Messiah (HWV 56) - G. F. Händel

Origin
In the mid-1730s, the musical fashion in London changed, moving away from a preference for Italian opera in favour of oratorios and music for the emerging middle class. Seit 1735 entwickelte Händel die Gattung der englischen geistlichen Oratorien, wie z.B. 1738 die Oratorien Saul und Israel in Ägypten und vier Jahre später der Messias – möglicherweise beeinflusste auch eine schwere Erkrankung 1737 (vermutlich ein Schlaganfall) seine Entwicklung in Richtung sakraler Musik. 1741 wurde Händel vom Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish, nach Dublin eingeladen, um eine Serie von Konzerten zu veranstalten. Für eines der Konzerte wählte Händel die Aufführung eines Oratoriums und schrieb den Messias in konzen-trierter Arbeit binnen 3 Wochen. The idea and the libretto came from Charles Jennens, with whom Handel had been friends for some time.

Story
Jennens takes the approach here - the prophecies of the Old Testament, presented in the first part of Messiah, legitimise the appearance of the Messiah, as subsequently presented in the second part. The third part focuses on the resurrection - thus covering the entire story from the birth to the ascension. The singers do not take on individual roles, nor is there a linear narrative. Instead, Jennens took passages from the Old Testament and structured them to prove that Jesus Christ is the prophet announced in the Old Testament and that his perfection means the redemption of the world.

First Part
The appearance of the coming prophet is prepared by recourse to prophetic texts from the Old Testament by prophets such as Isaiah, Haggai, Malachi and others. For unto us a Child is born is the only part of the Messiah in which the life of Jesus Christ is reported directly.

Second Part
The suffering and death of the Messiah for the sins of the world are also traced here mainly on the basis of the words of the Old Testament, Psalms and prophecies. This is followed by his resurrection and ascension according to Psalms 16 and 24, and Isaiah foretells the good news of eternal salvation. The famous Hallelujah (from the Revelation of John) at the end of the second part forms the triumphant note of the story of death and resurrection, praising the victory of Christianity and the triumph of God. King George II spontaneously jumped to his feet at the premiere, which is why it is still a tradition in Great Britain to listen to this Hallelujah standing up.

Third Part
In contrast to the jubilant Hallelujah, a calm and balanced aria follows at the beginning of the last part as a meditation on the redemptive role of the Messiah and his effect on the individual and the community of believers. Die Texte hier basieren auf dem Buch Hiob, den Korintherbriefen und dem Römerbrief. In the third part, the conclusion Worthy is the Lamb ... is also taken from the Revelation of John, ending in the Amen as a masterfully extended fugue.

The Music
The Messiah, although clearly influenced by church cantatas or sacred concertos, is not church music in the narrower sense. The oratorio was conceived by Jennens as "grand musical entertainment" and was given the character of "entertainment" by Handel's realisation and individualistic elaboration - the performance practice in theatres led to discussions for a long time as to whether such "ill-reputed" performance venues were acceptable for a sacred work.

Impact
The premiere of the Messiah, seven months after its completion, on 13 April 1742 in Fishnamble Street Music Room in Dublin supported three charitable causes - Handel had subsequently always made sure to donate the proceeds of this work to poor and needy people. A year later, on 23 March 1743, the London premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre was less successful. This did not materialise until May 1750 and the concert in aid of the Foundling Hospital. With around 70 performances, the work became one of Handel's most frequently performed pieces during his lifetime. From the mid-1770s, the piece was also performed in German-speaking countries, for example by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Hamburg in 1777. An arrangement by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for concerts in Vienna was adopted into performance practice in Austria and Germany in the 19th century.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

George Frideric Handel was born the son of a respected doctor who had planned a career as a lawyer for him. Initially, Handel played music in secret until his father decided to allow him to study music. He became a pupil of Zachow, the principal organist in Halle. At the age of 18, he travelled to Hamburg, where he played the violin and harpsichord at the opera. In 1706 he travelled to Italy and spent four years in Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice. In all of these cities, he presented his operas and dramatic works, wrote numerous Italian cantatas and perfected his technique of incorporating the Italian language into his works. In Rome, he composed Latin church music.

In 1710, he left Italy and travelled to Hanover, where he became Kapellmeister to the Elector. After a short time, he accepted an invitation and travelled to London, where his opera Rinaldo was produced. In 1712-15 he wrote four more operas, which were received with varying degrees of success. Handel also wrote church music and music for the court. In 1717 he entered the service of the Earl of Carnarvon (later the Duke of Chandos) in Edgware, near London, and composed eleven hymns and two dramatic works: Acis and Galatea and Esther.

In 1718-19, a group of aristocrats tried to popularise Italian opera in London and founded a company under royal patronage, the Royal Academy of Music; Handel, musical director, went to Germany to recruit singers in Dresden for this company, which opened in April 1720. Handel's opera Radamisto marked the beginning of an extremely successful period for the composer.

