Tune in Mon - Thurs at 1PM when host Chris Wolf features a different early Christmas work.

We begin on Monday with Giovanni Gabrieli's Venetian Christmas.

Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian organist and composer. His major appointment was as principal organist and composer at St Mark’s Basilica, Venice. Like composers before and after him, he used the unusual layout of the St Mark’s, with its two choir lofts facing each other, to create striking spatial effects. Most of his pieces are written so that a choir or instrumental group will first be heard from the left, followed by a response from the musicians to the right. Gabrieli perfected this technique in works such as In Ecclesiis, a showcase of polychoral techniques, making use of four separate groups of instrumentalists and singers.

 

                           

Tune in Monday at 1PM (CST) to hear the Gabrieli Consort & Players led by Paul McCreesh.

 

Tuesday we're treated to The Christmas Story (Weihnachtshistorie), SWV 435---a musical setting of the Nativity in German by Heinrich Schütz. Most likely performed in 1660 in Dresden for the first time, it was published as Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi (Historia of the birth of Jesus Christ).

Christmas Story is a Historia, a setting of the Gospel intended to be performed during a service instead of the Gospel reading. The original title read: Historia der freuden- und gnadenreichen Geburt Gottes und Marien Sohnes Jesu Christi (Historia of the joyful und blessed birth of Jesus Christ, son of God and Mary). Schütz had composed a Resurrection Story (Auferstehungshistorie) already in 1623, when he had taken the position of Kapellmeister at the court of the Elector of Saxony. The music was probably first performed in a Christmas service at the court chapel of Johann Georg II, Elector of Saxony, in Dresden in 1660. Schütz mentions the elector in the long title: "wie dieselbe auf Anordnung Johann Georgs des Anderen vocaliter und instrumentaliter in die Musik versetzet ist durch Heinrich Schütz" (as set to the music for voices and instruments on an order by the other Johann Georg).

 

The composer, c. 1650–60, by Christoph Spetner

 

Tune in at 1PM on Tuesday to hear the fuill work performed by the Gabrieli Consort & Players led by Paul McCreesh.

 

Wednesday we move to the Baroque era a work by French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier ---his in nativitatem Domini canticum (H. 416).

Exceptionally prolific and versatile, Charpentier produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres. His mastery in writing sacred vocal music, above all, was recognized and hailed by his contemporaries.

A recently discovered portrait, inscribed by

the artist as representing Charpentier,

but dating circa 1750.

 

This piece is variously categorized as an oratorio or dramatic motet and may be Charpentier's finest effort in this genre. Its anonymous libretto brings together an opening "Advent" portion based on Psalm 12:1 with a dramatic retelling of the story of the angels to the shepherds as related in Luke 2. Of special interest is its several instrumental "tone poems" depicting night on the hillside outside Bethlehem, the awakening of the shepherds by the angels, and the "march" of the shepherds to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus, all exhibiting the inimitable colorfulness and melodic richness so characteristic of French music of the period.

 

 

Tune in Wednesday at 1PM to hear the full work performed by the Aradia Ensemble led by Kevin Mallon and featuring the voice, among others, of Tracy Smith Bessette.

 

Thursday we end the week with a big one! Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat in E Flat, BWV 243A.

Magnificat is a musical setting of the Latin text of the Magnificat, the canticle from the Gospel of Luke. It was composed in 1723 and is in twelve movements. Bach revised the work ten years later, transposing it from E-flat major to D major, and creating the version mostly performed today, BWV 243.  Four our purposes, we are going to hear the original E Flat version.

The work is scored for five vocal parts (two sopranos, alto, tenor and bass) and a Baroque orchestra of trumpets, timpani, oboes, strings and basso continuo including bassoon.The work was first performed in Leipzig in 1723. In May that year Bach assumed his position as Thomaskantor and embarked on an ambitious series of compositions. The Magnificat was sung at vesper services on feast days, and, according to recent research, Bach's setting was written for a performance on July 2, celebrating the Marian feast of the Visitation. For Christmas the same year, he performed it at the Nikolaikirche with the insertion of four seasonal movements.

As a regular part of vespers, the canticle Magnificat was often set to music for liturgical use. Bach, as some of his contemporaries, devotes individual expression to every verse of the canticle, one even split in two for a dramatic effect. In a carefully designed structure, four choral movements are evenly distributed (1, 4, 7, 11). They frame sets of two or three movements sung by one to three voices, with individual instrumental colour. The work is concluded by a choral doxology (12), which ends in a recapitulation of the beginning on the text "as it was in the beginning". In Bach's Leipzig period, Magnificat is the first major work on a Latin text and for five vocal par.

 

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.

 

Tune in Christmas Eve at 1PM for a full performance of Bach's Magnificat

 

FRIDAY . . . .well Friday is Christmas Day and Classic 107 invites you to enjoy a full day of hand selected, uninterrupted, Christmas selections to enjoy . This is Golden West Radio's gift to you!

 

Merry Christmas!