interesting bits of trivia bits of trivia.pdf ·...
TRANSCRIPT
Interes'ng bits of trivia.
Haydn – Harmoniemesse
Haydn was one of the true originals of his 'me. His music is innova've and even provoca've in a 'me when it was the job of the composer to produce what we today call elevator music. This is partly due to his enlightened patrons, who loved hearing a symphony with a minuet that plays exactly the same way forwards and backwards. He obviously wondered what would happen if he added military drums to the symphony – so he wrote one like that. He created many special effects that today would be considered clichés, but in his 'me, they were brilliant, freshly minted ideas.
Haydn’s mass is called Harmoniemesse because its instrumenta'on is similar to a wind band, which in German is called a Harmonie. This instrumenta'on, as Dr. HowleF men'oned at a recent rehearsal, goes through the en're work. Coincidentally, in English, the reed organ, popular in the 19th-‐century salon, etc., is the harmonium, and the mouth organ (also a reed instrument), the harmonica.
Haydn’s music has this charm, the touch of a master; he con'nually seeks a novel movement of the music that goes in a direc'on different from what you expect (such as oneencounters with Bach) – but he does it in subtle, fascina'ng ways. He was constantly
seeking sublime novelty. He really was always looking for the lost chord.
Tallis – Spem in Alium
I recall hearing specula'on that this piece was wriFen in honor of Queen Elizabeth’sfor'eth birthday. While it makes a good yarn, it also is unfortunately untrue; the realityis a bit more complex. An Italian composer/diplomat brought one of his very large worksto England, and the locals wondered if an English composer could do as well, with Tallisbeing specifically men'oned. A loca'on where the work may have been performed hasan octagonal room with four balconies, which would have been a superb loca'on toexplore the spa'al movement of the music of eight choirs. Spem explores the movementof music through space, moving around the circle of choirs.
All of this is discussed in the notes for the score of Spem. You can see the score here:
hFp://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/5/55/Tallis_Spem_in_alium_full_score_PML.pdf
Lest you think the score would be too much, I advise you just to have a casual look, scrolling slowly through, just toobserve how you can see that the music shi^s through the parts. You can also play one of the Spems in YouTube asyou scroll through the score, just to get an apprecia'on for how the whole thing works. With this apprecia'on, the performance of the work will surely be greatly enhanced. Just to be clear: you need not be able to read the music to do this. You just play it, and watch how the different parts play off against each other as the piece progresses.
You can see the lyrics together with an English transla'on here:
hFps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spem_in_alium (Then select “3 Text” in the Contents.)
I heard about an exhibi'on at the Cloisters, New York City: They played a recording of Spem in Alium, and each voice had its own speaker, and you could just walk around, sampling the sounds from one perspec've or another. The piece kept playing, so you could listen several 'mes, if you wished, from different perspec'ves! I now greatly regret that I did not go down just to hear it; I am sure it would have been amazing, if not transcendent.
Jim Oppenheimer