GLORIA!
Monday, December 12, 2011 7:00 PM
Christopher Wilkins, conductor
University of Central Florida Chamber Singers, Dr. David Brunner, director

Bach: Violin Concerto in A minor
Bach: Christmas Oratorio (excerpts)
Vivaldi: Concerto for Four Violin
Vivaldi: Gloria

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):

“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”  -  Johann Sebastian Bach

German organist and composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, was unsurpassed as a master of counterpoint and other stylistic principles of the Baroque era.  He gave to all his works a profundity and maturity, a depth of expression, and a grand design unequaled by his predecessors and contemporaries.  The towering figure of the period, he summed up the musical knowledge and techniques that preceded him and developed them further.

To those who have ascended into the mystery of Bach’s heaven, his music is rightfully taken as absolute, beyond adequate praise, and eclipsing all that came before and went after with the beauty of its perfection, order, and balance between architecture and introversion.  Bach’s music is at once science and poetry, a universal epiphany that touches and transforms us all.

To the casual listener and highly trained musician alike, Bach is the summum bonum of music.  He is the genius whose music most completely combines perfection of structure with the deepest level of emotional expression.  Bach’s music is undeniably universal and will never be surpassed.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041:

The style and structure of Bach’s violin concertos contain prevalent Italianate influences. During his years as Kapellmeister in Weimar, Bach came into contact with the violin concertos of Vivaldi and transcribed several of them into keyboard concertos. When he set about writing his own violin concertos, Bach adapted the Vivaldian blueprint to his own personal style, developing orchestral accompaniments that were more contrapuntal and more fully integrated in the evolving thematic dialogue. For example, in the first movement of the Violin Concerto in A Minor, the main structural unit is the ritornello, the orchestral passage that recurs in between the soloist’s passages. Bach paid further homage to Vivaldi by organizing his concerto movements into a fast-slow-fast sequence, and by including the soloist as a component of the overall orchestral sound.

The ritornello device figures most prominently in the brisk and bouncy outer two movements, demonstrating Bach’s fluid and effective writing within this adopted Italian model. The opening Allegro (unmarked) and dancey finale surround a poignant middle movement, an aria without words, that serves as the emotional center of the concerto. The solo violin plays a series of lyrical, expressively warm, and beautifully filigreed phrases over a constantly repeated rhythmic figure in the bass line (a “fixed bass”). The Concerto in A Minor concludes in virtuosic fashion with a finale that asks the violinist to veritably dance a jig, while navigating several quick scale passages. The soloist is also called upon to offer a display of bariolage – the technique of rapidly rocking the bow between two strings to play an intricate passage.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Christmas Oratorio Part II, The Annuciation to the Shepherds:

 Bach’s choral masterpiece, the Christmas Oratorio is a work of joyous optimism, chronicling as it does the biblical narrative of the Nativity. It covers the birth of a Messiah, the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the shepherds, and the visit of the Wise Men who travelled from the east to behold the miracle birth. Monumental in scope, the Christmas Oratorio consists of six discreet, yet closely related cantatas that were performed separately on distinct occasions during the thirteen-day span that Lutherans recognize as the Feast of Christmas. The first three cantatas were offered in the last week of 1734: on Christmas day and the two days following (Dec. 25, 26, and 27). The last three cantatas were heard in the first week of 1735: the fourth on the Feast of the Circumcision (Jan. 1); the fifth on the First Sunday of the New Year (which in 1735 was Jan. 2); and the sixth on the Feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6, which is the last day of the Feast of Christmas). The cantatas were performed in the principal churches of Leipzig, namely, the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche.

The text of the Christmas Oratorio draws from the first twenty-one verses of the second chapter of the Gospel According to Luke (for the first four cantatas) and the first twelve verses of the second chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew (for the last two). The libretto is attributed to the postal official and poet Picander (pseudonym of Christian Friedrich Henrici), who previously provided the non-biblical text for the Saint Matthew Passion.

