55106-B.pdf

JAN DISMAS ZELENKA

Z ELENKA L AMENTATIONS

MICHAEL CHANCE . MICHAEL GEORGE

JOHN MARK AINSLEY

CHANDOS BAROQUE PLAYERS

representatives of the Bohemian Baroque, although he

spent most of his life at Dresden in Saxony. Czech music

historians speak of an ‘emigration’ to describe the

phenomenon which induced seventeenth- and eighteenth-

century Bohemian composers and performers like Zelenka,

time and again, to make their careers outside the Czech lands.

Despite the influences of his contemporaries at Dresden,

however, Zelenka’s music is very recognisably in the Catholic

Austro-Bohemian tradition. It follows the Italian style as

transmitted through Viennese composers such as Fux and

Caldara, rather than through Protestant traditions, which were

unfamiliar in Bohemia. This Italian ‘Catholic’ style achieved

sudden and universal popularity in central Europe in the late

seventeenth century. Church music was transformed, rather as

the landscape was transformed through the ambitious building

programme which placed exuberant Baroque churches in every

town and village. However, Zelenka also transcends this local

tradition: he is one of the most accomplished and attractive of

all Baroque composers, although his work is even today too

little known.

The son of a local organist at Lounovice in Bohemia, who

probably provided him with the rudiments of his musical

education, he was educated also at Prague and in 1709 held

the office of regenschori (the official responsible for the choir,

generally in a junior capacity) at the Jesuit college there.

Unfortunately, no musical documentation of the Prague Jesuit

college is known to survive, but it seems that Zelenka main-

tained links with it for many years thereafter. By 1710 he had

been appointed to the Kapelle of the Elector of Saxony at

Dresden, as a player of the violone, under its Kapellmeister ,

J D Heinichen. Although he travelled subsequently to Vienna

and to Italy, Zelenka spent most of his working life at the

Dresden court as a violone player, and also as a composer of

Catholic church music.

A comparison of his work with that of J S Bach is an

obvious one to make, despite the different religious traditions

which shaped their music. Both men composed music which

came to seem distinctly old-fashioned by the 1730s, with its

valuing of counterpoint, fugal technique and careful

craftsmanship, besides its typical northern delight in sonorous

colour (exemplified in the use of a variety of obbligato wind

instruments and in complex chromatic harmony). Zelenka’s

interest in the ‘old masters’, very comparable with that of

Bach, is illustrated by his large collection of works by

Palestrina and others, which is still at Dresden. Moreover,

there were direct links between the two. Bach is known to have

admired Zelenka’s music and to have procured copies of some

of it when in Leipzig. (Even in the nineteenth century, the

affinity remained obvious: the revival of Zelenka’s music, both

J AN DISMAS ZELENKA (1679 –1745) was one of the greatest

in Bohemia and elsewhere, went hand in hand with the Bach

revival.) Many of the contemporary anecdotes about Zelenka

bear witness to the perception of his music in Germany as old-

fashioned, and, as with Bach, this did not always help him gain

advancement; he was unable to secure promotion at Dresden

after Heinichen’s death in 1729, despite repeated appeals to

the Elector.

The Lamentations (preserved in manuscript in Dresden,

and dated 1722) were no doubt intended as liturgical pieces

for the electoral chapel. Although not many polyphonic settings

of the traditional Lamentations texts (extracts from the biblical

book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, used as lessons at

Matins in Holy Week) survive from central Europe at this

period, Heinichen also set them for Dresden, and indeed some

were even published for use by parish church choirs; so the

tradition is not unique. Zelenka’s setting includes the first two

Lamentations from Matins of Maundy Thursday, the first two

from Matins of Good Friday, and the first two from Easter Eve.

These are two of the first three lessons read at the services,

which were traditionally set to music; lessons 4 to 9, from St

Augustine and from the New Testament Epistles, were read.

Each of these services was celebrated as ‘Tenebrae’ the

previous evening, a circumstance which leads to Zelenka’s

confusing nomenclature as Lamentations ‘for Wednesday’, ‘for

Thursday’ and ‘for Friday’. Whether the missing third

Lamentation for each day was sung to plainsong, or whether

some other music replaced it, is unknown; the possibility that

further settings have simply been lost would seem rather less

likely.

