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Tag Archives: Stabat Mater

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, revisited

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

commedia dell'arte, d'Alembert, Diderot, La Serva padrona, Pergolesi, Querelle des Bouffons, Rameau, Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau* (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*William-Adophe Bouguereau 

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710, in Jesi – 16 or 17 March 1736, in Pozzuoli), whose real name was Draghi, was an Italian composer, an excellent violinist and an organist.  His family had moved from Jesi to Pergola, hence the name Pergolesi.[i]

Pergolesi

Pergolesi died at the age of 26, probably of tuberculosis. But, between the time he started to study music, c. 1720, at the Conservatorio dei Poveri at Naples and his death, a mere sixteen years had elapsed.  Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) died at a young age, 35, as did Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828), who died at the age of 31.

In 1732, Pergolesi was appointed maestro de cappella to the prince of Stigliano, and, in 1734, he became deputy maestro de cappella, in Naples.

Sacred Music

Pergolesi was such a fine violinist and composer that, during his own life time, he was called the “divine,” by his followers.  For musicologists, he is, first and foremost, the composer of the Serva padrona (“The Maid turned Mistress”), an opera buffa, or comic opera, composed in 1733.  But if we exclude the circumstances that made his opera buffa and its composer famous, he is remembered mainly for his Stabat Mater, a sacred work he composed the year he died, in 1736.

The Stabat Mater was commissioned by the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo, a group of pious and generous gentlemen.  However, by 1736, Pergolesi had also written a Mass in F and his long and very mature Magnificat in C major.  In Naples, he composed his Mass in D and his celebrated Stabat Mater.

Instrumental Music

Pergolesi also composed instrumental music: a violin sonata, a violin concerto, a concerto for flute, and other instrumental works.  But doubt lingers concerning the authorship of some of the instrumental music attributed to him.  Investigators are at work.

Operas

So, we now come to his operas.  In Naples, Pergolesi had written Lo frate’nnmmorato, an opera buffa (comic opera).  But he had also composed an opera seria (serious) entitled Il Prigioner superbo (The Proud Prisoner), a work which contained a two-act comedia buffa, La Serva padrona (The Maid turned Mistress).  It is this opera buffa that made him a celebrity, albeit posthumously.

La Serva padrona, an intermezzo, was in no way subversive  It had been composed to a libretto (the words) by Gennaro Antonio Federico who gleaned some of his material from a play by Jacopo Angello Nelli.  In fact, not only was it not subversive, but it had already been performed in Paris, on October 4th, 1746, without attracting much attention.

La Serva padrona and the “Querelle des Bouffons” (video, here and below)

But in 1752, circumstances had changed.  For one thing, the August 1st, 1752 performance of La Serva padrona (“The Servant turned Mistress”) took place at the most elegant venue in Paris: the Opera, or the Académie royale de musique.  Moreover, it was performed before an élite audience.  As a result, this one performance led to an unpredictable two-year quarrel (1752-1754) that opposed the most brilliant minds among the “lumières,” including d’Alembert, Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau  (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778).  But Rousseau is the person who threw the first stone, except that the “querelle” was a paper war.

Sense and Sensibility

The “Querelle des Bouffons,” or “Quarrel of the comic actors,” was indeed a paper war.  It took the form of an exchange of letters and pamphlets, totalling sixty-one documents, all written by the most erudite “philosophes” of the French Enlightenment, not to mention a bevy of salonniers and salonnières.  It was the event of the century, prior to the French Revolution.

—ooo—

Yet, it would not be altogether fair to give circumstances the leading role in the “querelle.”  Pergolesi’s Serva padrona is an opera buffa, but it had been composed by Pergolesi, the “divine,” and talent supersedes genre.  In other words, the performance of the Serva padrona was a catalyst in the “querelle,” but it is unlikely that a lesser opera buffa would have unleashed a fury.  No greater compliment was ever paid Pergolesi.  The Serva padrona was so delightful an opera buffa, that Geneva-born French encyclopédiste and musician Jean-Jacques Rousseau could use it to oppose French opera.

There had long been tension between Italian music and French music, then dominated by Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683 – 12 September 1764), the author of a Treatise on Harmony, published in 1722.  As you know from an earlier blog, this treatise remains authorative.  But although the “querelle ” could be considered as yet another battle in the war between French “ramistes,”  the name given supporters of Rameau, on the one hand, and lovers of Italian opera and commedia dell’arte, on the other hand, it may be best to suggest that it opposed reason and sentiment, or sense and sensibility.

The supremacy of reason had been disputed by Pascal, among other thinkers, but since the publication of Descartes‘s Discours de la méthode, in 1637, the fashion for sentiment had suffered. Although Voltaire (b. François-Marie Arouet), 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778, was extremely witty and entertaining, as a philosopher, he was an advocate of reason.  Be that as it may, Rousseau rather enjoyed shedding a tear or two at the opera, as did a substantial number of his companions involved in the “querelle.”

