Rossini’s Stabat Mater

Carlos Kalmar, conductor
Amber Wagner, soprano
Eve Gigliotti, mezzo soprano
Brendan Tuohy, tenor
Ben Wager, bass
Portland Symphonic Choir

FRANZ SCHUBERT
Symphony No. 6, "The Little C major," D. 589

Vital Stats

Composer: Born Jan. 31, 1797, Vienna; died Nov. 19, 1828, Vienna

Work composed: October 1817-February 1818

World premiere: The first performance, a private affair, took place in the apartment of violinist Otto Hatwig in 1818 in Vienna. The first public performance was conducted by Johann Baptist Schmiedel at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at a memorial concert for Schubert in Vienna on Dec. 14, 1828, one month after the composer’s death.

Oregon Symphony premiere: At these concerts

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings

Estimated duration: 28 minutes

It was Schubert’s greatest wish to be a successful opera composer, and it is no exaggeration to say that he was obsessed with the theater. Operas, more than any other genre, were the standard used to measure achievement in early 19th-century Vienna. Unfortunately for Schubert, none of his 15 operas were even moderately successful, either during his lifetime or after his death.

Despite his failure to write in the standard operatic genre, one can make the argument that Schubert was able to successfully distill operatic style into other forms of music. Of his 600+ songs, many can be heard as micro-operas (Der Tod und Das Mädchen and Erlkönig, for example), replete with character, plot and drama. But Schubert also transformed elements of opera into purely instrumental music, like his Symphony No. 6 in C major (this symphony is often referred to as “The Little C major,” to distinguish it from Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, “The Great C major.”)

It is appropriate that this concert pairs Schubert’s Sixth Symphony with music of Rossini, because Rossini’s operas had a profound impact on Schubert. The inspiration Schubert found in Rossini’s operas, particularly their lively rhythms and the lighthearted cheerful quality of their melodies are easily discerned in this symphony. In addition, Schubert adopted Rossini’s penchant for featuring solo woodwinds.

Along with Rossini, Schubert’s Sixth Symphony owes a debt to Beethoven, particularly in Schubert’s appropriation of the name scherzo, rather than minuet and trio, for the third movement. While not as groundbreaking as some of his later symphonies, Schubert’s Sixth has been dismissed by some critics. Schubert’s biographer, Maurice Brown, wrote that the Sixth “shows a great advance, in technical matters, over the previous five [symphonies]. The use of orchestra is masterly, the movements are expertly organized to the point of glibness, all is crisp and competent. But there is no heart in the work; it is all externals.” On the other hand, musicologist William McNaught defended the Sixth, saying, “This is a good symphony that happens to be extremely pretty, often in a prettified way; and if such thing is a rarity it is not because any rule forbids it but because nobody else has had the gift to bring it off.”

GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Stabat Mater

Vital Stats

Composer: Born Feb. 29, 1792 in Pesaro, Italy; died Nov. 13, 1868 in Passy, France

Work composed: The first version, dedicated to “H.E. Don Francisco Fernandez Varela, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, Archdeacon of Madrid, General Commissar of the Crusade,” was completed in 1832, although Rossini only composed six of the 10 movements (the other four were written by his friend and colleague, Giovanni Tadolini). The final version, which Rossini finished in 1841, after a protracted legal battle with the Paris publisher of the original version, is entirely his own work.

World premiere: There was a private partial performance given at the home of a French composer, Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, in October 1841, and a subsequent public performance of six movements at the salon of Henri Herz on Oct. 31, 1841. The complete version was conducted by Gaetano Donizetti on Jan. 7, 1842 at the Théâtre Italien in Paris.

Oregon Symphony premiere: Apr. 8, 1925. Carl Denton led the orchestra and the Portland Symphony Chorus, with soloists Leah Leaska, soprano; Rose Friedle-Gianelli, contralto; J. MacMillan Muir, tenor; and Otto Wedemeyer, bass.

Most recent Oregon Symphony performance: At the April 1925 concert

Instrumentation: Solo soprano, mezzo soprano, tenor and bass, SATB chorus, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani and strings

Estimated duration: 62 minutes

When Gioachino Rossini heard the Stabat Mater of Renaissance composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, he is said to have declared that he would never write one of his own, so moved was he by the setting of his predecessor. True or not, Rossini did set the Stabat Mater, in 1831, at the request of Don Francisco Fernandez Varela, archdeacon of the Madrid Cathedral, whom he met while visiting that city. Rossini agreed on condition that the work never be published.