The Lamentations are structurally unlike most other

concerted music of the time, in that the usual recitative/aria

alternation is abandoned in favour of a more fluid alternation

of short passages of arioso and recitative. This structure is

paralleled by that of the texts. Since the Middle Ages it had

been traditional in the chant prescribed for these texts to sing

the Hebrew letters introducing each short subdivision to a

melisma, and for the texts of the lessons themselves to be set

to a psalmodic recitation, used also for the formal introduction

(‘Incipit lamentatio …’). In this way, the Hebrew letters,

though meaningless in themselves as texts, turn into

occasions for brief meditative preparation, in which the music

can flower in its own right, for the purely narrative texts that

follow them. This appears to be the purpose also of the

affective settings of the Hebrew letters which often occur in

polyphonic Lamentations in the Renaissance. Quite

analogously, Zelenka sets the Hebrew letters as affective

arioso passages, contrasting for the most part with simple

recitative for the actual Lamentation texts. In doing so, he

places himself in a direct line of descent from the older

tradition, with which he was doubtless familiar. Thus his

Lamentations represent a reinterpretation in Baroque terms of

an older Renaissance tradition. Other aspects of Zelenka’s

settings also represent immediately recognisable traditional

allusions: examples are the intense chromaticism (for

example, in the first Lamentation of the first pair), and the

restriction of the voice-types to the lower ranges, alto

(countertenor), tenor and bass.

In other respects, however, Zelenka’s Lamentations mark a

departure from tradition. In the Gregorian originals, as also in

many Renaissance settings, the calls to repentance with which

each Lamentation ends (‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad

Dominum Deum tuum’) are set to the same music; in the

Gregorian, this is simply a continuation of the simple

psalmodic recitative, and each time it leads straight into a

responsory which sets the Lamentation in the context of the

Gospel Passion narrative. On the contrary, Zelenka throws

much more rhetorical weight on the calls to repentance, which

are set afresh each time: they are greatly extended in length,

and are given the functions of responding affectively to, and

rounding off, the preceding narratives.

In doing this, Zelenka was confronted with a compositional

problem rather like that faced by Haydn in setting The Seven

Last Words : how is a composer to produce variety if he is

required to compose six or more consecutive pieces, all pro-

jecting essentially the same affective content—and, in

Zelenka’s case, setting precisely the same refrain text? To

achieve this variety, Zelenka takes full advantage of the

differing moods implicit in the texts of the individual

Lamentations. It is very noticeable, for instance, how the heavy

mood of the minor-key Lamentations of Thursday and Friday is

lightened for the major-key Lamentations, particularly the two

for Saturday, and this corresponds directly with the more

hopeful mood of the first Saturday Lamentation, which is in A

major.

Moreover, the instrumentation is altered for the two

Saturday Lamentations. For the first, the change of mood is

reinforced by the substitution of recorders (or possibly

transverse flutes) for oboes. (Incidentally, the threefold

repetition of each Hebrew letter in this Lamentation, between

short phrases of text, is taken over from the Gregorian original.)

The second of the Easter Eve Lamentations calls in the original

for an obbligato chalumeau (not used in this recording) to

replace the oboe. This instrument enjoyed a certain popularity

from about 1690 in Vienna and elsewhere in central Europe,

including Dresden, in church music as well as opera, no doubt

to connote a plaintive but ‘elevated’ pastoral tone, and to recall

the ‘calamus agrestis’ (‘rustic pipe’, a cognate word) played by

the shepherd Tityrus in Virgil’s First Eclogue; Heinichen uses

chalumeaux to evoke a general pastoral effect in a Christmas

concerto grosso. Here, however, the instrument recalls Virgil’s

First Eclogue more specifically, for Tityrus laments in it for the

exile into which he has been driven; the chalumeau in

symbolizing Tityrus thus personifies Christ here, as the figure

of Tityrus does also in some other central European church

music of the period. The charm of the later Lamentations in

Zelenka’s cycle, though possibly unexpected, is far from

shocking, intended as it no doubt is to represent the natural

progress of the Holy Week liturgy through to an anticipation of

the Resurrection.

