The big calendar

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The large calendar is a secular oratorio in four parts for soprano and baritone solo, mixed choir, children's choir, orchestra and organ by Hermann Reutter . The performance lasts around an hour and 45 minutes.

Emergence

In 1932, Ludwig Andersen, alias Ludwig Strecker the Younger , suggested to the then 32-year-old Stuttgart composer Hermann Reutter that he should set texts that he had compiled and supplemented about the course of the year into a large “folk oratorio”. Reutter went to work with pleasure. The world premiere followed a year later.

In 1970 the composer was to be specially honored on his 70th birthday, according to the will of the Süddeutscher Rundfunk, with a festive performance of his “Big Calendar”. On this occasion he revised his score from 1932, because he had learned a lot in a distance of almost four decades. The new version had its premiere on June 17th in the Beethovensaal of the Stuttgart Liederhalle concert hall . The crowd on the podium included the soprano Ursula Buckel, the baritone Roland Hermann , the Südfunkchor, the Stuttgart Philharmonic Choir, the boys' choir of the Eberhard-Ludwig-Gymnasium Stuttgart, the children's choir of the Württembergische Staatstheater, the Südfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester and the organist Wolfgang Dallmann. Heinz Mende was in charge of the overall management . The music writer and critic Kurt Honolka , known for his numerous opera translations, wrote two days later in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten that the work was "a really big hit, which only succeeds once, which is not repeated at the height of the championship," as little as about Orff those Carmina Burana could 'repeat'.

description

“The big calendar” is Reutter's most extensive and - at least during his lifetime - the most performed choral work. The individual numbers consist of texts from the Bible, peasant rules, popular sayings, folk songs, chorales and literary quotations, mostly by well-known German poets. They accompany the course of the year from New Year to New Year's Eve. The music is deliberately kept simple - popular in the best sense of the word - so that it is immediately accessible to every listener. The composer offers a wealth of effectively contrasted vocal numbers using all combinations between solos and choirs.

Outline of the work

First part

  1. Beginning of the year and Epiphany - baritone with mixed choir (text from Matthew 2)
  2. Peasant rules and calendar time - alternating male and female choirs: January has to crack from the cold
  3. Carnival - children's choir, duet soprano and baritone, mixed choir: Tschingdera, tschingdera! Today is Shrovetide! (Text based on old folk sayings and rhymes)
  4. Ash Wednesday - duet soprano and baritone: Memento homo, quia pulvis es and mixed choir: Wake up, oh human, oh human, wake up! (Anonymous)
  5. Peasant rules and calendar time - alternating male and female choirs: when the cranes move in March
  6. Passion - male choir: When Jesus left his mother and the great holy week began (spiritual folk song)
  7. Resurrection - mixed choir with soprano: the holy Christ has risen (text based on old hymns )

Second part

  1. Awakening - Soprano: Freed from the Ice (from the "Easter Walk" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
  2. Saat - baritone and male choir: measure the step! (Conrad Ferdinand Meyer)
  3. Walpurgis Night and the beginning of May - alternating baritone, women's choir, mixed choir and children's choir: the swallow flies, spring wins (based on texts by Ludwig Hölty, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine)
  4. Peasant rules and calendar time - alternating women's and men's choirs: the sun emerges from the sign of the bull
  5. May idyll - baritone, soprano and mixed choir: Oh my heart! (Old folk song and evening angelus)

third part

  1. Johannisfeuer - Allegro ostinato for orchestra
  2. Peasant rules and calendar time - alternating male and female choirs: June dry more than wet brings good wetness to the vintner barrel
  3. Reife - Soprano: Go out, my heart, and search for Freud (Paul Gerhardt)
  4. Harvest - mixed choir: We cut the seeds (Conrad Ferdinand Meyer)

fourth part

  1. Peasant rules and calendar time - alternating male and female choirs: September thunder predicts lots of snow at Christmas time
  2. Grape harvest - after a small country dealer for orchestra, mixed choir and baritone follow: Grape-curled September Child (Francis Jammes)
  3. The Wild Hunt - Rondo for Orchestra
  4. Autumn Elegy - baritone: It's a reaper, is called death (spiritual folk song)
  5. Peasant rules and calendar time - alternating male and female choirs: lots of water in November
  6. Advent - soprano and children's choir: Maria went through a thorn forest (spiritual folk song)
  7. Calendar time - women's choir: The earth has finished its way around the sun
  8. Decision - solos and choirs: Now God wants our chants to end with a solemn amen (spiritual folk song)

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