In the 1730s, Handel, unsure of his commercial and artistic future, switched from Italian opera to the musical forms very common in England, such as the ode or oratorio. After travelling to Dublin in 1741-42, where Handel's Messiah premiered, the composer devoted himself increasingly to oratorio.

During the last ten years of his life, he regularly conducted the Messiah in aid of a hospital for foundlings. Handel died in 1759 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Requiem (op. 48) - G. Fauré

In its original form, composed in 1887/88, the Requiem consisted of only five movements: "Introit" with "Kyrie", "Sanctus", "Pie Jesu", "Agnus Dei" and "In Paradisum"; the instrumentation initially envisaged a pure string orchestra (violin only solo) together with harp, timpani and organ. The work was premiered in this form on 16 January 1888 in the Madeleine in Paris. In the spring of the same year, Fauré added two horns and two trumpets to the orchestra; this version was first performed on 4 May 1888. In 1889-92, the composer arranged the Requiem for chamber orchestra, adding the "Offertorium" (composed around 1889-91) and the "Libera me" (newly arranged around 1890/91), which had already been composed in 1877. This "1893 version" was first performed on 23 January 1893, but did not appear in print until 1994. Fauré himself made a further revision of the Requiem in 1894-99, adding woodwinds and violins and thus creating a version for large orchestra, which was first performed on 12 July 1900 and then appeared in print. This version is the generally performed and well-known final form of the work. Although the composition of the Requiem is closely linked to the deaths of Fauré's parents (1885 and 1887), the composer retrospectively emphasised that the composition was written "without an occasion", "for my own pleasure, if I may say so".

In his requiem mass, Fauré left out the violins to a great extent - in the first version they are only provided as soloists - and thus darkened the timbre of the work considerably, concentrating on the elegiac timbre of the respective divided violas and cellos. Characteristic, however, in contrast to most other Requiem settings, is the complete renunciation of theatrical effects and the strong withdrawal of dynamics; instead, Fauré (like Gounod before him) concentrates on a graceful melodiousness of both the choir and the solos. The structure of the Requiem features some striking innovations: for example, Fauré deleted the "Dies-irae" sequence except for the last verse ("Pie Jesu"), but on the other hand added the "In Paradisum", which was originally heard during the transfer of the corpse from the church to the cemetery. Among the few passages that do not radiate seraphic calm is the striking Introit with its multiple contrasts of powerful orchestral unison and restrained choral response, surprisingly revisited towards the end of the Agnus Dei. The Sanctus, with its harp arpeggios throughout, ethereal violin overtones and gentle, lullaby-like vocal cantilenas, is certainly one of the Requiem's most evocative passages; towards the end of the movement, the 'Hosanna' cries are carried by majestic chords and emphatic horn calls. The concluding "In Paradisum", which is reminiscent of Gounod's "Ave Maria" from afar, is similarly enraptured with its prelude-like triadic breaks in the organ, which are taken up by the harp towards the end and lead to a peaceful, if somewhat cloying, conclusion.

Despite its long genesis, the work is stylistically very uniform. "Even stronger than the charm of the Requiem is the lingering impression of the naïve-mystical, of a vision of death not in the sense of a sombre funeral but of a happy relief, not of a painful transition but of a longing for the afterlife" (Marie-Claire Beltrando-Patier). In part, this renunciation of dramatic and abysmal aspects is rooted in Fauré's compositional style, but it also reflects his personal view of death. The composer wrote to Eugène Ysaye that the piece was "of a gentle character, like myself". The Requiem is Fauré's best-known and most frequently performed work in and outside France; it had a far-reaching effect on the development of French church music and clearly influenced Maurice Duruflé, for example. Its relative ease of performance makes it accessible even to amateur choirs.

Cantique de Jean Racine (op. 12) - G. Fauré

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

The son of a school headmaster, he grew up not far from Carcassonne at the foot of the Pyrenees. At the age of eight, he was already playing the piano excellently and the following year was accepted at Louis Niedermeyer's Paris school of church music. After Niedermeyer's death, the young Fauré was taken on by Camille Saint-Saëns, 10 years his senior, from 1861. This friendship was to last all their lives. Fauré took part in the Franco-German War of 1870/71 as a courier for an infantry regiment. After his return home in 1871, he was one of the founding members of the Société Nationale de Musique.

Fauré worked as an organist in Rennes and Paris, but was still only able to keep his head above water by working with choirs and teaching piano. When he appeared in the Parisian salons in the evenings, he attracted much admiration as a brilliant improviser on the piano and by his pleasant appearance. In 1892, he was appointed inspector of music education, and in 1896 he was entrusted with the great organ at the Madeleine. In the same year he took up a professorship in composition at the Conservatoire de Paris and from 1901 he taught at the École Niedermeyer. He was director of the Conservatoire from 1905 to 1920, during which time he thoroughly modernised the curriculum. From 1903, Fauré wrote regularly about music in the renowned daily newspaper Le Figaro. In 1920 he received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.