Zelenka’s approach to text-setting and liturgical

interpretation was no doubt shaped by his background among

the Jesuits, as well as by the particular circumstances of the

Dresden chapel. The Jesuits’ emphasis on rhetorical training

rooted in the classics – in the effective presentation of texts,

especially Latin texts, in public – was built into their traditional

system of education; and their spirituality, as expressed in the

Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, was orientated towards calls

to conversion, as specifically as these Lamentations are. As for

Dresden, the practical use of rhetorical devices towards ends

such as these, which for a composer offered a method of

overcoming the ‘dryness’ he might find in a text, was given a

detailed discussion in print a few years later by Zelenka’s

superior, Heinichen, in his treatise Der General-Bass in der

Composition (Dresden, 1728). Heinichen writes:

How delighted is our ear, if we perceive in a well-written

church composition or other music how a skilled

composer has attempted here and there to move the

emotions of an audience through his refined and text-

related musical expression, and in this way successfully

finds the true purpose of music.

His more specific advice to the composer, when setting a

reflective text, to seek inspiration for his ‘invention’ in the text

of the previous recitative or in other aspects of the wider

context, is brilliantly realised in the Zelenka Lamentations . In

this cycle, the interplay between the ‘convertere’ refrain and

the narrative, and the rhetorical force it generates, are given

further weight and depth by the variety of mood which the

composer infuses into them. The work can be regarded, in fact,

as a perfect exemplification of the aesthetic aims of the

musical establishment of the Dresden court chapel—and as a

classic example of the persuasive force of the music of the

Austro-Bohemian Baroque at its finest.

Lamentationes pro die Mercurii Sancto

Lamentations for Maundy Thursday

Lamentatio I MICHAEL GEORGE bass

1 Incipit lamentatio Jeremiae prophetae.

Here begins the lamentation of Jeremiah the prophet.

ALEPH

Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo!

O how lonely she sits, the city once thronged with people!

Facta est quasi vidua domina gentium;

She is as if widowed, who was once great among the nations;

princeps provinciarum facta est sub tributo.

she, princess among provinces, is now reduced to vassalage.

BETH

Plorans ploravit in nocte, et lacrimae eius in maxillis eius:

She has passed her nights weeping, tears are upon her cheeks.

non est qui consoletur eam ex omnibus caris eius.

Not one of all her lovers remains to comfort her.

2 Omnes amici eius spreverunt eam, et facti sunt ei inimici.

Her friends have all betrayed her and become her enemies.

GHIMEL

Migravit Judas propter afflictionem, et multitudinem servitutis:

Judah is exiled after her downfall and harsh enslavement.

habitavit inter gentes, nec invenit requiem.

She has dwelt among the nations, but has found no rest.

Omnes persecutores eius apprehenderunt eam inter angustias.

Her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

DALETH

Viae Sion lugent eo quod non sint qui veniant ad solemnitatem:

The roads to Zion mourn; no one comes to her festivals.

omnes portae eius destructae: sacerdotes eius gementes:

Her gateways are all thrown down; her priests groan;

virgines eius squalidae, et ipsa oppressa est amaritudine.

her virgins are grief-stricken; she suffers bitterly.

3 HE

Facti sunt hostes eius in capite,

Her oppressors have gained supremecy,

inimici eius locupletati sunt:

her enemies are enriched;

quia Dominus locutus est

the Lord has pronounced concerning her,

super eam in multitudinem iniquitatum eius:

concerning her many, many sins; her children

parvuli eius ducti sunt in captivitatem, ante faciem tribulantis.

are led into captivity, driven in front of the oppressor.

4 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn to the Lord your God.

Lamentatio II MICHAEL CHANCE countertenor

5 VAU

Et egressus est a filia Sion omnis decor eius:

From the daughter of Zion all her glory has departed.

facti sunt principes eius velut arietes non invenientes pascua:

Her leaders became like rams that find no pasture.

et abierunt absque fortitudine ante faciem subsequentis.

Listlessly they took the road, driven by the drover.

6 ZAIN

Recordata est Jerusalem dierum afflictionis suae, et omnium

Jerusalem has remembered her days of misery and distress,

desiderabilium suorum, quae habuerat a diebus antiquis,

and all her precious things from the days of old,

cum caderet populus eius in manu hostili,

when her people fell into the hand of the enemy

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: