Repertoire: Haydn's Amazing Seven Last Words
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- The full title is: The Seven Last Words of the Savior on the Cross, one of the most remarkable orchestral works of the entire eighteenth century. Believe it or not, this "sacred" music includes the marvelous moment where Haydn invented the triple-forte (for the "earthquake" at the end). Let me take you through the piece, and show you why it's such an extraordinary creation, even for an innovative genius like Haydn.
Musical Sample courtesy of Ondine Records.
David,
I'm afraid I'll have to stop watching these fascinating videos. You're making me spend too much money, LOL
Thanks David for sharing your passion and knowledge in music literature to the public. The depth of classical music repertoire is just so immense and deep that I’m always amazed of how much I wasn’t aware before. Good to have you around! I’ll subscribe to your website to show support!
It’s really good to have
Yes! One of my favorite Haydn works. After I went to music school, my father got much more into classical music and Haydn eventually seemed to both of us like a patron saint. I heard the piano version from John McCabe and was bowled over; a couple months later my father listened to it and had the same reaction independently. I’ve enjoyed other versions since. Such a moving masterpiece!
David, I want to thank you so much for this video. I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought the Haydn "Seven Last Words" was only written for string quartet. I had no idea it was originally written for orchestra or that there was an oratorio version. Moreover, I loved how you showed the text in the music at the beginning of each sonata. I've since tracked down the version you recommended highest with Riccardo Minasi and have been highly impressed. To think that Haydn was still cranking out masterpieces to the end! I love your channel and always learn something new. So thank you.
Thank you for sharing this with me (us)!
Mr. Singer, I thought the same. I had listened to a Naxos recording of the adaptation for string quartet for years before I discovered the original orchestral version. I suppose I should be embarrassed, too, but as a friend used to say, "There is so much music." I am grateful to David for posting on this, yes, amazing work by the master Haydn.
You seem so happy here. You clearly love the piece completely.
David, Thanks for your excellent review. I have been hunting down the orchestral versions that you mention. I really enjoy your reviews. Just one point about the words, "Mother, behold your son". These words were about the Apostle John rather and is coupled with "Son, behold your mother". He was instructing John to look after His mother and telling his mother that John was to be her new son.
Yes, I know. That has already been mentioned, but I was responding more to the musical setting than the biblical situation. Of course Haydn's listeners would have known the back story, and I did not, so thanks for the clarification.
"Woman behold your son" is taken from the gospel of John 19:26, where Jesus whilst suffering on the cross assigns Mary as Mother for John, and assigns the apostle John as her Son, which signifies that those who love Christ, have Mary as their protecting mother, which is why she has that exalted role in catholic theology.
Thank you for posting this. It was something that was attributed to Jesus saying.
Muti and Berlin is on spotify. Such a miraculous work of art. I got to sing it Good Friday seven years ago. Surprised it doesn't get done more, the notes aren't challenging and he gives you everything you need on the pay to say what needs to be said musically. It was a joy and and honor to sing it.
In the "truly i say unto thee movement" when it finally switchesr to C major at the end, you'd be harder to find a warmer hug that any composer ever gave to humanity.
Minasi is also available on Spotify. But of course, I am replying at least a year later so this addition might be fairly new.
Thank you David for the video! IMHO this is one of Haydn's greatest compositions. My favorites are Muti/BPO and the first Savall on Astree (has slightly better sound than the Alia Vox disc); Harnoncourt for the oratorio version; and the Qt Mosaiques for the string quartet version. Now I'm interested to listen to the Minasi recording per your recommendation.
In spite of being a great Haydn fan, I ignored this work until now because listening to 8 slow movements in a row sounded like a miserable time, to be honest. I was very wrong, it's a wonderful piece and I was fascinated how Haydn manages to keep things interesting, so thanks for making this video! BTW, I ignored your warning and listened to Brüggen's recording because he's my favorite Haydn conductor and I was morbidly curious about the intermezzi. I agree that they're completely unnecessary but thankfully very short. Brüggen's performance itself is fantastic.
