Symphony funèbre

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The SORG MUSIK vid Högst Salig Hans Kongl. Maÿ sts KONUNG GUSTAF III s Bisattning by Joseph Martin Kraus was created in 1792 as music for the funeral ceremonies (laying out) of the Swedish King Gustav III. The four-movement work was performed on April 13, 1792 in Stockholm's Riddarholm Church , the traditional burial place of the Swedish monarchs. It has been known under the name Symphonie funèbre since 1804 at the latest (in Bertil van Boer's catalog raisonné under the number VB 148).

Structure and occupation

All four movements are at a slow pace. An introductory, solemnly sustained Andante mesto with muted timpani and trumpets is followed by a rhythmically profiled, step-dance-like larghetto with melodic , arioso qualities. The third movement is simply titled Choral and consists of a simple four-part cantional movement on the first chorale stanza of the Protestant hymn Now let's bury the body by Martin Weisse (1531). The finale begins in the Adagio , in which the chorale is processed as a cantus firmus movement and as a fugue (with a rhythmically changed theme). The cycle ends with a return of the timpani from the Andante mesto . The line-up, each with two oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings, mainly serves the lower registers.

I. Adagio mesto

The through-composed structure of the opening Andante mesto is based on the form of the sonata movement , expanded by an introduction with drums muffled by cloth alternating with descending triad figures in the bass and string chord syncopation. The plaintive melody in the entire symphony is primarily determined by semitone and sighing figures in the formation of motifs and themes. The main movement (main theme), however, is in A flat major (the median of the basic key of C minor), as is the more melodic side movement. Only in the recapitulation do both themes appear in the root key, but are not turned in the major key as usual. The modulating development processes the chord syncopation of the introduction as well as motifs of the subordinate movement. The timpani contributes processional rhythms and shocking tremolos.

II. Larghetto

With a two-part repetition system, 3/8 time and a characteristically swaying figure at the phrase ends, the second movement clearly refers to traditional dance forms. In contrast, the expression of mourning is guaranteed by the dark key of F minor, reserved melodies, exclamation figures, syncopated accents, pauses and metric shifts. The first section (A part) is a devout, individual, arioso lament ( sotto voce and pianissimo ). The beginning of the second section (B part, mezzoforte ) is harmoniously tense , with the wind sounding dominating for a short time. Thus, the sentence offers less a dance than its caricature, which expresses a restlessness.

III. Chorale

The third movement is a string version in the cantional movement by Martin Weißes Choral Now let's bury the body , which in the translation Lät oss thenna kropp begrafva in the Swedish chorale book Den Svenska Psalmboken / Års Koralbok from 1695/1697 is assigned to the burial choirs ( Begrafnings-Psalmer ) . In order to accentuate the plaintive character, the harmonic course of the chorale, which (as in the first movement) with A flat major exposes the mediant of C minor, is deliberately changed. At the end of the third chorale line, instead of the second level (B major), modulation is made to the parallel (F minor). The movement thus creates a harmonious reference to both the Larghetto and the subsequent Adagio , which begins in this key.

IV. Adagio

The finale does not follow any common form models. The five sections are separated from each other by a cadence (as a caesura) that appears again and again, which causes the musical course to stall again and again. The first section (bars 1–10) is designed exclusively by the strings and, thanks to its periodic thematic structure (2 + 2 bars), follows the model of a main movement typical of the exposure (theme). The second section (bars 14–19) already represents a kind of development of the main theme (starting from C minor). Restless string syncopation is accompanied by the timbre of chord surfaces in the clarinets, bassoons, horns and muted trumpets. The bass is formed by a chromatically colored downward passage ( passus duriusculus or lamento bass) from c via b , b , a and g back to f . The third section (Eb major, cycles 23-29) is dedicated to a Kantilene the solo horn, which after reaching the Spitzentons there 2 in a cadenza ( ad libitum ) opens. The fourth section (bars 32–46) processes the chorale of the third movement as a cantus firmus ( sostenuto e dolce in unison between oboe and bassoon). The last section (B flat major, bars 50–68) is a simple fugue in lively rhythms, the theme of which is based on the first chorale line. Composition technique, articulation, dynamics and instrumentation refer to a final exaggeration of the musical process in the sense of a musical apotheosis . In the final organ point (over g , bars 68–75), however, the fugue theme is suspended in favor of a transition to the coda (C minor, bars 75–90), freely designed with the greatest harmonic tension, in which the timpani is introduced in the Andante mesto, come di sopra recurs from the first sentence.

