|
Back
Death, Where is Thy Sting? New York
Corpus Christi Church
10/27/2024 - & October 26 (Boston), 28 (Spartanburg), 29 (Knoxville), November 9 (La Jolla), 21 (Paris), 22 (Amsterdam), 23 (Tallinn), 24 (Ventspils) 2024, March 14 (Bruxelles), 15 (Malonne), 16 (Lintgen), 2025
Andreas Scharmann: Trauer-Klag (Gedenke, Herr, wie es uns gehet)
Thomas Selle: Und da der Sabbath vergangen war – Sinfonia
Johann Hermann Schein: Selig sind, die da geistlich arm sind – Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen – Ich will schweigen
Christian Geist: Die mit Tränen säen
Tobias Michael: Die Erlöseten des Herren
Johann Philipp Förtsch: Selig sind die Toten
Wolfgang Karl Briegel: Ach Herr lehre doch mich
Andreas Hammerschmidt: Ach wie gar nichts – Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg
Heinrich Schwemmer: Der Gerechten Seelen
Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier (Director, Conductor, Bass) 
Vox Luminis (© Vox Luminis)
“So sorry you died/We miss you so much./Wherever you dwell now/Please stay in touch.”
Traditional Greeting Card sent to the deceased
“I always said God was against art. And I still believe it.”
Sir Edward Elgar
Talk about ecumenism! Here were 12 works of Lutheran liturgy, presented in the 120‑year‑old Roman Catholic Corpus Christi Church. Sung by a Belgium‑based choir, whose choices were penned around 1648,when Belgium converted en masse (no pun intended) from their new‑style Reformed religion to Catholicism. Add to that pan‑holy mixture, the Lutheran works had inspired a Requiem (which exists nowhere in the Protestant litany) from a composer who was at least agnostic, and probably closer to modern‑day atheism.
Finally Martin Luther would have stamped out of the venue, and shouted his anti‑Semitic oaths at the largely Jewish audience. (Though this scurrilous curmudgeon would have hidden among the pews of a Papist edifice to hear the angelic voices. Martin Luther was an irascible man, but he did know his music.) Add to that this music for these “Deliberations on Death” (the official title in the program notes) played this afternoon in a stone building, where outside, God (or Somebody) has given us a cloudless azure sky, with mild winds and streets filled with joyous goblins and witches and all the paraphernalia of a heathen holiday.
The impetus of “A German Baroque Requiem” (presented by the illustrious “Music Before 1800”) however, was worthy of the highest respect. The Vox Luminis Music Director, Lionel Meunier, and Jérôme Lejeune realized that Johannes Brahms had chosen the words for his Deutsches Requiem from a variety Biblical and literary sources. And German composers two centuries earlier had written their music for almost the same texts.
The program notes introduction laid out the similarities in musicologically accurate detail. And the twelve selections followed–to a variable degree–Brahms’ own order in his “human” (Brahms’ word) masterpiece.
The vocal result was gorgeous. Vox Luminis has, for twenty years, chosen the absolute finest singers, including one counter‑tenor, one haute‑contre (a particular type of tenor used mainly by French baroque singers), and Music Director Lionel Meunier as both conductor and bass. The idea of a mere one or two soloists for each voice, and the full 12‑voiced choir gave Vox Luminis a minor‑antiphonal sound worthy of Gabrielli. Add to that a perfect enunciation of the German from each individual which was a joy to hear.
About half of the selections were a cappella, though the band–violins, violas da gamba and Baroque organ–lent the support at times. (On a subjective note, that tiny organ continuo is historically right, but the sounds varied from annoying to wheezing. It was artistically unnerving.) While I relished in the solo and ensemble voices, I frankly had to keep ears and brains alert for what seemed at first to be unending laments, slow, stately often homophonic, never contrapuntal music. Much like Bach’s chorales, but without the melodic inspiration.
A few weeks ago, I went to a church concert of all Thomas Tallis. Granted, he had to work for the Angelical church, but he was a good Catholic in music. Thus, the contrapuntal Latin verses whirled around the church, the voices intertwining, breaking off, discussing, praising. The Tallis music was like a tapestry of Raphael angels flying around the clouds, up to heaven, plucking harps, filled with emotional delight. For the most part, these German Lutheran hymns reminded me of the picturesque but static persona of Jan van Eyck.
J. P. Förtsch (1674 portrait)/A. Hammerschmidt
Oh, apologies are due. Amidst these devotional pieces, several moments popped up from the mortuary. Missing Latin, Andreas Hammerschmidt broke up the stasis with a motet accented with repeated cries of “Victoria Alleluia”, in the penultimate morbid Death has swallowed us up. One Tobias Michael brought forth a relatively triumphant motet with the orchestra and all the voices.
Most majestic of all was the final work, Blessed Are the Dead, by the composer-doctor-singer Johann Philipp Förtsch. This was long (about 15 minutes), but had plethora of solo arias, five-voice songs, and of course the full choir and orchestra. Perhaps it was habituation, perhaps it was the later momentary drama, but the final minutes of this 90‑minute program, conducted with elegant deftness by Mr. Meunier were respite from the unceasingly Largo‑metered opening works.
Do I sound negative about Vox Luminis? Never! I see that they have recorded exciting music from Charpentier, Purcell (!!) and the ever‑electrifying Heinrich Biber. Thus, long for Vox Luminis to return, doff their all‑black garments, enter a concert hall and lend their stunning voices to that music. In the meantime I visaged the main setting for this program would have been a dark room, a few votive candles and the 12 vocal member of Vox Luminis encircling and singing around a silver-filigreed coffin.
Harry Rolnick
|