Thanks for this wonderful talk (I am in delay...but now I am on Holiday and I can watch to some of the talks I had no time to check in other moments). I own Antonio Janigro's version with the Zagreb orchestra, which is really beautiful, in my opinion. I will follow you advice and try to grab Storgad's or Minasi's version.
The orchestra may have played the whole thing by heart - just maybe. The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra does whole programs by heart.
Thank you very much for this video !
Imagine if we have Haydn available to compose anything we want - I mean - the man was so inventive and he always uses the instruments he has available, the occasion, the public for whom is working for, the musicians, everything to accomplish the best for the moment. Lucky Esterházy.
What an amazing piece indeed! Simon Rattle's mashup "Haydn: An Imaginary Orchestral Journey" features the earthquake, which immediately drew my attention to the whole thing and the Minasi recording. Goes to show that weird compilations like that can actually serve a purpose.... sometimes.
Should have been called "An Imaginary Conductor's Imaginary Orchestral Journey!"
@@DavesClassicalGuide I take it you hold his Haydn in similar esteem as his other recordings? 😅 I like Rattle's Haydn recordings, they are always lean and quite playful at times.
@@matthiasm4299 I find them micromanaged and very unpersuasive, in the main. I did see him do a couple of symphonies live that were much better than his recordings, because less mannered.
Well, a person wouldn't take a piece like "The Moldau" and say they could listen to it without thinking it had anything to do with a river...or would they? So the reason for an avantgarde mashup would be to get us to listen to the music differently because we were thinking about it differently, or so I surmise based on the idea of divorcing the inspirational source for the music from the music itself. (Makes me think I could be losing my mind...)
One of your videos you mentioned that if somebody gaev Mozart a difficult task, he not just solved it, he made a colossal masterpiece from it. I think this is a good example for the same but Haydn's case. I think he wrote about that this was a very difficult task for him because the main question arised from the task was: how to write 7 slow movement one after the other. And he not just solved it but just like Mozart, he wrote a masterpiece.
Watching this made me realise I only had this in the Quartet version, which I duly remedied by getting Minasi and (Alia Vox) Savall. I'm quite an avid Savall collector, so I was surprised to find I didn't have this recording already.
I hope you enjoy them!
This was a great introduction.
I wanted to add only that Christ's words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?," purposefully reference Psalm 22 from the Old Testament, which, read in toto, anticipates Christ's ultimate triumph, the conversion of the "Gentiles" to him. Presumably many readers of Christian bible would have recognized the reference: Christ is beginning the recitation that his audience then completes in their minds. And Haydn's contemporaries certainly knew that this was Christ fulfillment of his earthly mission--this is expounded in the contemporary 18th century liturgy. In Christian theology, Christ "came to fulfill the prophets, not to overturn them." Anyway, I think this is a footnote that helps one understand the liturgical context of Good Friday and its music. Christ is certainly far from happy, and he may sound despairing (King David, who is often assumed to be the psalm's author, apparently composed it at a low moment in his reign), but Christ is, in fact, heralding the completion of his mission (as when he says "It is finished") and his own resurrection.
Thank you for these very interesting observations!
@@christiankleinbub3210 I think the interpretation of Psalm 22 as predicting the rise of Christianity is a bit of a stretch. It's actually more base than that. The psalmist is bargaining, saying "If you save me, I will praise you to the world."
@@ThreadBomb You're right about the psalmist: David or whoever wrote Psalm 22 had absolutely no idea that he was anticipating Christianity in his verses. What I'm saying. rather, is that Christian theologians retrospectively interpreted the psalm that way. How else were they to deal with such a seemingly defeatist statement coming from Christ, who was, in their view, god incarnate and therefore immortal?
@@christiankleinbub3210 Fair enough. That was not clear in your previous post.
