Easter

Franz_Schubert_by_Wilhelm_August_Rieder_1875

10 March

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828) – Schwanengesang, D. 957

Thomas Pitts Austria, Easter, Europe, Music January, Schubert

Franz Schubert 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828

Schwanengesang, D. 957 Arr. Camille Thomas for Cello and Piano - Ständchen

Franz Schubert
By Wilhelm August Rieder – https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/en/object/125504-franz-schubert-komponist/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=797711

Franz Schubert was an Austrian composer born in Vienna. Though he lived only 31 years, he created an incredible amount of music, including over 600 songs, symphonies, operas, and piano pieces. Some of his most famous works are “Ave Maria”, the Unfinished Symphony, and the song cycles Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin. Schubert’s music is celebrated for its emotion and beauty, blending the styles of the Classical and Romantic periods.

Schubert’s talent for music appeared early. His father taught him violin, and his brother taught him piano, but he quickly surpassed them. At 11, he joined a prestigious school in Vienna, where he learned from great composers like Mozart and Beethoven. After leaving school, he studied composition with Antonio Salieri, another famous musician.

Despite his passion for composing, Schubert worked as a schoolteacher for a time, but he didn’t enjoy it. His life wasn’t easy—he often struggled with money, and many of his works weren’t published while he was alive. However, his friends, known as the “Schubertiads,” supported him and helped to share his music.

In 1821, Schubert’s song Erlkönig brought him much praise, and he became better known in Vienna. Even Beethoven admired his talent. Schubert’s only public concert, held in 1828, was a success, but sadly, he passed away later that year, possibly from typhoid fever.

Although his life was short, Schubert’s music has had a lasting impact. His melodies are full of feeling, and his songs, or Lieder, are some of the most loved in classical music. Today, he is remembered as one of history’s greatest composers.

10 March

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) – Op. 36: Russian Easter Festival Overture

Thomas Pitts Easter, Music Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov 18th March 1844 - 21st June 1908

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
by Valentin Serov – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8942139

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. His best-known orchestral compositions – Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade – are well-known pieces of classical music, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas.

Russian Easter Festival Overture: Overture on Liturgical Themes, also known as the Great Russian Easter Overture, was written between August 1887 and April 1888. It was dedicated to the memories of Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin, two members of the group of composers known in English as The Five.

It is the last of what many call his three most exceptionally brilliant orchestral works, preceded by Capriccio Espagnol and Scheherazade. The work received its premiere at a Russian symphony concert in St. Petersburg in late December 1888.

10 March

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – BWV 244: St Matthew Passion

Thomas Pitts Easter, Music Js Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach 31st March 1685 - 21st March 1750

Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 61) in a portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, copy or second version of his 1746 canvas. The original painting hangs in the upstairs gallery of the Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall) in Leipzig, Germany.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician.

The St Matthew Passion is a Passion, a sacred oratorio for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander.

It sets chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew (in the Luther Bible) to music, with interspersed chorales and arias. The original Latin title Passio Domini nostri J.C. secundum Evangelistam Matthæum translates to “The Passion of our Lord J[esus] C[hrist] according to the Evangelist Matthew”.

The St Matthew Passion is the second of two Passion settings by Bach that have survived in their entirety, the first being the St John Passion, first performed in 1724.

10 March

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585) – Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet

Thomas Pitts Easter, Music Tallis

Thomas Tallis c. 1505 - 23rd November 1585

Thomas Tallis
Engraving by Niccolò Haym after a portrait by Gerard van der Gucht – The Musical Times (1913) H.W. Gray, New York; Novello, London, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42858273

Thomas Tallis was an English composer mostly known for English choral music. He is considered one of England’s greatest composers. No contemporaneous portrait of Tallis survives; the one painted by Gerard Vandergucht dates from 150 years after Tallis died, and there is no reason to suppose that it is a likeness. In a rare existing copy of his blackletter signature, he spelled his name “Tallys”.

Thomas Tallis set the first lesson, and second lesson, on Maundy Thursday between 1560, and 1569.

The lessons are drawn from Lamentations (Lam. 1, vv.1-2, and Lam. 1, vv.3-5).

Tallis like many other composers included the following text:

the announcements Incipit Lamentatio Ieremiae Prophetae (“Here begins the Lamentation of Jeremiah the Prophet”), and De Lamentatione Ieremiae Prophetae (“From the Lamentation of Jeremiah the Prophet”);
the Hebrew letters ALEPH, BETH, GIMEL, DALETH, and HE, that headed each verse in the Vulgate; and,
the concluding refrain Ierusalem, Ierusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum (“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return unto the Lord thy God”).
Tallis’s inclusion of the refrain emphasises the sombre and melancholy effect of the music.

10 March

James MacMillan (1959-) – Musical settings of sayings of Jesus on the cross

Thomas Pitts Easter, Music MacMillan

Sir James Loy MacMillan 16th July 1959

James MacMillan
by Philip Gatward
from https://i0.wp.com/www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/james-macmillan-conductor-portrait.jpg

Sir James Loy MacMillan, CBE is a Scottish classical composer and conductor.

MacMillan studied composition at the University of Edinburgh and at Durham University. After his studies, MacMillan returned to Scotland, composing prolifically, and becoming Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, often working on education projects.

Musical settings of sayings of Jesus on the cross are compositions which set seven short phrases uttered by Jesus on the cross, as gathered from the four Christian Gospels narrating the Crucifixion of Jesus.

MacMillan’s cantata for choir and string orchestra was commissioned by BBC Television and premiered in seven nightly episodes during Holy Week in 1994.

Photo_of_Gustav_Mahler_by_Moritz_Nähr_01 (1)

10 March

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) – Symphony No. 2: Resurrection Symphony

Thomas Pitts Easter, Music Mahler

Gustav Mahler 7th July 1860 - 18th May 1911

Gustav Mahler
by Moritz Nähr – [1] / [2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55133360

Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. After being banned during the Second World War, his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers.

Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection Symphony, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895.

This symphony was one of Mahler’s most popular and successful works during his lifetime. It was his first major work that established his lifelong view of the beauty of afterlife and resurrection. In this large work, the composer further developed the creativity of “sound of the distance” and creating a “world of its own”, aspects already seen in his First Symphony.

Halfway through the final movement, the choir comes in with the words: ‘Rise again! Yes, rise again will you, my dust, after a short rest!’

10 March

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) – Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence

Thomas Pitts Easter, Music Poulenc

Francis Poulenc 7th January 1899 - 30th January 1963

Francis Poulenc
by Joseph Rosmand, photographer – Francis Poulenc. London: J. & W. Chester. 1922. OCLC 8401408., PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44047233

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. As the only son of a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his father into the family firm, and he was not allowed to enrol at a music college. Largely self-educated musically, he studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor.

The critic Claude Rostand famously described Poulenc as ‘le moine et le voyou’ – half monk, half rascal. Though legendary in Parisian social circles as a bit of a dilettante, the death of a close friend in 1936 prompted Poulenc to make a religious pilgrimage that led to a dramatic personal transformation.

While he retained something of the rascal throughout his career, much of the composer’s work after this time bears the hallmarks of a deep and abiding spirituality.