* * *

In short, because Pergolesi’s Serva padrona was exquisite in its genre, it was the perfect weapon in a war against “ramistes,” which means that if sentiment and the Italians won that particular battle, the “querelle” also constituted abundant praise of Pergolesi’s talent.  Without this weapon of choice, the Serva padrona, there may never have been a “Querelle des Bouffons” for sheer lack of ammunition.

three-gentlemen-and-pierrot6

Three Gentlemen and Pierrot

Claude Gillot (28 April 1673 – 4 May 1722)

YouTube allows one to listen to and to view the Serva padrona in its entirety, but Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater remains the centrepiece.  I hope you enjoy listening to some music composed by a forever young Pergolesi who died in poverty in a Franciscan monastery, at Pozzuoli, near Naples, aged 26.

* * *

(please click on the titles to hear the music)

  • The “Querelle des Bouffons” (comments in Italian about the commedia dell’arte)
  • Pergolesi – Pergolesi Concerto per Violino I Mov.mp4
  • Pergolesi – Pergolesi Concerto per Violino II.mp4 
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 1
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 2
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 3
  • Pergolesi – Laudate pueri Dominum (2)
  • Pergolesi – Salve Regina in C minor (1)
  • Pergolesi – Stabat Mater, Jaroussky & Gens
  • Pergolesi – Magnificat in C Major
  • Pergolesi – La Serva padrona -II

[i] “Giovanni Battista Pergolesi”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/451597/Giovanni-Battista-Pergolesi>.

“Giovanni Battista Pergolesi”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 06 déc. 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/451597/Giovanni-Battista-Pergolesi>.

composer:  Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 –16 or 17 March 1736
piece: Stabat Mater
performers: London Symphony Orchestra, 1985
Margaret Marshall, Soprano; Lucia Valentini Terrani, Contralto
conductor: Claudio Abbado
 

scene
© Micheline Walker
20 December 2011
5  December 2013 (2nd edition)
WordPress
 
Scène,
Claude Gillot

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From the Magnificat to the Stabat Mater

06 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 269 Comments

Tags

Benedictus, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Hymns to Mary, Luke, Magnificat, Marian, Mary, Stabat Mater

Pietà (detail), William-Adophe Bouguereau, 1876

The Stabat Mater is a hymn expressing the sorrow of Mary as her son, Jesus of Nazareth, is being crucified and then taken down from the Crucifix, the descent.

According to Wikipedia, the Stabat Mater usually refers to a 13th-century Catholic hymn to Mary, the first Stabat Mater, variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III.

The Stabat Mater is associated with the Magnificat, one of several canticles sung at Vespers.  We are therefore moving from antiphons (antiennes) to canticles (cantiques).  Moreover, with the Magnificat, we are travelling back to the earliest days of Marian hymnology.  The Magnificat is an ancient canticle.

From Antiphons to Canticles

Canticles are hymns sung during the Canonical Hours.  Seven find their origin in the Old Testament and are sung at Lauds. Three, however are contained in the Gospel according to Luke.  I will list the three borrowing from Wikipedia.  We have

  • at Lauds, the “Canticle of Zachary” (Luke 1:68-79), commonly referred to as the “Benedictus” (from its first word);
  • at Vespers, the “Canticle of the Bl. Mary Virgin” (Luke 1:46-55), commonly known as the “Magnificat” (from its first word);
  • at Compline, the “Canticle of Simeon” (Luke 2:29-32), commonly referred to as the “Nunc dimittis” (from the opening words).
Virgin with Child, Claude-Louis Vassé (1722) © NDP
Claude-Louis Vassé (Paris: 1717 – 1772)
 

At Notre-Dame de Paris the Magnificat is sung every day before the four Marian antiphons and after the Ave Maria (Hail Mary) and the Angelus.

The Magnificat is Mary’s song of praise upon learning that her cousin Elizabeth, Zachary’s wife, is with child.  She will be the mother of St John the Baptist.  This event is recorded as The Visitation.  As for Mary, she has been visited by the archangel Gabriel and knows she is bearing the Saviour: The Annunciation.

In fact, all three New Testament canticles tell the story of the birth of John the Baptist and that of Jesus.  Zachary is the father of John the Baptist and at the moment of the Presentation of Jesus to the Temple, Simeon recognizes the Saviour in the baby Jesus.  But, combined with the Stabat Mater, the Canticles also tell a story of death and rebirth.  The two are juxtaposed as they express the perpetual cycle of birth and death, a cycle akin to that of the Four Seasons, spring eternal, celebrated by composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741).