To strengthen your point, in Haydn's symphony no. 49, ALL FOUR of the movements are in the tragic key of F-minor - a symphony of storm and stress, resignation and bottomless grief. I've conducted it probably more than any other of his symphonies. (ruclips.net/video/pQ9-tYvTTOE/видео.html + three further clips.)
Thank you, David, for your constant doses of erudition, humor, critical discernment and colossal love of music. We all learn from you in the most pleasant way.
I've just subscribed to your channel. May it prosper.
P.S. Your pointing out the haftarah-chant-basis for the scherzo in Bernstein's "Jeremiah" Symphony was brilliant. Kind of like learning that "It Ain't Necessarily So" was a take -off and transmogrification of the blessings for the "aliyah" to the Torah. Thanks.
My pleasure and thank you. BTW, I didn't mention Symphony No, 49 because I wanted to focus of music with text--the late Variations are also in F minor, and there is much more.
Thanks for a most illuminating talk. FYI there is another version, for 2 organs, played by Edoardo Bellotti & Maurizio Salerno. There is nothing in the documentation that says who made this arrangement, or whether Haydn approved, or when it was made. It also raises the question of what building (church, concert hall) actually possesses two organs. The documentation is all in Italian, so I'm not sure what the label is, but two prominent words on the cover say "Registrazione Inedita".
Thanks! I don’t know how I missed that there’s an orchestral version. I’ve got Harnoncourt and I knew of the string quartet version from reading your book on Haydn. I’ll have to check out the orchestral version.
Was Scherchen's version with the Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra ever released on cd?
Check out our new release with Canadian pianist David Jalbert (piano version) to be released on September 11 on ATMA Classique.
Thanks for being my new friend with regards to love of classical music, sometimes feel isolated with no-one who shares this amazing interest!
A few years ago I heard on BBC
Radio3 a Two piano version from Cadiz, so atmospheric and dramatic, with the recitation as well.
This was in 2009 part of 200 year anniversary celebrations.
Do you know any similar versions or bootleg off-air recordings?
Thanks
Sorry, no. I don't.
Thank you for the illuminating talk. I have had the string quartet version (Emerson Quartet) for some time, but thanks to my ignorance I was not even aware that the original version was meant for orchestra. I can't stop imagining how the parts would shimmer in their orchestral technicolor glory. I definitely intend to procure a couple of your recommendations asap and listen to them. Thanks again!
Bravo Dave - good stuff. I too am a Muti / BP man - and thankfully it was recorded in the Jesus Christus Church and not the Philharmonie. The one point I make is this: as much as I enjoy Brautigam's 7LWs, McCabe on Decca has been famous since the day of publication and warrants re-release in its own right, rather than being included in the entire cycle (good as it is). Best wishes, B
McCabe famous? I must have missed that...
@@DavesClassicalGuide One cannot encompass everything!
@@bernardohanlon3498 True, but I do have that set. I vividly recall its release on LP. There wasn't much competition at the time. We were just getting to know the music, so it was exciting to see it readily available, but to say that that particular disc is "famous" is pushing it. Of course, it may well deserve to be...
I have multiple versions of this: the orchestral version of Jordi Savall on Astree (brilliant) a version for solo piano performed by John McCabe (brilliant) and 5 versions on string quartet that I really enjoy too.
Il Ritorno di Tobia is really great, wonderful oratorio and Haydn's first. The recording on Naxos is a good one, too.
Berenice che fai is another cantata that ends with a dramatic aria in f-minor. Another abandonment work. O, Tuneful Voice is not in f-minor but two of his English Canzonettas are and the most impressive is The Spirit's Song. (And if death ain't abandonment, I don't know what is.)
"Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved (John the Evangelist) standing nearby, he said to his mother, 'Dear woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' From that time on, this disciple took her into his home." (John 19:25-27)
Well, well! Thanks for pointing that out. You may be right, but I like my view of it much better as a musical proposition.
It would depend, I suppose, on whether Haydn himself were religious for the listener to justify taking the music out it's inspirational context.
