Meyerbeer - Sacred Works

Giacomo MEYERBEER (1761-1864)

Sacred Works

Psalms 86 and 124

Hymne An Gott

Pater noster

Cantique

Andrea Chudack (Soprano)

Jakub Sawicki (Piano and Organ)

New Prussian Philharmony, Berlin

Dario Salvi 

(Conductor and arrenger)

Recorded 12-14 march 2018 at the Andreaskirche, Berlin-Wannsee, Germany.

This album brings together several religious compositions by the German-Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864), including several works presumed lost until their recent discovery, presented here in arrangements for soprano, piano or organ, and string ensemble by Dario Salvi. There is, of course, a long tradition of arranging Meyerbeer’s compositions: Chopin, Rossini, Liszt and many others have composed piano arrangements, transcriptions, potpourris or variations on songs and themes from Meyerbeer’s operas.

These rediscovered works are marked both by a masterful quality of composition and a highly individual style. A broad range of forms are combined with a rich variety of creative ideas and motifs, just as a very specific spiritual language is combined with a more universal tone. The pieces also speak of a forgotten chapter in German-Jewish intellectual history. It is part of the tragedy of German and European culture that Meyerbeer had already fallen out of favour long before the National Socialist period, when some of his works were literally burned. Meyerbeer remained a Jew and had not, like other notable Jewish artists such as Mahler, converted to Christianity—a fact which, in the long term, stood in the way of his acceptance in 19th-century society. The zeitgeist of the Romantic era with its growing tendency towards national identity, stood increasingly in the way of the polyglot European mentality which had moved with ease between languages and cultures. The man who had once been a successful general music director of the Berlin Opera became—even during his lifetime—an object of hatred in parts of the artistic world, a situation that greatly influenced the manner in which his works were received, and which has continued to have influence until the present.

Meyerbeer’s family belonged to the reform wing of the Berlin Jewish community. The Beer home was a place well known to many important figures of the Jewish Enlightenment, such as Eduard Kley or Aron Wolfssohn, tutor of the young Meyerbeer. The religious texts which Meyerbeer set to music range from psalms and Catholic mystical works of the Middle Ages all the way to explicitly Christian scripts, reflecting his universalistic world view. As a believing Jew he was also a free spirit and he had no aversion to using Christian religious themes. In some of his works there are also discernible tendencies towards pantheism.

The Works

The libretti of Meyerbeer’s German opera Jephtas Gelübde (‘Jephtha’s Vow’) (1812) and the oratorio Gott und die Natur (‘God and Nature’) (1811) were written by Aloys Schreiber, who in 1809 published a Textbook of Aesthetics which received much attention. Jephtas Gelübde was premiered in Munich in 1812 with a respectable degree of success. The subject concerns the biblical story in the Book of Judges. Jephtha, as leader of the army against the Ammonites, vows that—should he gain victory—he will sacrifice the first thing that he encounters on his return. This turns out to be his own daughter (whose name is never mentioned). In Meyerbeer’s opera the daughter does indeed receive a name—Sulima.

For the whole of his life Meyerbeer was socially active and supported both Jewish and Christian organisations even after his death. In 1841, at the request of the Schott publishing house, Meyerbeer set to music Zwei Religiöse Gedichte (‘Two Religious Poems’), which were intended for the religious services of the Central Commission for the Poor. The original compositions are set for organ, two sopranos and alto. The texts of both poems (Meyerbeer named them hymns) are from Jakob Neus, one of the leaders of the Catholic social welfare organisation based in Mainz.

Hymne An Gott (‘Hymn to God’), was composed in 1813 for four solo voices (SATB) with piano accompaniment. One of the guests in the salon of his mother Amalie Beer was the poet and professor of woodcut art, Friedrich Wilhelm Gubitz. Amalie Beer encouraged him to write the text of this hymn, but Meyerbeer did not find the naive, childish tone of the poem very inspirational and, as he wrote in a letter to Wolfssohn, ‘I had to work with the sweat of my brow on this sterile piece of poetry.’ But the piece is unusual: first comes a melody for the four voices which incorporates many variations in an almost Mozartian manner, then follows a middle section with chromatic changes and complex harmonies. The closing Allegro seems liberated and is distinguished by passages comprising imitations and virtuoso coloratura. This composition had not been published again and was first performed in June 2017 in Berlin by Andrea Chudak, exactly two hundred years later. The score used for the performance is based on a printed version of 1817.