Handel’s Messiah: the Cycle

Also expressing the link between the Nativity, starting with the Annunciation, and Easter is Handel‘s Messiah, an oratorio.  It is performed at Christmas and at Easter, the latter feast being, to my knowledge the more important of the two.  I will not discuss the Messiah in this post.  Basically, we are dealing with songs, albeit liturgical songs, the exception being JS Bach’s Magnificat, a substantial work.

In an earlier blog, I wrote about Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 – 16 March 1736).  Pergolesi composed a beautiful Magnificat and a masterful Stabat Mater, as well as other liturgical pieces. Although he died at the age of 26, he had already written several masterpieces. The above link, his name, takes the reader to my post, but for information on the composer, organist and violinist, I would suggest you click on Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Wikipedia). It is not insignicant that among his compositions, there should be both a Magnificat, a canticle, and the Stabat Mater.

With respect to the Marian hymns, to view the complete list, antiphons, canticles and other hymns, please click on Hymns to Mary.  The words Marian hymnology constitute an ‘umbrella’ term encompassing all the music dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.

For the text of the Stabat Mater, Latin and English, click on Stabat Mater. To read the English text of the Magnificat, click on Magnificat.

You will find below several pieces of Marian sacred music.  There is little for me to add, the language of tones being more expressive than national languages.  So I will leave you to listen and perhaps to marvel at the place given Mary in the arts and in music.  You will hear canticles, psalms, parts of the Mass, etc.  Moreover, I have listed, at the bottom of the page, all my posts on the subject of Marian hymnology in sacred music.

  • Vivaldi: Stabat Mater, Marie-Nicole Lemieux (1)
  • Vivaldi: Stabat Mater, Marie-Nicole Lemieux (2)
  • Stabat Mater Dolorosa (live)
  • Pergolesi:  Stabat Mater, Quando corpus morietur
  • Pergolesi:  Magnificat in C Major
  • JS Bach: Magnificat in D-dur BWV 243, Chorus Viennensis Concertus musicus Wien (Nikolaus Harnoncourt, dir.)
  • Monteverdi: ‘Sì dolce è ‘l tormento , SV 332, Jaroussky (a Lament)
  • Pergolesi: Laudate pueri Dominum (2) a Psalm
  • Mozart: Laudate Dominum (Vesperae solemnes de confessore) a Psalm
  • Mozart: Agnus Dei (Coronation Mass K317), Kathleen Battle (The Vienna Philharmonic & The Vienna Singverein, Herbert von Karajan) a Mass
 
 
  • Raphael and Marian Liturgy at NDP 04/04/2012
  • Fra Angelico & the Annunciation 03/04/2012
  • On Calendars & Feast Days 02/04/2012
  • Nunc Dimittis, Simeon’s Song of Praise 02/02/2012
  • The Blessed Virgin: Mariology
  • A Christmas Offering: Hymns to Mary 25/12/2011
  • A Portrait of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi 20/12/2011
  • The Canonical Hours and the Divine Office 19/11/2011

Pietà,by Michelangelo(1498–1499)

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A Portrait of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

20 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 496 Comments

Tags

commedia dell'arte, d'Alembert, Diderot, La Serva padrona, Pergolesi, Querelle des Bouffons, Rameau, Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau* (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*William-Adophe Bouguereau 

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710, in Jesi – 16 or 17 March 1736, in Pozzuoli), whose real name was Draghi, was an Italian composer, an excellent violinist and an organist.  His family had moved from Jesi to Pergola, hence the name Pergolesi.[i]

Pergolesi

Pergolesi died at the age of 26, probably of tuberculosis. But, between the time he started to study music, c. 1720, at the Conservatorio dei Poveri at Naples and his death, a mere sixteen years had elapsed.  Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) died at a young age, 35, as did Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828), who died at the age of 31.

In 1732, Pergolesi was appointed mastro de cappella to the prince of Stigliano, and, in 1734, he became deputy maestro de cappella, in Naples.

Sacred Music

Pergolesi was such a fine violinist and composer that, during his own life time, he was called the “divine,” by his followers.  For musicologists, he is, first and foremost, the composer of the Serva padrona (“The Maid turned Mistress”), an opera buffa, or comic opera, composed in 1733.  But if we exclude the circumstances that made his opera buffa and its composer famous, he is remembered mainly for his Stabat Mater, a sacred work he composed the year he died, in 1736.

The Stabat Mater was commissioned by the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo, a group of pious and generous gentlemen.  However, by 1736, Pergolesi had also written a Mass in F and his long and very mature Magnificat in C major.  In Naples, he composed his Mass in D and his celebrated Stabat Mater.

Instrumental Music

Pergolesi also composed instrumental music: a violin sonata, a violin concerto, a concerto for flute, and other instrumental works.  But doubt lingers concerning the authorship of some of the instrumental music attributed to him.  Investigators are at work.

