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Glorious Puccini
October 18 & 24, 2007

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Antonín Dvorák 1841-1904

CARNIVAL OVERTURE, Op. 92
Antonín Dvorák

It took Antonín Dvorák a long time to establish his name outside his native country of Bohemia. But by 1891 he had achieved recognition and fame throughout Europe. He had premiered his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies to great success and his chamber music was in great demand. His fame had spread across the ocean, eliciting an invitation from Mrs. Jeanette B. Thurber, a dedicated and idealistic proponent of an American national musical style, to head the first American music conservatory, the National Conservatory of Music in New York.

Just before he embarked on his “New World” adventure, Dvorák composed three overtures, originally titled Nature, Life and Love, later renaming them In Nature’s Realm, Carnival and Othello. The three are united by a recurring musical theme, although in Carnival it appears only fleetingly in the slow middle section. These works were not composed as overtures to plays or operas, but were more in the nature of mood-setting concert openers.

According to one scholar Dvorák wanted to illustrate with the three overtures different aspects of nature and her power for good and evil. Age fifty at the time and in middle age, he looked to nature for tranquility, was somewhat disillusioned with love, but retained an unflagging zest for life.

The composer’s optimistic side comes through in the Carnival Overture with the explosive energy of the opening bars. The overture follows the traditional symphonic sonata allegro form, but as is often the case in Dvorák’s most upbeat music, it bears a tinge of melancholy in its second theme  and in the addition of a separate Andante section – a poetic English horn solo – that foreshadow the emotional outpourings of the slow movement of the Ninth Symphony, Op. 94 and the Cello Concerto, Op. 105, composed in America shortly afterwards. After this poignant digression, Dvorák snaps back into the original mood of the piece.

TE DEUM, Op.103
Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Dvorák’s sojourn in the United States from 1892 to 1895 came about through the efforts of Mrs. Jeanette B. Thurber. A dedicated and idealistic proponent of an American national musical style, she underwrote and administered the National Conservatory of Music in New York, the first American music conservatory. Because of Dvorák’s popularity throughout Europe, he was Thurber’s first choice for a director. He, in turn, was probably lured to the big city so far from home by both a large salary and his convictions regarding musical nationalism that paralleled Mrs. Thurber’s own.

As part of the negotiations, Mrs. Thurber – mindful of the publicity value – asked the composer to bring with him a new choral work to be premiered at his first American concert, in connections with celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. She promised to send him an appropriate text, but when this failed to arrive and time got short, he picked the Latin text Te Deum, the traditional hymn of thanksgiving in the Catholic liturgy.

Dvorák’s work employs enormous symphonic and choral forces, in the tradition of the choral masterpieces of Hector Berlioz and Giuseppe Verdi. While usually divided into three parts, “Te Deum laudamus” (We praise Thee God), “Tu Rex gloriae “(King of glory) and “Aeterna fac “(May we live eternally), Dvorák’s setting is divided into four movements, splitting the “Aeterna fac “into two sections. The result is a large form loosely resembling the standard four-movement symphony with the standard tempi for the first three: Allegro, Lento, Vivace in triple time. The finale movement, “Dignare, Domine “(deem it worth, Lord) begins in somber mode as a prayer of supplication but ends joyously.

The Te Deum opens in a mood of exultation with a ceremonial fanfare for solo timpani. It is taken up by the strings in a three against two cross rhythm, introducing a motive that becomes the unifying kernel of the entire work. Finally, the chorus bursts in with “Te Deum laudamus.” Nearly a full minute of this six-minute movement (four lines of text) is spent “reveling” on the little motive, passing it from voice to voice, decorating it, developing descants to it, and never once leaving the tonic. Then the whole thing begins again in a new key, accompanied by the brass, triangles and crash cymbals, finally dying away to a whispered chorus on “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.”

The central part of this movement, an abrupt contrast to the opening, belongs to the soprano soloist. The tempo shifts to Lento and the mood becomes intensely prayerful, but quietly in the background, the chorus and upper winds insert subtle reminders of the joyful opening motive. No sooner has the soprano finished, and as if unable to hold back any longer, the full chorus and orchestra burst back in with a reprise of the “Te Deum.”

Without a break, a new fanfare in the brasses ushers in the second movement, a solo for bass. The "Tu Rex gloriae" is particularly interesting in that it contains pentatonic passages in the orchestra, the very sounds that some musicologists have associated with Dvorák’s “American” style in imitation of African-American and American Indian melodies. But this work was written before the composer ever set foot on New World soil. Listeners familiar with the Verdi Requiem will also recognize echoes of the “Tuba mirum” in the bass’s opening invocation.

An agitated ostinato underlies the “Aeterna fac,” which with its rapid triple time suggests a symphonic scherzo. On the verse “In saeculum saeculi” to the end of the movement the solo timpani is featured once again.

The “Dignare Domine “is a prayer for mercy and remission of sins, serving the same function as the “Agnus Dei” that concludes the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass. Dvorák’s setting is appropriately somber as the chorus echoes the soloists’ ever intensifying prayer. Yet, lurking throughout in the orchestra is the little “Te Deum” motive, which finally erupts in the trumpets and then in the entire orchestra and chorus, an affirmation of faith and salvation.