interpretation

Gustav III was the victim of an assassination attempt on him on March 16, 1792 at the Stockholm Opera during a masked ball. In addition to many representatives of the nobility, Joseph Martin Kraus himself was possibly among the guests. The assassination is the preliminary end point of a difficult political development in Sweden, in which Gustav III. as a representative of an ambivalent approach to enlightened absolutism, despite revolutionary reforms and ambitions, it was unable to achieve a balance between the different social classes, a diffuse middle class and no less divided nobility. Unlike in France, for example, the conspiracy against Gustav was based on an increasingly delegitimized nobility, which gave the funeral ceremony a special political meaning: “The fact that you have fallen victim to betrayal from your own ranks (like Christ) is not only a reflection reflects the political significance of Gustav's death, but also illustrates the inevitability and tragedy of the incident, which seemed to be due to the political and personal nature of the king. "The music is through the" expression of the unwanted farewell and the shock that many, above all, commoners and some from the long-established nobility may have felt ”, coined. Krausʼ music not only addresses the monarch, but also the human qualities of Gustav III. The personal relationship between Kraus and Gustav III. Although it turned out to be ambivalent, it remained characterized by a deep intellectual, intellectual and political closeness until Gustav's death. Credible has been handed the emotional collapse, overwhelmed by "Kraus at the rehearsal of the funeral music [,] by his emotions, fainted from the Directorate console and only by comforting words of the present [later regent] Carl XIII ., And he then the tears flow relaxed, could recover. ”(“ att han vid repetitions af begrafningsmusiken, öfverväldigad af känslor, afsvimmade framför anförarepulpeten och endast on the närvarande Carl XIII: s tröstande ord, including sedan han lemnat tårarne fritt lopp. ) Kraus also reveals himself by means of a self-quotation, as if with a signature, and musically pays his respects to his deceased employer during the memorial ceremony: the first chorale line is not only related to the opening theme of the finale at the interval level, both also refer to it the theme of the earlier symphony in C minor (1783/1787; VB 142), which Kraus wrote during his four-year-old by G ustav III. financed study tour ( Grand Tour ) through Europe.

On the one hand, the chant promotes a communal liturgical relationship among the mourners present. Now let's bury the body dated from the founding period of the Reformation, its final textual form may even go back to Martin Luther himself. One of its peculiarities is to thematize both the mourning process and the associated rite, which may have been decisive for its use in the symphony . White hymn also stands out from the multitude of funeral chorales because of its expressive passion tone. The fourth stanza stands out with its painful theme, which addresses the idea of salvation and at the same time draws parallels to the Passion of Christ (“His misery, misery and misery / Has come to a blessed end: / He has borne Christ's yoke, / Has died, and lives but still."). In the 18th century there were a number of sensitive new poems, among which that by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1758) enjoyed great popularity. The melody of the chant (Johannes Stahl 1544) was later used by Louis Spohr for his programmatic fourth symphony The Consecration of Tones op. 86 (1835). (It is unlikely, however, that Spohr knew Kraus' symphony.) The simple setting in the symphony not only invites you to sing along virtually. For a later performance on March 29, 1797, the fifth anniversary of Gustav III's death, there is evidence that the text was actually sung along. The chorale as a musical quotation thus creates a mediation between the concrete occasion for mourning and a concept-free instrumental music that is intended to give expression to individual and collective mourning.

The introduction of the timpani, which returns at the end of the symphony, frames the occasion for which the congregation has come. The funeral ceremony for Gustav III serves here. not only for political homage, but also as a place of individual and collective coping for the whole of Swedish society. The ambiguity of the events is reflected in the music: In the last sixteen bars of the symphony , the conventions of conciliatory consolation or majestic exaggeration are refused. Instead, space is given to an emotional excitement "which makes grief appear as a never-ending process" and "stages the relationship between coping and overcoming as an indissoluble paradox".

At the level of the passion note of the chant, which is a symbolic relationship between the sufferings of Gustav III. and the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, shows the close relationship between the symphony and the funeral cantata performed on May 14, 1792 for burial (VB 42), which is modeled both in terms of the text (Carl Gustav Leopold) and formally on the conventions of the Passion Oratorio . This two-part funeral music for Gustav III. - Symphony and cantata - forms the musical climax as well as the end of the short, but culturally splendid “Gustavian Age”.

swell

  • Joseph Martin Kraus: Sorgemusik över Gustav III / Funeral music for Gustav III. Bisättningsmusik och burial cantat / mourning symphony and funeral cantata. Edited by Jan Olof Rudén (= Monumenta Musicae Svecicae 9), Stockholm 1979
  • Joseph Martin Kraus: Symphony in C minor. Edited by Richard Engländer (= Monumenta Musicae Svecicae 2.1), Stockholm 1960, 2 1976
  • SORG MUSIK / vid / Högst Salig / Hans Kongl. Maÿ sts / KONUNG GUSTAF III s / Bisattning / I RIDDÁRHOLMS KYRKAN / April 13, 1792. / Försattad / af / Kongl. Capellmästaren / Joseph Kraus. / Stockholm och Kongl. Privilegierade Not Tryckeriet [1792] (first edition; piano reduction)
  • SYMPHONY FUNÈBRE, | composée (a Stockholm 1792) | pour les premières cérémonies des obsèques | de GUSTAVE III, | ROI de SUÈDE, | par | JOSEPH KRAUS, | premier maitre de chapelle au service de SM SUÉDOISE. | Partition. [Copy 1804; Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Carolina Rediviva (S-Uu) Sign. Instr. mus. i hs. 31]

