The seven last words of our Savior on the cross

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Crucifix on Charles Bridge in Prague

The seven last words of our Savior on the Cross (title of the first edition: Musica instrumentale sopra le 7 ultime parole del nostro Redentore in croce , Hob. XX / 1: A) is a musical work by Joseph Haydn from the year 1787. In the composition, which is available in several versions, it was originally a passion music for orchestra. Thematically, the work relates to the Seven Last Words of Christ . Haydn also made an arrangement for string quartet (Hob. XX / 1: B = Hob. III: 50–56) and looked through a parallel piano reduction (Hob. XX / 1: C). These three versions were published by Artaria in Vienna in the summer of 1787. It was not until 1796 that Haydn's oratorio for solos, choir and orchestra (Hob. XX / 2) was based on it.

Creation and processing

Oratory of Santa Cueva in Cádiz

The seven last words of our Savior on the Cross were commissioned for the priest José Saenz de Santamaría, Marqués de Valde-Íñigo, from Cádiz . The work was presumably performed on Good Friday 1787 in the chapel of Santa Cueva below the parish church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario (apparently, however, there were earlier performances in other places based on copies distributed by Haydn). The assignment was to compose seven slow meditative movements, one for each of Jesus' last words. Joseph Haydn described the course of the performance in Cádiz to his biographer Georg August von Griesinger (although he incorrectly referred to the client as “Canon”): “On that particular day, the walls, windows and pillars of the church were covered with black cloth, and only one a large lamp hanging in the middle illuminated the sacred darkness. At a certain hour all the doors were locked and the music began. After an appropriate prelude, the bishop climbed into the pulpit, uttered one of the seven words, and contemplated it. As soon as it was over, he went down from the pulpit and kneeled before the altar. The music filled this pause. The bishop went into the pulpit for the second, third time, and so on, and each time the orchestra joined in again after the speech had ended. It was certainly one of the most difficult tasks, without an underlying text, out of free imagination, to let seven adagios follow one another, which would not tire the listener and arouse in him all the feelings that lay in the sense of every word uttered by the dying Savior . Haydn often declared this work to be one of his most successful. "

The simultaneous publication of the original orchestral version in parts with a piano and a string quartet arrangement is probably due to the wish of the Viennese publisher Artaria to increase the distribution of the work (see list of Haydn's string quartets ). In 1794 in Passau the composer heard a version as an oratorio that the archbishop's conductor Joseph Friebert had worked out. Haydn decided to make his own version of the oratorio for four solo voices, choir and orchestra, some of which were used, for which Gottfried van Swieten probably provided the text version. This version was premiered in Vienna in 1796; It was published in 1801.

construction

Orchestra / string quartet version Oratorio
L'Introduzione (Maestoso ed adagio) Introduzione
Sonata I (Largo): Pater, dimitte illis, non enim sciunt, quid faciunt Father, forgive them
Sonata II (Grave e cantabile): Amen dico tibi: hodie mecum eris in paradiso I am telling you
Sonata III (Grave): Mulier, ecce filius tuus, et tu, ecce mater tua! Woman, see your son here
Sonata IV (Largo): Eli, Eli, lama asabthani? My god my god
Introduzione
Sonata V (Adagio): Sitio Oh, I'm thirsty
Sonata VI (Lento): Consummatum est! It is finished
Sonata VII (Largo): Father! In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum Father, in your hands
Il terremoto (Presto e con tutta la forza) Il terremoto (Text: Karl Wilhelm Ramler )

Discography

Over 50 recordings are available on CD, for example:

Version for orchestra:

  • Berliner Philharmoniker, Riccardo Muti (Philips), 1992
  • Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall (AliaVox), recorded in 2006

Version for string quartet:

  • Cuarteto Casals (Harmonia Mundi France), 2013/14
  • Emerson String Quartet (Deutsche Grammophon), 2004

Version for piano:

  • Bart van Oort (Brilliant), photo 2007
  • Yaara Tal (Sony), image 2013

Version as oratorio:

  • Inga Nielsen, Margareta Hintermeier, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Robert Holl, Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec), 1992 (recording 1990)
  • Lisa Milne, Ruxandra Donose, Andrew Kennedy, Christopher Maltman, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wladimir Jurowski (LPO), 2009

About 25 recordings on CD are not available (as of March 2014).

literature

  • Brockhaus-Riemann Digital Music Lexicon. Volume 2, p. 184. Digibib 4.00.156, 2004. (see also wikisource.de )
  • Theodor Göllner : "The Seven Words on the Cross" by Schütz and Haydn (= Bavarian Academy of Sciences ; Philosophical-Historical Class. Treatises, New Series. Issue 93). CH Beck, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7696-0088-6 .
  • Christin Heitmann, Annette Oppermann: Article The seven last words of our Savior on the Cross. In: Armin Raab , Christine Siegert , Wolfram Steinbeck (Hrsg.): The Haydn Lexicon. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2010, ISBN 978-3-89007-557-0 , pp. 686-689.
  • Christin Heitmann (Ed.): Haydn: "The seven last words of our Savior on the Cross". Arrangement for string quartet. Urtext . G. Henle Verlag, undated [after 2007; = Preprint of the Haydn Complete Edition], there the editor's foreword (p. VI f. Of the score) and her comments (ib., P. 37–39).
  • Susanne Kraft-Blachny: The seven last words of our Savior on the Cross (vowel version). Oratorio Hob. XX: 2. Silke Leopold , Ullrich Scheideler (ed.): Oratorio guide . Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-00977-7 , pp. 310-311.
  • Adolf Sandberger : On the genesis of Haydn's “Seven Words of the Savior on the Cross”. In: Selected essays on music history. Vol. 1, Munich 1921, pp. 266-281.
  • Gottfried Scholz: Haydn's oratorios. A musical factory guide. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57763-5 , pp. 42-56.
  • Hubert Unverricht : Joseph Haydn's “The Seven Words of Christ on the Cross” in the arrangement of the Passau court conductor Joseph Friebert. In: Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 65 (1981), pp. 83–94.
  • Mathias Walz: The seven last words of our Savior on the Cross, Hob. XX: 2. In: Hans Gebhard (Hrsg.): Harenberg Chormusikführer . Harenberg, Dortmund 1999, ISBN 3-611-00817-6 , pp. 397-398.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bodo Müller : La acogida de la literatura alemana en España . In: Humboldt , No. 43 (1970), pp. 58-68, here p. 61.
  2. ↑ Georg August Griesinger : Biographical Notes on Joseph Haydn . Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1810, p. 32f. ( Full text in google book search)
  3. ^ List of a mail order company
  4. ↑ Details / audio samples
  5. ↑ Details / audio samples
  6. ↑ list