Te Deum (Bizet)
The Te Deum by the French composer Georges Bizet (WD 122) is a five-part setting of the Ambrosian hymn of praise for soloists, choir and orchestra. Bizet composed it in 1858 during a stay in Rome on a scholarship at the age of just under 20. Besides the Ave Maria (WD 134), the Te Deum is the composer's only sacred work.
Origin and reception
In France there was a long tradition of large-scale Te Deum settings, such as that by François-Joseph Gossec , the three Te Deum versions by Jean-François Lesueur , Berlioz's teacher, and finally the mighty version by Hector Berlioz himself, the premiere of which Bizet probably attended (see also Te Deum (Berlioz) ). Bizet may also be familiar with Joseph Haydn's Te Deum from 1800 . The influence of the Italian church music of the time, which used elements of opera music , is clearly noticeable .
With this work Bizet wanted to win the presumably coveted Prix Rodrigues , a competition for scholarship holders of the Prix de Rome , for the best sacred composition. However, that Prix Rodrigues was not as popular as generally assumed. Bizet even doubted whether this tender actually existed, and only one other competitor had applied, the composer Adrien Barthe , who won the Rome grant in 1854 (Bizet himself won it in 1857). However, Bizet did not achieve the expected success, probably because he allowed himself too much freedom in the use and treatment of the text and did not pay enough attention to the prescribed liturgical form. The fact that Barthe was preferred to him was mainly annoying because he had already planned the considerable prize money for a trip to Naples.
After the failure, the work fell into oblivion and was kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris . As a result, Bizet composed very few sacred songs and completely dispensed with large-scale sacred compositions. Some bars from the first part have been used in the "Hymne to Brahma" from his opera Les pêcheurs de perles , and a reuse of some passages was planned in the draft for the Oratorio Geneviève de Paris ; otherwise the Te Deum was never performed or published. It was not premiered until March 1970 ; In 1971 , the German composer Johannes Wojciechowski (1912–2005) published the first publication as a piano reduction and choir excerpt on the basis of Bizet's autograph score by Verlag N. Simrock . In December 2004 the French publisher Éditions À Cœur Joie published another edition as a conductor's score (complete orchestral score), vocal score and choral score.
Work shape
Johannes Wojciechowski, the editor of the first publication of Bizet 'Te Deum, formally describes the work as a “free large motet”, which follows the “pompous Italian church music style” in its structure.
For his Te Deum, Bizet requires two soloists (soprano and tenor), a mixed choir and a large orchestra with harp and tuba .
For his composition, Bizet divided the liturgical text of the Ambrosian hymn of praise into five parts, with the fourth and fifth attacca (seamlessly) merging into one another. He treats the text template very freely. He does not use some verses of the liturgical text, such as the Et rege eos and Dignare Domine , in others, such as the Sanctus , he changes the text. These interventions in the original text clearly serve the goal of increasing the dramatic expression of the work.
In the opening choir Te Deum laudamus , Maestoso (Italian: majestic) is headed. Bizet sets the first part of the text here to music, repeating the first verse in the recapitulation , which characterizes the sentence as an ABA form . A brief, only two-bar orchestral introduction is followed by a homophonic choral movement in radiant A major on the foundation of a dotted marcatos (marcato, Italian: march-like) in the bass (including tuba), followed by strings and winds in chords that follow up. In the middle section, the verses Te gloriosus Apostolorum and Patrem immensae majestatis are assigned to the solotenor. The martial orchestral accompaniment of the beginning is transformed into a floating sound surface made of broken string chords, over which the tenor rises. The climax of the movement is formed by the Sanctus calls by the solo soprano, which are only accompanied by the harp , which are picked up by the choir in unison and the brass in fortissimo and lead the movement into the recapitulation .
For the second movement on the text section Tu Rex gloriae, Christe , Bizet uses a fanfare-like theme that is determined by triads and is accompanied by repeating chords in Trochaic meter. The sentence is headed "Moderato" and has a three-part form.
At the beginning the theme is presented by the solo trombone as a prelude accompanied by the strings. Then the solo soprano recites the text Tu Rex gloriae, Christe on this theme , while the pulsating accompaniment changes to the bassoons and horns. In the middle section, the tenor comes with a variant of the fanfare theme to the verse Tu devicto mortis aculeo , in which he is in turn accompanied by the strings. A chromatic modulation to the words Judex crederis, esse venturus , in which the two soloists are also joined by the choir, leads to the third part of the movement, the recapitulation, in which the soprano solo of the first part is repeated, but now with ecstatic chorus interjections on the text Gloriae, Christe .
The third movement in the text section Te ergo quaesumus is a calm, melodious andante. It is reserved for the solo soprano, who sings the text in a simple, two-trophic song form accompanied by swaying string chords. Bizet inserts a chorale-like woodwind interlude between the two stanzas, which is ensnared by very soft pizzicato scales of the strings in unison. In the second stanza the choir joins the soloist and accompanies the solo singing. The end of the movement is particularly striking, in which the choir basses declaim the words Miserere nostri, Domine in pianissimo in the smorzando (Italian: fading) string melody .
In complete contrast to the intimate expression of the Andante is the fourth movement of the Te Deum, which Bizet creates as a large, four-part choral fugue over the text Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos . The five-bar theme leads to a 20-bar first development, which is followed by an equally long interlude. In the second development the sequence of the main voices is interrupted by the repetition of this interlude and the tension is increased. It ends on a ten-bar pedal point in the bass, the choir soprano with the main subject on the up to the dominant of the two level A kaden ornamental emporchraubt. Then another development begins with the choir basses, in which Bizet brings up the main theme . After a sequencing intermezzo, this narrowing leads to a fourth development in which Bizet puts a new text under the fugue theme, namely the final verse In te Domine speravi, non confundar in aeternum .
Although the text of the liturgical original has now been completely processed, Bizet adds a fifth part to his Te Deum , in which the first part Te Deum laudamus is repeated true to note, except for the final phrase . With a skilful compositional touch, he achieves an obvious formal effect: He adds this recapitulation in large form with a brilliant transition to the large fugue of the fourth movement. On the words of the Sanctus he composes an increasing dialogue between choir and orchestra, which for the listener conclusively leads to the maestoso of the first movement.
literature
- Dean Winton: Sacred Bizet. In: Musical Times (1973), Vol. 114, No. 1561.
- Holoman Kern: Te Deum. In: Musical Times (1975), 2nd Ser., Vol. 31, No. 4th
- Paul-Gerhard Nohl: Latin church music texts. Translation - History - Commentary. 4th edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2002, ISBN 978-3-7618-1249-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Foreword to the first edition Berlin 1971