literature

  • Frederik Samuel Silverstolpe: Några återblickar. Stockholm 1841.
  • Birger Anrep-Nordin: Studying Josef Martin Kraus. Stockholm 1924.
  • Karl Friedrich Schreiber: Biography about the Odenwald composer Joseph Martin Kraus. Book 1928, new ed. by Helmut Brosch, Gerhart Darmstadt and Gerlinde Trunk, Buchen 2006.
  • Bertil van Boer : Joseph Martin Kraus. A Systematic-Thematic Catalog of his Musical Works and Source Study. Stuyvesant 1998.
  • H. [ildor] Arnold Barton: Gustav III of Sweden and the Enlightenment. In: Eighteenth-Century Studies 6 (1972), H. 1, pp. 1-34.
  • Jörg-Peter Findeisen : The enlightened absolutism Gustav III. A special European case in the process of bourgeois transformation? In: ders .: The enlightened absolutism Gustav III. (Inaugural lecture), Swedish Pomerania after 1750, The Liberation War 1813. Friedrich Schiller University Jena 1989, pp. 5–30.
  • Jörg-Peter Findeisen: The Swedish Monarchy. From the Viking rulers to the modern monarchs. 2 vol., Kiel 2010.
  • Sascha Wegner: Symphonies from the spirit of vocal music. For the final design in the symphonic in the 18th and early 19th centuries (treatises on musicology). Stuttgart 2018.

Web links

  • Recording by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra (Martin Sieghart) on youtube

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ulrike Süss and Michael Fischer: 520 Now we put the body in the grave . In: Gerhard Hahn and Jürgen Henkys (eds.): Handbuch zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch, Vol. 3: Liederkunde zum Evangelischen Gesangsbuch, H. 9 . Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-525-50332-4 , pp. 79-84 .
  2. ^ Karl Friedrich Schreiber: Biography of the Odenwald composer Joseph Martin Kraus [Book 1928] . Ed .: Helmut Brosch, Gerhart Darmstadt and Gerlinde Trunk. Book 2006, p. 133 .
  3. ↑ H. [ildor] Arnold Barton: Gustav III of Sweden and the Enlightenment . In: Eighteenth-Century Studies . tape 6 , no. 1 , 1972, p. 1-34 .
  4. ^ Jörg-Peter Findeisen: The enlightened absolutism Gustav III. A special European case in the process of bourgeois transformation? In: The enlightened absolutism Gustav III. (Inaugural lecture), Swedish Pomerania after 1750, The War of Liberation 1813 . Friedrich Schiller University, Jena 1989, p. 5-30 .
  5. ↑ a b Sascha Wegner: Symphonies from the spirit of vocal music. For the final design in the symphonic in the 18th and early 19th centuries (= treatises on musicology) . Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-476-04615-4 , pp. 23 .
  6. ↑ OA: Musikaliskt och dramatiskt konstnärslexikon, Kungl. Musikaliska Akademien including Kungliga Musikaliska Akademiensibibliothek, Sign. Ms 124, [without pagination] (today S-Skma), quoted. based on: Birger Anrep-Nordin, studying Josef Martin Kraus . Stockholm 1924, p. 50 .
  7. ↑ Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock: Now let's bury the body . In: Spiritual songs. First part [1758] . Pelt, Copenhagen and Leipzig 1773, p. 216-219 .
  8. ↑ Jacob de Ruiter: The concept of character in music. Studies on the German aesthetics of instrumental music 1740–1850 (= supplement to the archive for musicology 29) . Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 978-3-515-05156-9 , pp. 97-106 .
  9. ↑ Wolfram Steinbeck: Louis Spohr and The consecration of tones . In: Michael Märker and Lothar Schmidt (eds.): Music aesthetics and analysis. Festschrift Wilhelm Seidel for his 65th birthday . Laaber 2002, ISBN 978-3-89007-507-5 , pp. 281-300 .
  10. ↑ Jan Olof Rudén: Foreword . In: Jan Olof Rudén (Ed.): Joseph Martin Kraus, Sorgemusik över Gustav III / Funeral music for Gustav III. Bisättningsmusik och Beravningskantat / Mourning Symphony and Funeral Cantata (= Monumenta Musicae Svecicae 9) . Stockholm 1979, p. XV, note 4 .
  11. ^ Sascha Wegner: Symphonies from the spirit of vocal music. For the final design in the symphonic in the 18th and early 19th centuries (= treatises on musicology) . Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-476-04615-4 , pp. 20 .
  12. ^ Sascha Wegner: Between funeral and passion music. The funeral cantata for Gustav III. by Joseph Martin Kraus . In: Axel Schröter in collaboration with Daniel Ortuño-Stühring (Ed.): Music, Politics, Aesthetics. Detlef Altenburg on his 65th birthday . Sinzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-89564-149-7 , pp. 687-708 .
  13. ^ Jörg-Peter Findeisen: The Swedish Monarchy. From the Viking Rulers to the Modern Monarchs, 2 vol. Volume 2 : 1612 to date. Kiel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86935-029-5 , pp. 177-202 .