G iacomo Puccini 1858-1924

MESSA DI GLORIA
Giacomo Puccini

Born into a musical family with strong ties to the Church, Giacomo Puccini began his musical career as a church organist at age 14. At age sixteen he entered the Istituto Musicale Pacini in his home town of Lucca in Tuscany. But a year later he discovered opera and decided to break with family tradition and become a theatrical composer instead. For this purpose he transferred in 1880 to the Milan Conservatory.

For his graduation in 1880 from the Istituto Musicale Pacini, Puccini composed the Mass in A-Flat Major, known as the Messa di Gloria. Performed at the graduation ceremony, it was never published in the composer’s lifetime and the manuscript disappeared from view. After World War II, an old copyist’s manuscript was finally unearthed and subsequently the original manuscript was released by the family. It received its second performance ever in 1952 in Chicago. Unwilling to let good themes go to waste, Puccini recycled some of them, such as the Agnus Dei, which became the madrigal in Act II of Manon Lescaut. His other Conservatory examination piece, Capriccio sinfonico, was reborn in the café scene in La bohème.

It’s quite clear that, schooled as he was in the music of the Church, Puccini applied little of that knowledge to the sole religious work of his career. Instead, the Mass reflects more than anything the choruses of middle-period Verdi operas. It should come as no surprise that Puccini began work on the Mass in 1876, two years after the triumphant premieres of both the Requiem and Aïda, which he had seen at a performance in the neighboring city of Pisa. What is surprising, however, is the dearth of operatic solos. The fact that there are no female soloists is also unusual by this time. The major exceptions are the "Gratias agimus" for tenor in the Gloria, the "Et incarnatus est" in the Credo and the already mentioned Angus Dei, a piece in responsorial style, with solo tenor and baritone in dialogue with the chorus.

The Kyrie with its brief instrumental prelude has an unusual sweetness about it, although the mood of the "Christe eleison" is both more somber and ecclesiastical.

Even in his youth, Puccini had a talent for creating melodies that could project emotions with pinpoint accuracy. The opening of the Gloria sounds like a gathering of frolicking children, but like the Kyrie, builds in grandeur as the section progresses. Listeners familiar with Verdi's Requiem may be reminded of the lively Sanctus. The chant-like intonation of the "Et in terra pax" suggests the image of peace on earth, while the litany of praise, "Laudamus te," becomes an appropriately longer and weightier section. The mood shifts now to one of gratitude, a passionate tenor aria, "Gratias agimus tibi," which spawned many recognizable offspring in rather more amorous contexts. After a brief reprise of the Gloria theme, the chorus takes up a choral version of the tenor aria.

Since the Renaissance, it has been customary to break the Gloria at the "Qui tollis peccata mundi," in which the congregation prays for mercy. For this section, Puccini was clearly in a Verdi mood, setting the text as a grand choral scena – echoes of the priests in the Triumphal Scene of Aïda. The mode shifts to minor as the whole chorus intones the words "Miserere nobis." (Have mercy on us). This, incidentally, is the longest single section of the entire Mass. Puccini adhered with the convention of concerted masses from the eighteenth and nineteenth century by setting as a fugue the last section of the Gloria, “Cum Santo Spiritu.”

While the Gloria of the mass is an invocation of praise, gratitude and hope, the Credo is a narrative, telling the story of Christ's sacrifice in the form of a statement of faith. Inexperienced as he was, Puccini clearly perceived the dramatic possibilities of the Credo and set it as a religious operatic scene, much the same way Verdi had set the Dies irae in the Requiem.

Puccini begins by making a single musical unit of the more abstract part of the Creed,"Credo in unum Deum..., " up to the "Et incarnatus est," where the story actually begins. Here, the tenor soloist sings another heartfelt aria with chorus obbligato . The "Crucifixus," is introduced once again by a "priestly" chorus, but while most settings of the mass make Christ's suffering on the cross the central tragedy, Puccini focuses on the death and burial as Christianity's darkest moment in the "Passus et sepultus est." As the chorus fades away, he writes the most poignantly dissonant passage in the piece. Most composers set the "Et resurrexit" as a joyful choral outburst, but Puccini has other ideas. The chorus reacts not so much with joy and relief as with confusion and terror, for the Resurrection also implies the day of judgment, when sitting at the right hand of God, Christ will judge the living and the dead. As if realizing that Jesus's sacrifice now demands that man too must take part of the responsibility for his salvation, the chorus fervently proclaims the rest of the Creed. Perhaps to emphasize the essential role of the Church in man's redemption, Puccini suddenly quiets the turmoil, and the chorus proclaims the "Et unam sanctam Catholicam Ecclesiam." as a solemn hymn. The drama then concludes with the joyful fugue, "Et vitam venturi." This fugue, perhaps because of the flow of the words, is traditionally set in triple time.

One cannot help getting the feeling that by the time Puccini had finished the text-heavy Gloria and Credo, he was up against a deadline. Instead of breaking down the Sanctus into an extensive section of music for each of its component parts, he makes short work of the Heavenly Host. He eschews the customary fugue for the Hosanna, and a long Benedictus, usually the domain of soloists, is a short baritone aria.

The lilting Agnus Dei is even shorter than the Sanctus and packs little dramatic punch.

Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2007

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