1786 – The Music part 4 - 7 Last Words - The Passion, continuity and change

Hob. #	Genre	Instruments	Title
20:1	Instrumental Oratorio	2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons, 4 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Timpani & Strings	The Seven Last Words of our Savior on the Cross

The Crucifixion tableau at Oratorio Santa Cueva

Our last work of 1786 is a great favorite of both Haydn and myself. It is nice we agree on so much! Once again, we find Haydn composing for someone else, not only away from Eszterháza, but even away from Austria. In this year alone, we have traveled to Paris and Naples, and now we go to Cádiz, Spain. What do these diverse places, which all wanted a piece of Haydn, have in common? For one thing, Haydn had never seen any of them, nor would he ever.

As you see, I have categorized this work, the original Haydn composition, as an 'instrumental oratorio'. This does not really follow anyone else's lead, since there is a consistent pattern in the Haydn literature of not classifying it as anything at all! And it may well be I am incorrect, possibly there IS no correct category for it, and instrumental oratorio itself is something of an oxymoron, but I like it, so we'll go with it. Send dissenting emails to the address in the comments section.

Although the work itself is unique in many ways, the concept of musical settings for the Passion of Christ and the Crucifixion was already old hat by the time we are looking at now. Documentation exists for Passion readings extending back to the 4^th century. To telescope the events a bit, over time, texts are shown to contain a steadily increasing set of accents and markings which show, first, they were intoned, then chanted at a pitch, and finally sung. By the 13^th century, different persons sang different 'characters' in the text. By the 15^th century these became rather elaborate, with conventions for voice ranges (tenor, bass etc.) for certain characters. In the later 15th century a number of new styles began to emerge (thanks to Wikipedia for this):

• Responsorial Passions in which the narration is chanted but the turba (crowd) parts and sometimes Christ's words are set polyphonically.
• Through-composed Passions, also called Motet Passions, in which all text is set polyphonically. The earliest extant example of this type is sometimes attributed to Jacob Obrecht.
• Summa Passionis settings, drawing on all four Gospels, were never incorporated into the liturgy of the church, but circulated widely nonetheless. The Seven Last Words is in this category.

Caldara's original setting of Metastasio's 'The Passion...'

I'm not presenting an all-encompassing history of Passion liturgy here, so I will just point out this relevant fact: we have now reached The Reformation, and Roman Catholic and Protestant liturgies tend to go their own ways from this point forward. Since we are discussing Haydn's own Roman Catholic background, we will have to overlook such gems of the literature as J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, which were, generically, German style oratorio works, another 17^th century development. The Roman Catholics in Austria, on the other hand, expanded the development of Italian style oratorios, which by their high point around 1700 were even being composed by the Emperor himself (Joseph I, who wrote insertion arias for the Sepolcro Alme Ingrate). These Passion oratorios differed from the norm in that they were not divided into two large sections, and they were performed in front of a stage setting featuring the Holy Sepulcher. Thus their Italianate name, 'Sepolcro'.

The next stage of development, though, is the one which would have most influenced young Haydn, the chorister, and greatly formed his ideas of what a proper Passion should be. This was a Passion/oratorio which was, by now, a full two part oratorio, such as The Passion of Jesus Christ Our Lord, a libretto written by our old friend Pietro Metastasio in 1730, and which was set by no fewer than fifty-three composers, including (first) Antonio Caldara and eventually Salieri, Myslivecek, Joseph Starzer and many others. Interestingly, of the fifty-three versions, only the first and the last (1730 and 1812 respectively) were from outside Haydn's lifetime. A major factor in the genre was injecting a moral for meditation purposes. Caldara was highly influential throughout the 18^th century in Vienna's music, and it would be no exaggeration to say that he and his nominal superior, Johann Fux, were the basis on which Haydn and his peers built Classic Era sacred music.

Unlike the earlier Sepolcri, these oratorios were not acted out, but they were described as "taking place at the Most Holy Sepulcher" (al santissimo sepolcro). Presentations of these works continued right through the eighteenth century, and became, over time, quite grand affairs. Even though Maria Theresia ran a Court which was a far cry from the grandiose affairs of her father and grandfathers, there were certain things which were simply required from the Holy Roman Empire, and this aspect of the liturgy was one of them.

So this is the background against which, in 1785 or '86, Haydn began work on a commission from a Jesuit priest in the Andalusian city of Cádiz, on the southwest coast of Spain. Padre José Marcos Sáenz de Santa María (1738–1804) was spiritual director of a Catholic gentlemen's association called the Hermandad de la Santa Cueva (Brotherhood of the Sacred Cave), and administrator of their chapel, the Oratorio de la Santa Cueva. Observance of the Passion was every bit as important to Spain as it was to Italy and Austria, with highly elaborate processions and Stations of the Cross, along with traditional music as elsewhere. Given Haydn's description of the origin story to Greisinger several years later, it is clear that the commission itself gave some idea of the circumstances under which the works would be played:

Some fifteen years ago I was requested by a canon [priest] of Cádiz to compose instrumental music on the Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross. It was customary at the Cathedral of Cádiz to produce an oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large lamp hanging from the center of the roof broke the solemn darkness. At midday, the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced the first of the seven words (or sentences) and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the pulpit and fell to his knees before the altar. The interval was filled by music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then the third, and so on, the orchestra following on the conclusion of each discourse. My composition was subject to these conditions, and it was no easy task to compose seven adagios lasting ten minutes each, and to succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself to the appointed limits.

