George Frederick Handel Ode for St Cecilias Day (Song for St Cecilias Day) for soloists, chorus & orchestra, HWV 76 Like Alexanders Feast, the composers more famous work in honor of the patron saint of music, George Frideric Handels Ode for St. Cecilias Day, HWV 76, is a setting of texts written in honor of Saint Cecilia by John Dryden in 1697. Perhaps inspired by the sweeping success of Alexanders Feast (composed and first performed in 1736), Handel revisited Drydens ode three years later to create a new, shorter work. The circumstances of the November 22, 1739, Lincolns Inn Fields premiere of HWV 76 were something of an omen of things to come: the Ode for St. Cecilias Day was presented as little more than a prelude to Alexanders Feast, and indeed the work has remained in the shadow of its sister piece ever since. The Ode is of very considerable merit, however; the three choruses contained within it are among the finest ever crafted by the composer, and the six arias are of equally high quality. HWV 76 is properly an ode and not an oratorio; there is no plot, but rather a series of recitatives, arias, choruses, and instrumental pieces that extol the praises of the St. Cecilia (a third century martyr). Handels score is for soprano and tenor soloists, the usual SATB chorus, and a colorful orchestra made up of strings, continuo, flute, double reeds, trumpets and timpani. Handels tendency to borrow music from himself and other composers is famous, and indeed, essentially all of the melodies contained in the Ode for St. Cecilias Day were lifted straight from the keyboard pieces of Gottlieb Muffats Componimenti musicali (published ca. 1739). However, the working-out of this pre-fab material over the course of the Ode is entirely Handels own. The musical subject of Drydens ode provides a sure footing for all sorts of musical text-painting and allusion. The Ode falls loosely into two halves, each of which ends with a chorus, and which are separated by an orchestral March. The works two-part overture was taken from, or perhaps used as the model for, the composers own Concerto grosso, Op. 6, No. 5, composed around the same time. The singing begins with a recitative for tenor solo, From harmony, from heavnly harmony, the text of which is immediately echoed in the first of the three choruses. The soprano follows with the stunning but graceful aria What passion cannot Music raise and quell, and the boisterous tenor counters with The Trumpets loud clangor, immediately taken up by the chorus. A succession of four arias--three for soprano, one for tenor (but that one the delightful Violins proclaim)--begins the second half of the Ode for St. Cecilias Day. A soprano recitative (But bright Cecilia raisd the wonder highr) prefaces the final chorus (As from the powr of sacred lays / The dead shall live), itself a spectacular example of Handels choral writing. It moves seamlessly from the opening soprano solo to a purely choral climax and finale in which the composer displays his contrapuntal wizardry in a stunning double fugue.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 03:06:41 +0000
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