The Cantique tiré de l’imitation de Jésus-Christ (‘Canticle from the Imitation of Jesus Christ’) was written in Paris in 1859. It is the quintessence of the deepened spirituality of the Late Middle Ages, filled with thoughts on being secluded from the world and a deep piety which focuses on the birth of God within a human soul as a form of inner light, a world without vanities, without external frivolous display and free of all such burdens. He wrote about this to his friend Carl Kaskel: ‘Since I know, and with pleasure, my dear friend, how much you take interest in my musical work, I wish today to inform you that yesterday I finished a new composition in a religious style which, despite its limited scope, has been of great significance to me with my limited abilities. It is a Cantique for six voices, based on a fragment of the “Succession of Christ” by Thomas Kempten, on the wonderful poetic French paraphrases of Pierre Corneille.’

In 1863 Meyerbeer composed a Prélude to the Cantique for the Harmonium player Louis Engel. Until recently this work was assumed to have been lost. Dario Salvi discovered it in the Bodleian Library in Oxford in an incorrectly labelled folder of harmonium music. In our performance an organ is used, making this a world premiere. Meyerbeer composed this prelude in the style of the Cantique, directly followed by the first recitative as noted in his diary. In the three recitatives there is a melancholic mood with dramatic and also resigned sections, with shading in minor keys and an expressive chromaticism which then leads to a soft and comforting mood in the choral passages.

Among Meyerbeer’s first religious compositions (from 1807) are at least twelve psalms. Most of these were in his estate, which went missing. Some of these psalms were composed while Meyerbeer was studying with Georg Joseph Vogler in Darmstadt, including Psalm 124 (verses 1 to 5) and Psalm 86 (verses 11 to 13). The original compositions were for four-part choir and orchestra. In these pieces Meyerbeer was practicing his four-part writing, contrasting homophony and polyphony and working meticulously on the usage of musical motifs. The texts were based on translations by Moses Mendelssohn.

Meyerbeer’s Pater Noster for a capella choir was written in Nice in 1857 and was a contribution to the magazine La Maîtrise which was intended for practical use. The opening, ‘Pater noster qui es in coeli, sanctifecetur nomen tuum’ is repeated three times and functions as a structural frame. During the course of the composition Meyerbeer pushes deep down into the different layers of the prayer and each word is illuminated. The dynamics play a major role, and he noted concerning this that it was to be ‘very pithy’. This way, the holy name of the eternal God is given a very unexpected accent. The work was favourably received by critics.

On 8 May 1811 Meyerbeer’s oratorio Gott und die Natur (‘God and Nature’) was premiered in Berlin by the Royal Orchestra leader, B.A. Weber, who was also Meyerbeer’s last teacher in the Prussian capital. The libretto is based thematically on Genesis chapter 1, but the biblical text is neither cited nor paraphrased. The text can be considered a melange of the worship of nature and allegorical thought processes, both secular and spiritual. The aria, Es geht aus seinem Strahlentor (‘It comes forth from his radiant gate’), is the only section that was composed for soprano.

During his lifetime Meyerbeer composed many songs and romances based on religious texts. In 1841, while in Alexisbad in the Harz Mountains, he set Siegfried August Mahlmann’s poem Gottergebenheit (‘The Divine Condition’) in strophic form to a simple melody. In the spirit of the Jewish Enlightenment he was able to identify closely with Mahlmann’s words:

‘Let the eternal mercy,

In which one can believe and trust

Make holy my way

Through the divine light,

So that even on dark paths

I will feel the comfort

As one who lives with the creator

In peace and blessing.’

Thomas Kliche