Part I of the Christmas Oratorio opens with the chorus “Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage,” featuring some of the most festive and invigorating music Bach ever wrote. And thanks to a similar trumpets-and-timpani orchestration, the third and sixth cantatas are also brilliant in texture and mood. In contrast, the second, fourth and fifth cantatas are gentler and more tranquil, exuding personal warmth through the softer hues of the woodwind instruments. The cantata on our program today – Part II, The Annunciation to the Shepherds – is arguably the most cherished and intimate of all six cantatas.

 Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741):

Antonio Vivaldi’s music is a curious phenomenon. Mention the name and reaction is bound to fall into one of two widely different camps: The largest group holds, “We can never get enough of Vivaldi because his music is so fiery, joyful, poignant, and uplifting!” But, as always, there are the naysayers. Stravinsky once said, “Vivaldi is greatly overrated – a dull fellow who could compose the same form over and so many times over.” According to harpsichordist Igor Kipnis, “A wag once observed that Vivaldi didn’t write 400 concerti, but merely wrote one concerto 400 times.”  And I once heard an Eastman School of Music graduate student disparage Vivaldi as “sewing machine” music. Play Vivaldi on the radio and without fail someone will call and sigh, “Oh, not again!” But far more will call and exclaim: “Thanks, that music was wonderful! It made me feel so energetic and positive. I have to have that recording!”

Perhaps Vivaldi’s prodigious output seems excessive: he is credited with over 750 works including 400-500 concerti, nearly 100 sonatas, 46 operas, and some 37 liturgical choral works (the Gloria being the best known). But Baroque composers were frequently required to rework their own material, as well as that of other composers, not out of a lack of creativity but as a commonly understood compositional practice of the period necessary to keep pace with the demands of patrons and the public. And while Stravinsky’s dig may own a bit of truth, it is interesting to take note of Bach’s estimation of Vivaldi. Bach so admired Vivaldi’s music that he transcribed over a dozen of his works for various instruments. In fact, Bach’s Concerto for Four Harpsichords is a reworking of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins and Strings. Bach was not a man to concern himself with the mediocre.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) – Concerto for Four Violins in E minor, Op. 3, No. 4, RV 550:

Vivaldi’s greatest contribution to music history is the essential role he played in bringing the form of the Late-Baroque concerto form to its highest peak of brilliance.  The form most often consisted of three movements (fast, slow, fast). The outer two fast movements were cast in ritornello form. This form takes its name from the refrain, or ritornello, stated at outset of a movement, recalled briefly at intervals throughout, and restated at the conclusion. Between reappearances of the ritornello, a solo or a light, small group of instruments played episodes, which originally contrasted with the ritornello. But Vivaldi also must be given his due for what he himself brought to the Baroque concerto form. All one need do is to marvel at the ferocity, originality, and technical brilliance that he provided to the soloist(s) in particular and to the orchestra in general. And the simple but profound pathos flowing through his slow movements are often gem-like in quality and leave indelible impressions.

 Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) – Gloria in D major, RV 589:

 When the modern-era Vivaldi revival gained momentum in the early part of the twentieth century, the composer’s instrumental music rose from obscurity as musicologists and scholars began to take great interest in the influence of the Italian master’s concertos on the music of Bach. Although during his lifetime Vivaldi was well known both for his instrumental works as well as for his vocal output, it wasn’t until a discovery in the late 1920’s that subsequent generations came to more fully appreciate his prowess as a vocal composer. This discovery involved a large collection of Vivaldi’s vocal music hidden away in Turin; it included the score to the Gloria in D major, RV 589. This Gloria went on to receive its twentieth-century premiere in 1930 and has remained the most popular of all Vivaldi’s vocal works ever since.

Even with the authenticity of the Gloria confirmed, no one is certain as to exactly why or when the work was composed. However, scholars do believe Vivaldi composed it for an event held within the Ospedale della Pietà, one of several institutions in Venice for orphaned or homeless girls.

Stylistically, Vivaldi’s Gloria in D major includes a wealth of Baroque styles and contrasts. It is an exciting piece and boasts the same vigor and rhythmic drive of his instrumental music.  Yet, at the same time, the Gloria is suffused with passages of profound tenderness and warmth. 

  Exerpts from Notes provided by:  David R. Glerum, Music Director – WMFE-FM/NPR, Orlando, FL. (1990-2009); Music Director – WXXI-FM/NPR, Rochester, N.Y. (1980-1990)

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