Operas

So, we now come to his operas.  In Naples, Pergolesi had written Lo frate’nnmmorato, an opera buffa (comic opera).  But he had also composed an opera seria (serious) entitled Il Prigioner superbo (The Proud Prisoner), a work which contained a two-act comedia buffa, La Serva padrona (The Maid turned Mistress).  It is this opera buffa that made him a celebrity, albeit posthumously.

La Serva padrona, an intermezzo, was in no way subversive  It had been composed to a libretto (the words) by Gennaro Antonio Federico who gleaned some of his material from a play by Jacopo Angello Nelli.  In fact, not only was it not subversive, but it had already been performed in Paris, on October 4th, 1746, without attracting much attention.

La Serva Padrona and the “Querelle des Bouffons” (video, here and below)

But in 1752, circumstances had changed.  For one thing, the August 1st, 1752 performance of La Serva padrona (“The Servant turned Mistress”) took place at the most elegant venue in Paris: the Opera, or the Académie royale de musique.  Moreover, it was performed before an élite audience.  As a result, this one performance led to an unpredictable two-year quarrel (1752-1754) that opposed the most brilliant minds among the “lumières,” including d’Alembert, Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau  (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778).  But Rousseau is the person who threw the first stone, except that the “querelle” was a paper war.

Sense and Sensibility

The “Querelle des Bouffons,” or “Quarrel of the comic actors,” was indeed a paper war.  It took the form of an exchange of letters and pamphlets, totalling sixty-one documents, all written by the most erudite “philosophes” of the French Enlightenment, not to mention a bevy of salonniers and salonnières.  It was the event of the century, prior to the French Revolution.

—ooo—

Yet, it would not be altogether fair to give circumstances the leading role in the “querelle.”  Pergolesi’s Serva padrona is an opera buffa, but it had been composed by Pergolesi, the “divine,” and talent supersedes genre.  In other words, the performance of the Serva padrona was a catalyst in the “querelle,” but it is unlikely that a lesser opera buffa would have unleashed a fury.  No greater compliment was ever paid Pergolesi.  The Serva padrona was so delightful an opera buffa, that Geneva-born French encyclopédiste and musician Jean-Jacques Rousseau could use it to oppose French opera.

There had long been tension between Italian music and French music, then dominated by Jean-Philippe Rameau, the author of a Treatise on Harmony, published in 1722.  As you know from an earlier blog, this treatise remains authorative.  But although the “querelle ” could be considered as yet another battle in the war between French “ramistes,” the name given supporters of Rameau, on the one hand, and lovers of Italian opera and commedia dell’arte, on the other hand, it may be best to suggest that it opposed reason and sentiment, or sense and sensibility.

The supremacy of reason had been disputed by Pascal, among other thinkers, but since the publication of Descartes‘s Discours de la méthode, in 1637, the fashion for sentiment had suffered. Although Voltaire (b. François-Marie Arouet), 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778, was extremely witty and entertaining, as a philosopher, he was an advocate of reason.  Be that as it may, Rousseau rather enjoyed shedding a tear or two at the opera, as did a substantial number of his companions involved in the “querelle.”

—ooo—

In short, because Pergolesi’s Serva padrona was exquisite in its genre, it was the perfect weapon in a war against “ramistes,” which means that if sentiment and the Italians won that particular battle, the “querelle” also constituted abundant praise of Pergolesi’s talent.  Without this weapon of choice, the Serva padrona, there may never have been a “Querelle des Bouffons” for sheer lack of ammunition.

Three Gentlemen and Pierrot, Claude Gillot

Claude Gillot (28 April 1673 – 4 May 1722)

YouTube allows one to listen to and to view the Serva padrona in its entirety, but Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater remains the centrepiece.  I hope you enjoy listening to some music composed by a forever young Pergolesi who died in poverty in a Franciscan monastery, at Pozzuoli, near Naples.

—ooo—

(please click on title to hear music)

  • The “Querelle des Bouffons” (comments in Italian about the commedia dell’arte)
  • Pergolesi – Violin Concerto in B Flat Major – Mov. 1/3
  • Pergolesi – Violin Concerto in B Flat Major – Mov. 2&3/3
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 1
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 2
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 3
  • Pergolesi – Laudate pueri Dominum (2)
  • Pergolesi – Salve Regina in C minor (1)
  • Pergolesi – Stabat Mater, Jaroussky & Gens
  • Pergolesi – Magnificat in C Major
  • Pergolesi – La Serva padrona -II

[i] “Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia BritannicaOnline. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/451597/Giovanni-Battista-Pergolesi>.

composer:  Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 –16 or 17 March 1736
piece: Stabat Mater
performers: London Symphony Orchestra, 1985
Margaret Marshall, Soprano; Lucia Valentini Terrani, Contralto
conductor: Claudio Abbado
 
scene
© Micheline Walker
20 December 2011
WordPress
 
Scène,
Claude Gillot
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