When Varela died in 1837, a Paris publisher, Antonin Aulagnier, bought the manuscript from his estate and sought permission from Rossini to publish it. Rossini refused, not wanting to admit that only six of the original 12 movements were his own (Rossini had asked his friend and colleague Giovanni Tadolini to complete the rest, and Varela was none the wiser). After a lengthy legal fight, partially occasioned by the fact that Rossini had promised his own publisher a complete Stabat Mater of his own, Rossini triumphed over Aulagnier. He completed the remaining movements, shortened the whole from 12 to 10 sections and finished it in 1841.

The text of the Stabat Mater dates from the 13th century. It describes the suffering of Mary, mother of Jesus, as her son is crucified; it is part of the Catholic liturgy of Our Lady of Sorrows, observed on Sept. 15. Musically, Rossini’s Stabat Mater combines two entirely different styles of composition: traditional church music in the Renaissance manner of Palestrina and Pergolesi, and arias that would not sound out of place in a typical Rossini opera. The austere choral movements, such as the men’s unaccompanied Eia, Mater, fons amoris contrast sharply with the purely operatic style of the solos and duets, like the Fac ut portem for tenor and soprano and the Cujus animam gementem for solo tenor.

With his setting of the Stabat Mater, Rossini intended to honor the Catholic tradition within which he was raised, even though he no longer practiced it as an adult. The Stabat Mater also served as a perfect vehicle for Rossini to express his grief over the deaths of his parents, as well as two close friends, and the loss of his theater, the Théâtre Italien, which had burned down in 1838.
The French poet and critic Theophile Gautier described Rossini’s Stabat Mater, which he heard at its Paris premiere in 1842, as “noble, simple and severe.” The poet Heinrich Heine praised Rossini’s “eternal grace” and “irresistible tenderness” and said the Théâtre Italien “seemed like a vestibule of Heaven.”

Heine, who was born Jewish but converted to Christianity as a young man, also countered the negative criticism of his countrymen, in particular Richard Wagner, who (rather ironically, in light of his own musical inclinations) complained that the Stabat Mater was “too theatrical,” i.e., too secular in its conception to be taken seriously as religious music.

The charge of theatricality is apt, and not surprising for an opera composer, and Heine made eloquent arguments in favor of Rossini’s “theatrical” music: “The [theatrical] approach is said to be too worldly, too sensuous, too playful for the religious subject, too light, too pleasant, too entertaining; these are the groaning complaints of a few heavy, boring critics. Although these gentlemen do not pretend to exaggerated spirituality, they surely are plagued by very limited and erroneous conceptions of sacred music. … The sign of a truly Christian element in art is … a certain inner profusion to which one cannot be converted and which cannot be learned in either music or painting.”

Rossini's Stabat Mater text and translation

© 2010 Elizabeth Schwartz

Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz

Elizabeth Schwartz is a Portland-based free-lance writer, researcher and musician. In addition annotating programs for the Oregon Symphony and other ensembles, she has also contributed to NPR’s Performance Today (now heard on American Public Media). Schwartz also co-hosts The Portland Yiddish Hour, heard at 10 a.m. Sundays on KBOO 90.7 FM. Email: schwartzelizabeth@yahoo.com.

Recommended Recordings by Michael Parsons

Schubert: Symphony No. 6
Sir Thomas Beecham-Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
EMI Classics 66999 
OR
Karl Bohm-Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
4-Deutsche Grammophon 471307

Rossini: Stabat Mater
Katia Ricciarelli-Soprano
Lucia Valentini-Terrani: Mezzo-soprano
Dalmacio Gonzalez-Tenor
Ruggero Raimondi-Bass
Carlo Maria Giulini-Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus 
Deutsche Grammophon 817902  
OR
Pilar Lorengar-Soprano
Yvonne Minton: Mezzo-soprano
Luciano Pavarotti-Tenor
Hans Sotin-Bass
Istvan Kertesz-London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
London 455023 

These selected recordings are available at Classical Millennium, located at 3144 E. Burnside in Portland.