After an unhappy engagement around 1877, Fauré married Marie Fremiet, the daughter of a sculptor, in 1883. This marriage, which produced two sons, was unfortunately unhappy. Around 1900, Fauré fell in love with the 24-year-old pianist Marguerite Hasselmans. This relationship was not concealed, but neither was it legalised by marriage; it lasted until Fauré's death.

If, compared to his contemporary Claude Debussy or his descendant Maurice Ravel, he is not very present in international musical life, it is probably due to stylistic and historical reasons, as well as the fact that he left behind hardly any works with large orchestras. Even his high-profile Requiem was originally written for a meagre instrumentation. The main exception is his music for the play Prométhée, written after Aeschylus. The premiere took place in 1900 in the bullring of Béziers, so to speak in Fauré's south-western French homeland. Several hundred singers and instrumentalists were involved, including 30 trumpeters alone. Fauré managed this "effortlessly", writes R. Crichton. The music showed none of his usual restraint.

According to most connoisseurs, Fauré found the peak of his creativity in vocal music, especially in his piano songs. It is interesting that some of his songs, such as Après un rêve, are known outside France mainly in instrumental arrangements (e.g. for cello and piano). Fauré also wrote chamber music (two piano quartets, piano quintets, violin sonatas, cello sonatas) and piano music.

Gabriel Fauré died of pneumonia in Paris in 1924 at the age of 79. During the funeral in the Madeleine, the composer's Requiem was also performed. He was buried at the Cimetière de Passy.

Mass in D-minor (WAB 26) - A. Bruckner

Bruckner's first mass composition was actually to be performed for the emperor's birthday on 18 August 1864 - but it was finished too late. It was then premiered on 20 November in the Old Cathedral in Linz and, due to its great success, a performance followed on 18 December in a secular venue: In the Linz Redoutensaal. As there was no organ in this concert hall, Bruckner had to transfer an organ solo to two clarinets and two bassoons.

Bruckner is not a romantic - he merely makes full use of the musical means (harmonisation and instrumentation) and thus fulfils the "romantic requirement". For unlike the other composers of his time, he composed from the deepest faith. Eduard Liszt once said of Bruckner that he was a "minstrel of the Godhead", for his works were professions of faith which even led to his dedicating his last symphony "to the dear God" as an old man - with the additional remark "if He will accept it".

After the successful premiere, he received great praise from all sides. The Wiener Zeitung spoke highly of his Mass and his contemporaries henceforth respected him as a composer of exceptional standing. Even the bishop later explained to Bruckner that he had not been able to preach during the mass because the work had interested and gripped him so much. The most valuable gift for Bruckner, however, was probably that of the government official Mayfeld, an extremely highly educated man and a great lover of music: he honoured Bruckner with a laurel wreath, the ribbon of which bore the inscription: "From the Godhead once proceeded, art must lead to the Godhead again" - this wreath subsequently hung over Bruckner's bed until his death.

In the summer of 1876, after a successful recovery from a nervous illness, Bruckner made rhythmic improvements to his three masses (D minor, E minor, F minor). This resulted in the final version, to which only minor corrections were made later. The work appeared in print for the first time in 1892. This version remains valid to this day.

Locus Iste (WAB 23) - A. Bruckner

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

Anton Bruckner did not have it easy. Throughout his life, the Austrian composer was plagued by self-doubt. Anton Bruckner came from a simple, rural background. After the death of his father, he was accepted as a choirboy at the monastery of Sankt Florian in 1837. After several years as a school assistant and self-taught organ and piano studies, he first worked as organist in Sankt Florian, then from 1855 as cathedral organist in Linz. Introduced to music theory and instrumentation by Simon Sechter and Otto Kitzler, he discovered Richard Wagner as an artistic role model, whom he admired throughout his life and visited several times in Bayreuth.

In 1868 Anton Bruckner became professor of basso continuo, counterpoint and organ at the Vienna Conservatory, ten years later court organist, and finally in 1891 honorary doctor of the University of Vienna. He was considered an important organ virtuoso of an era, but had to wait a long time for recognition as a composer. It was not until the "Symphony No.7, E major", composed between 1881 and 1883, with the famous "Adagio" written under the impression of Wagner's death, that the hoped-for recognition came, even if he did not want to accept it in view of his tendency to scepticism and self-criticism.

Anton Bruckner was a loner who did not want to follow any school or doctrine. He composed numerous sacred vocal works such as his three masses, the "Missa Solemnis in B flat minor" (1854), the "Te Deum" (1881-84) and numerous motets. As a symphonist, he wrote a total of nine symphonies and many symphonic studies from 1863 onwards, tending to revise finished versions several times. Bruckner's orchestral works were long considered unplayable, but were merely unusually bold for the tonal language of their time, uniting traditions from Beethoven to Wagner to folk music, sound monuments on the border of late Romanticism and modernism.