March 18, 2012 - Lent 4

O Mensch bewein dein Sunde gross BWV 622 - J.S. Bach

Go Not Far From Me, O God - N.A. Zingarelli

The Crucifixion: "God So Loved the World" -

    Sir John Stainer

Concerto in d minor after Vivaldi: "Finale" BWV 596 -

    J.S. Bach

Hymns: #727 Woodslake, #467 St. Bees, #603 St. Botolph

This week I have turned to not one but two old stand-bys of the choral literature. Go Not Far From Me, O God was written by the Italian composer, Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli (1752-1827). Zingarelli was a prolific composer. Most of his contributions fall into the category of either opera or church music. He was born in Naples and began studying music at age 7. In the early part of his career he held several church positions including Milan Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel. In 1811 he was taken as a prisoner to Paris because he refused to conduct a Te Deum for Napoleon’s son. He was quickly released because Napoleon liked his music. Later in his career he turned to sacred compositions, writing masses, cantatas, and oratorios including “The Flight to Egypt” which was written for the Birmingham Festival (17 years later Mendelssohn’s Elijah was premiered at the festival.) The motet Go Not Far From Me, O God is simple. The opening f minor section is filled with sighing motives that are spread throughout. These are followed by a short imitative section (foreshadowing of things to come in the second half) on the text “forsake me not.” The piece then bursts in to F major as the choir’s mouth is “filled with Thy praise.” This joy continues through the rest of the piece with strongly contrasted dynamics and a care free dance like quality that continues to the end.

God So Loved the World is probably Sir John Stainer’s (1840-1901) best known work. It is taken from the Lenten work The Crucifixion and is the piece’s central movement. Stainer was an English organist and composer who was very popular during his own lifetime, but whose works have largely fallen out of favor today. They are frequently criticized as being too overtly emotional and romantic and lacking in real substance. Stainer began his career as a choir boy at St. Paul’s Cathedral and at age 16 was appointed organist of St. Michael’s college. He went on to hold similar posts at Magdalen College and St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was also made a professor at Oxford. In addition to his compositions, Stainer made contributions to music by writing treatises on harmony, composition and the organ. He was also a notable musicologist who rediscovered the works fifteenth century composers including Guillaume Dufay. God So Loved the World remains a staple in most church libraries because of its simple beauty and flexibility. Despite being quite simple a good degree of musicality is necessary on the part of the singers to realize the piece’s potential.

For the prelude and postlude I have again turned to the music of J.S. Bach (1685-1750.) For the postlude I am playing the last movement of Bach’s Concerto in d minor after Vivaldi BWV 596. This piece is likely based on RV 565 the Concerto in d minor for two violins. The piece works well as an organ transcription and the listener can still hear the interplay between the two “violin” parts and the continuo in this movement. It is possible that this piece is based on a work by W.F. Bach but one can easily hear the Italian influence that makes it easy to believe that Vivaldi’s influence was at the root of it. The piece requires the organist to change manuals quickly and fairly frequently, probably to imitate the trading back and forth of the soloists and the orchestra in the original concerto.

The prelude is the beautiful chorale, O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross BWV 622 (O Man, lament your great sin.) In this chorale prelude Bach has taken into account the lengthy text of the chorale tune which he presents here as an ornamented solo (in this case for me, an 8’ principal) James Moeser suggest that Bach’s treatment of specific passages in the prelude directly relates to the text, for example, the last line talks about Christ being “stretched out on the cross” and here in the music Bach elongates the note values and draws the piece to a close with a rallentando. This same chorale is used to conclude the first part of the St. Matthew Passion, Bach’s monumental retelling of Christ’s last week. Here again, the sopranos sing the chorale tune while the lower three voices provide flowing contrapuntal leans that are woven together seamlessly to support the chorale tune.