The sort of statement I rarely make: if you haven't seen this, you haven't heard the Seven Last Words!

Cádiz itself is not as unlikely a choice for this commission as it might seem without knowing some background. It's location, nearly on Gibraltar, and its Royal status as home to the House of Commerce, which governed all trade with the New World, insured that its wealthy class would have access to the latest and greatest cultural innovations, and this included music from all over Europe, as well as from Spain itself.

Santa Cueva, up until the early 1780's, was just as the name suggests: an underground chapel with a dark stone, plain interior. Padre José commissioned an architect to add a magnificent oval chapel above the ground, and subsequently commissioned Spain's most celebrated painter, Francisco Goya, to paint three religious scenes for the new building, and installed appropriate statues, such as the Crucifixion scene at the top of this page. But even before any of that, it appears that one of the first decisions, when he received his inheritance, was to ask Europe's most celebrated composer to compose the Seven Last Words. It is likely that Haydn did not quite understand how small and plain Santa Cueva was at the time, and it is quite possible this information was deliberately concealed from him. He described the commission in later years as having come from the Cádiz cathedral and spoke of Padre José as a canon or a bishop. Of course, Padre José was not just a priest, he was a Jesuit. He would approach such things delicately. He asked his friend, Francisco Micón, a musician of some stature, to write to Haydn. Micón's letter must have contained detailed instructions of what the final results needed to be.

A Passion Procession in modern Cádiz

According to Savall, the result was to be a true "oratorio without words", a description which pleases me no end.

In practical terms, the commission was clear and explicit: what was wanted was a musical meditation on each of the seven last words of Christ, plus introduction and conclusion, composed for chamber orchestra. In accordance with the description above, the priest would utter the phrase from the Bible, give a short sermon on its meaning or relevance, then fall deeply into prayer while the sonata played. After the seventh of these, the Earthquake postlude would be played, signaling the death of Christ. Let's have a look at the Seven Last Words and the structure of the music which Haydn wrote for them.

Part	Phrase (Word) & Source	Key	Tempo
Introduction		d minor	Maestoso ed Adagio
Sonata I	Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt, quid faciunt Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do Luke 23: 33-34	Bb major	Largo
Sonata II	Hodie mecum eris in paradise Today you will be with me in Paradise Luke 23: 39-43	c minor ending in C major	Grave e cantabile
Sonata III	Mulier, ecce filius tuus! Woman, behold your son! John 19: 25-27	E major	Grave
Sonata IV	Deus meus, Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Matthew 27: 45-47	f minor	Largo
Sonata V	Sitio I thirst John 19: 28	A major	Adagio
Sonata VI	Consummatum est It is finished John 19: 29-30	g minor ending in G major	Lento
Sonata VII	In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum Father, into your hands I commend my spirit Luke 23: 44-46	Eb major	Largo
Postlude	Il terremoto The Earthquake	c minor	Presto e con tutta la forza

When they are laid out this way, you can see immediately how Haydn solved the dilemma of avoiding monotony due to tempo. Ordinarily this was done by alternating movements in a fast-slow-very fast etc. sort of way. Since this wasn't feasible within the parameters of the commission, Haydn fell back on a device which he had been working on for two decades (at least) and which he is famous for even today; he alternated modes, just as he does in double variations. After the d minor Introduction, he goes by steps up the scale beginning in Bb major, peaking at Sonata V in A major, then back down again to end in c minor. In addition, if such things are important to you (and they should be), the sonatas give an unparalleled lesson in the subtle differences between tempos such as Largo, Lento, Grave and Adagio. As a matter of personal taste, I have always been irritated by the way these four tempi are tossed under the blanket called 'Slow', and essentially played the same way. Can't do that here!

 

The 1787 Artaria keyboard version, showing the Word being set in the first long phrase

 The main idea which Haydn wished to convey directly to the musicians was that they should consider themselves, at the beginning of each sonata, to be playing accompaniment to the phrase (Word) itself. With this in view, he had the phrase printed right on top of the staff in the first violin part of the orchestral and string quartet versions, and even the keyboard version, shown here, bears the verse. Years later, Abbé Maximilian Stadler told the Novellos, a London couple who were researching music in Austria and published a great book about it, that he was with Haydn shortly after he got the commission and they were discussing the intricacies of such a work. Stadler claimed he actually suggested to Haydn that he could start out each sonata by setting the words of Christ. Even Stadler didn't know if Haydn was already planning to do it this way, but in the event, this is precisely what occurred.

Next year we will be taking a look at the chamber versions which soon hit the shelves in Vienna and elsewhere, which reflects the immediate popularity of this work wherever it was heard. It premiered in Santa Cueva on April 6, 1787 at the Good Friday service, but it had already been played at least twice in Vienna by then. I would love, here, to be able to report that the story I once heard of the piece having been played every year at Santa Cueva from then to now is true, but I can't find any documentation for it, so sadly I leave it as one of those unsubstantiated myths which make one feel good.

This sums up our look at 1786, a year when we see how far and wide Haydn's fame has carried, despite which, as we will later see, Haydn the person was still an International Man of Mystery!

Thanks for reading!