manuscript. We will recall that Madame de Guise had arranged for musical events to coincide with her winter residence at Versailles; given the flatteries paid to the King in La Couronne des fleurs, it seems likely that Louis XIV was present for the performances.

The text is a free adaptation of the original 1673 Prologue to Molière’s final comedy-ballet, Le Malade imaginaire (1673). In fact, the unknown librettist (perhaps Charpentier himself?) retained only the skeletal outlines of the Prologue. Flora, goddess of spring, calls upon the flowers to repopulate the desolate winter fields, and summons the shepherds and shepherdesses to return. “Louis has banished from them the dire sounds that the cries of the dying and the clash of arms had once allowed to reign there.” She then calls for a contest to see who can best sing of the valiant deeds of Louis. Four brave shepherds (Amaranthe, Forestan, Hyacinte, and Mirtil) try their best, and compare Louis’s warlike prowess to that of a devastating spring torrent, to a bolt of lightning, to the great deeds of ancient Greece, and lament that future generations will scarcely believe the least of his exploits…as they will have nothing with which to compare. Pan then appears to call a halt to the contest, and Flora renders her decision: although they all lack the strength and ability to do justice in song to Louis’s immortal glory, it was enough that they attempted it. So she divides the flowers among the four contestants. In a final ensemble, they wish that just as Louis is the master of the world, may he become the master of time and live a hundred years.