Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Palmeri’s Misa a Buenos Aires
Magnificat – Antonio Vivaldi
What is now called ‘Baroque’ music emerged around 1580, but reached full flower over a century later: At least a dozen notable Baroque composers were born between 1671 and 1687, including, between 1678 and 1685, a great quartet— Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, and George Frideric Handel. Vivaldi, eldest of that foursome, was a sickly child, possibly asthmatic. While he was ordained to the priesthood, he was excused from celebrating mass. He was also an impressive violinist; he was taught by his father, a violinist working for St. Mark’s Cathedral, who toured with him around Venice while he was still a small child. The “Red Priest”— an appellation referring to his red hair— became violin master at a public orphanage, Ospedale della Pieta, in 1703; although he spent much of his time after 1718 traveling in Europe, he remained associated with the Pieta until 1738, and continued composing for them— 140 concerti composed between 1723 and 1733 alone. (His total output exceeds 500 concerti!) He also composed operas, of which at least 50 are known; these had, at best, modest success, but clearly supplied enough for him to live on. He moved to Vienna in 1740, apparently to work for Charles VI, whom he had previously met; however, Charles died shortly after Vivaldi’s arrival, and, with his compositions then falling out of favor, Vivaldi lapsed into poverty and died in July 1741. In its time, his music was known all over Europe. Although they never met, Bach, was an admirer, and transcribed at least three of Vivaldi’s works. Thereafter, Vivaldi’s works almost disappeared until the early 20th Century, when Danish scholar Peter Ryom published a new catalogue of them. The resurgence of interest in Vivaldi may have been stimulated by a 1927 concerto written in the style of Vivaldi by the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who performed it as a ‘Vivaldi original’. Hundreds of Vivaldi works were rediscovered after WWI, including the “Four Seasons” violin concerti, which are arguably Vivaldi’s best-known works today.
“Magnificats” are settings of the song of Mary, Luke 1:46-55, after her visitation by the angel Gabriel. Many are known; the Chorus has previously performed the settings by Bach, Schubert and Rutter. Two Vivaldi Magnificats are known. Vivaldi also constructed alternative parts for several movements of this version: These alternatives were written as vocal solos to be performed by specific graduates of the Pieta. Our presentation includes one of these, the second movement, Et Exultavit, which Vivaldi intended as a solo for a girl identified as “Apollonia”. Quoting Prof. Clayton Westerman of Hunter College, CUNY, “…Apollonia, mentioned as ’a strong singer’ by J. J. Quantz who heard her in 1726…”. The text is in Latin (except the first movement, Kyrie, in Greek), in accordance with Roman Catholic practice at that time. This Magnificat was written between 1720 and 1735, after Vivaldi left full-time duty at the Pieta; it is less elaborate than such Vivaldi works as his Gloria and has not been as frequently performed. While this text is often associated with Christmas, it belongs, liturgically, with the Feast (or Solemnity) of the Annunciation, which occurs on March 25.
Misa a Buenos Aires (Misatango or Tango Mass) – Martín Palmeri
The Mass (‘Misa’ in Spanish) is the ritual celebrating the Eucharist, especially in the Roman Catholic faith. Such rituals developed between the seventh and fifteenth centuries, originally employing plainsongs. Masses consist of several fixed elements (the ordinary), and some elements that change according to the ecclesiastical season (the proper). Many musical settings have been made, ranging from chants to extremely complex works such as Bach’s B Minor Mass. Haydn, Leopold Mozart and his son Wolfgang, Beethoven, Rossini, Schubert, Bruckner, Gounod, Dvorak, and even Stravinsky wrote such works; the Chorus has performed at least a dozen masses in its 41-year history– not counting requiem masses, which are a special category. (Some “Masses”, such as those by Bernstein and John Rutter, depart significantly from liturgical rigidity.) More lengthy or complex compositions generally were intended for the concert hall rather than church use; composers have used many styles of music, including jazz and blugrass, for this purpose. It is certainly not surprising that a contemporary composer would try his hand at a mass celebrating his hometown, nor that an Argentinian would find tango music suited to that function. That said, tango itself has a tangled ancestry and a rather rubbery definition: The music now identified as ‘tango’ originated in the middle 1800s, and, following its first publication around 1880, became spectacularly popular, first in Paris and later elsewhere in Europe and America. It lost some of its sheen in the ‘50s but re-emerged with rock connections later. Musicologists note similarities to the Cuban ‘contradanza’, to polkas, and to flamenco. There is not even a solid consensus on what constitutes a tango rhythm: Early publications show 2/4 time but 4/4 is now more common, and there are numerous ‘tango’ rhythmic patterns, all, however, syncopated. One authority identifies three tango subsets— tango-milonga, tango-romanza, and tango-cancion; but others add neotango, tango nuevo, Finnish tango, etc. And there exist more than a dozen ‘tango’ dance styles! Notwithstanding these taxonomic questions, the Argentines and Uruguayans clearly have a strong claim to much of the tango ancestry— which developed in their pampas areas and also in urban ghettos– and tango is today a central part of Argentina’s musical identity. (The orchestration for this mass also utilizes an Argentine instrument, the bandoneon, somewhat resembling a button accordion or concertina.)
Composer Martín Palmeri was born in Buenos Aires in 1965; he studied there, and in France and the US, and has also appeared as a conductor, singer, and pianist. This work was premiered in 1996 by the National Symphony of Cuba, and was performed at St. Ignacio’s in Rome during the 2016 International Festival of Sacred Music and Art— a performance that greatly pleased the composer because of the connection to his countryman Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis.
-J. R. Fancher 2017