@@adamfrye246 But it doesn't take the music out of its inspriational context at all, it simply suggests a different one. For example, if the scene in question involved Jesus telling John the Evangelist to take care of his mother, and his mother to treat John as a son, that would make an excellent pretext for a sermon on the selflessness of Jesus even as he stood dying on the cross, but in a purely musical situation seeing those words as an opportunity for Haydn to evoke the humility and warmth of Mary works equally well, if not (in my view) better. One is not more "spiritual" than another, but one is definitely more musical.
@@DavesClassicalGuide The sermon on the selflessness of Jesus appears as a short, beautiful choral - Er nahm alles wohl in acht
/ in der letzten Stunde (He was well aware of everything
/ in the last hour) - in Bach´s St. John Passion that is sung just after "The Evangelist" recites the words of the Gospel I quoted. Of course, the devoted Lutheran audience of Leipzig circa 1724 was quite distant of Haydn´s Catholic, cosmopolitan and enlightened mindset, and of course to interpret the movement as a particular Marian evocation results appropiate, furthermore considering the Spaniard context of the original commission.
@@jorgereynosopholenz2865 Thank you so much for these insights. As a non-Christian (even though I know Bach's Passions) it is still unfamiliar to me, and I am happy to learn the details.
The Muti recording with Berlin is one of my favorite Muti recordings of all. For whatever reason, Muti seems to translate better in the concert hall then he does on recordings. This is a very, very fine work, even by Haydn’s exalted standards.
Dave, I’m surprised you left out Sandor Vegh’s version. But then you didn’t mention him in your talk about Bartok’s Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste either.
His version is a strings-only transcription of the string quartet version (at least the one on Capriccio is) and I found it unconvincing. The Bartok, on Orfeo, is very good if you can find it, but not everything a guy does needs to be mentioned, even if I like him generally.
“Mother, behold your son” is spoken by Christ on the cross; he indicates the disciple John to Mary and tells her that John will be her son when he himself dies.
I learned heard of the “words” first in Jesus Christ Superstar.
It's certainly one of the most extraordinary pieces ever. I wonder if there was anything else even close to 7 mostly slow movements in a row before the 20th century (Shostakovich's last quartet comes to mind but even this has fewer movements). There is of course spiritual instrumental music earlier, such as concerti sacri or Biber's amazing Rosary sonatas (although these are mostly just suites/partites with a uncommon tuning and some tone painting).
However, there is one rather wordly thing, I just have to add. The following hilarious clip seems to be using the beginning of "Hodie mecum eris in paradiso" in the quartet version, if I am not mistaken.
ruclips.net/video/7S57_il8K2c/видео.html
I found it quite spiritual.
Portato is a variance of volume, not of pitch, so you are really stretching a definition to make your point about vibrato!
But whatever. Potato, portato. (I'm sure I am the first person to ever make that joke)
Thanks for another thought-provoking video.
No I am not stretching at all--merely stating facts. I am very sure of my sources. Modern portato is treated independently because vibrato is accepted as a matter of course today, but this was not the case in the 18th century. There are several treatises that state specifically that portato notation (it's not called that) is in fact a form of notated pitch vibrato (Marpurg, for example), as well as plenty of evidence of contemporary score notation that leaves no doubt as to what was intended. If you're curious, you can look up my paper "Vibrato in the Classical Orchestra" in the journal Ad Parnassum. The list of accents and notational cues that call for pitch vibrato is in fact very, very large.
What an amazing work! I prefer the orchestra version. The quartet is a little thin, and the choral is marred by the words. It's a tour de force without parallel, and, in fact, I cannot understand, why this strange, complicated and dark work gained such a popularity. Concerning the recordings, I have the Salzburg-Muti, which I like very much, and, I think, somewhere must be a version with Végh, who seems to play the quartet with a string orchestra. Well, I just ordered the Minasi and I'm very curious to hear it.