Release Date: 12 January 2000
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099107723
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: Roman Christmas
Description
ChristianPastoral Poetry - The Pastorale That JohannSebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio constitutes for Central Europeanstoday the embodiment of the sacred festival, to which only Handel's Messiah comesnear in solemn splendour, should not deceive us into thinking that Bach'sinterpretation of the Christmas story in its formal unity and theologicalstatement is completely exceptional. However, it is less representative of thelong tradition of Christmas musical narratives from the Middle Ages to the presentday. These were robust, entertaining works, intended to be performed as lessonson this fundamental chapter of Christian history. Relics ofthe great liturgical Christmas plays of the Middle Ages are found in thepopular shepherd and nativity plays found today in Catholic southern Europeanregions. Characteristically it was these very pastoral plays to which Baroquecomposers were particularly devoted. Their preferred form, the Pastorale,inspired by folk-music, was so immediately clear to audiences of the time thatBach and Handel were able to incorporate them in their oratorios asinstrumental pieces, without fear of misunderstanding. The rocking 12/8 rhythmand drone bass were stylistic features of music that was played in Rome everyyear on Christmas Eve by shepherds from the Campagna on the zampogna (abagpipe typical of the region) and the shawm, which are still played today. ArcangeloCorelli provided a musical model of this in the last movement of his Concertogrosso in G minor, as an accompaniment to the performance of shepherdscenes during the Christmas Mass. He has become as well-known for this movementalone as he is for all his trio-sonatas and concerti grossi. AncientPastoral Poetry - The Accademia dell'Arcadia Corelli'spastoral music in Rome had a significance of its own,closely associated as it was with the numerous Roman academies of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most famous of them, the Accademia dell'Arcadia,had in 1690 a number of prominent patrons, poets, and musicians, among themAlessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Pasquini, Bononcini and Corelli himself,meeting for the purposes of aesthetic decadence in the sane intellectual worldof a Utopian Arcadia. In the spirit of the bucolic world of Virgil's Ecloguesa challenge was mounted to the overcharged poetry of the Roman High baroqueand its monumental music theatre. The participation of influential cardinals inthe Accademia dell'Arcadia shows that ancient heathen and Christian themes, astouched on in the shepherd episodes of the Christmas narrative, were understoodalways as common symbols of a better world. From thepastoral ideology of the Arcadians came a particularly rich quantity ofpastoral and Christmas music. Scarlatti's cantata Oh di Betlemme and theConcerto grosso fatto per la notte di natale of Corelli are outstandingmasterpieces of the genre. Included inthis pastoral music are instrumental concertos in which the solo instrumentshave a clear r
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
