Gloria - Messsätze und Vespern (Kaljuste)
Contents
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Composer
Antonio Vivaldi
| 1678-1741Antonio (Lucio) Vivaldi was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque period.
It is assumed that his father, who was a musician himself, was responsible for Vivaldi's musical education. However, he began his professional career as a priest, which earned him the nickname Il prete rosso (the red-haired priest).
From 1703, Vivaldi worked intermittently as a violin teacher and composer at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls in Venice, until shortly before his death. Initially, he also worked there as a priest, but relinquished this role after three years. He wrote numerous chamber music works and concertos for his pupils at the Pietà. The famous Four Seasons are particularly well-known and often performed today. Vivaldi also composed sacred and secular vocal music and was an opera composer and director.
Of over 800 works known today, only 135 were published during Vivaldi's lifetime. After his death, Vivaldi's compositions were initially largely forgotten. Many of his works were rediscovered and published, particularly in the 20th century. Among them is the Gloria in D RV 589, the very first sheet music edition published by Carus-Verlag.
Personal details
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Preface writer
Karl Heller
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Ensemble
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
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Ensemble
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
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Conductor
Tonu Kaljuste
For twenty years Tõnu Kaljuste (conductor) was artistic director and principal conductor of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, which he founded in 1981, and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. Kaljuste has also been chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir and the Netherlands Chamber Choir. He has directed international choral seminars and workshops for several years and has worked as a guest conductor with leading orchestras and choirs throughout Europe, Australia and America. As well as immersing himself in the music of the great northern and eastern European moderns, such as Schnittke, Kurtag, Penderecki, Rautavaara and Kancheli, he has a deep affinity with the composers of his native Estonia, including Pärt, Tüür, Tormis and Eller. He has established an international reputation with his wide-ranging repertoire from opera, via the traditional symphonic repertoire to contemporary music. His numerous recordings have won many awards and have been nominated for Grammy awards. In 1999 he received the Cannes Classical Award in the category “Best 20th Century Choral Music” for his recording of Alfred Schnittke’s Psalms of Repentance. In 2004 he was awarded first prize by the Estonian State Foundation “Kultuurkapital.” The same year he became artistic director of the Nargen Festival, an annual, three-month long musical event on the coast of Estonia. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. Personal details
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Soloist - soprano
Kaia Urb
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Soloist - soprano
Vilve Hepner
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Soloist - alto
Anna Zander
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Soloist - tenor
Mati Turi
Reviews
Antonio Vivaldi: Gloria
Antonio Vivaldi: Gloria. Settings for the Mass and Vespers
Perhaps you’ve heard Vivaldi’s unrelentingly popular Gloria just about ten too many times and wonder why no one focuses on the composer’s dozens of other vocal and choral works. Well, here is a recording that not only may restore your enthusiasm for the Gloria (which really is a fine if insanely over-done piece) but also acknowledges a few other sacred items in the Vivaldi catalog that justly deserve attention. The first movement of the Kyrie RV 587 for double choir and two orchestras sounds more like Mozart of the Requiem than a creation from nearly 70 years earlier, and its opening, wildly meandering, richly scored chord progression seems as if it never will settle on a home key (which eventually turns out to be G minor). The Credo RV 591 won’t leave anyone napping when confronted with its furiously rushing opening and closing expositions--and this often-interminable section of the mass passes pleasantly and painlessly with same remarkably varied and sensitively scored Et incarnatus est and Crucifixus passages. While Vivaldi’s only setting of the Magnificat may not have the enduring impact and ingeniously resourceful economy of Bach’s better-known D major version, it’s full of terrific and memorable music--including a Dirty unison Deposuit potentes and irresistibly catchy Sicut locutus est-- that bears far more respect than today’s choruses acknowledge.
The big work, the Gloria, makes a grand impression here, largely because--and please forgive the cliché--this outstanding choir and orchestra perform it with the kind of enthusiasm and energy and commitment that you expect from the first performance of a brand new piece. As one who swore off this work years ago, I was surprised to discover an immediate, reaffirming appreciation in this fresh, vital, well- paced rendition (generally more brisk than Harnoncourt’s dramatic and lively reading--my other favorite Gloria). The singing throughout couldn’t be more accomplished, the detail of every line more clearlv defined, or the purity of the voices more uniform and delightful to the ear. Conductor Tonu Kaljuste seems to have been guided by an aim toward clarity and simplicity--no big dramatic effects, no overwhelming instrumental, choral, or solo vocal forces to obscure the music’s inherent, unpretentious beauty or to complicate its rather straightforward forms. The sound is ideal, perfectly complementing music, voices, and instruments.
David Vernier
Quelle: Classsics Today
Antonio Vivaldi: Gloria
Nach einer ersten Carus-CD mit doppelchörigen Psalmen findet das Vivaldi-Projekt aus Tallinn seine schlüssige Fortsetzung mit dem Kyrie „in due cori” RV 587, dem einzigen aus der Feder des „prete rosso”, das uns erhalten blieb. Tonu Kaljuste setzt es an den Beginn einer imaginären Messe, die noch das Gloria RV 589 und das Credo RV 591 umschließt. Die andere, Vivaldis zweite Gloria-Vertonung RV 588, klammert er aus (oder spart er auf), aber damit wäre der schmale Werkbestand ohnehin bereits erschöpft. Die wenigen zweifelsfrei überlieferten Beiträge des venezianischen Komponisten zum Ordinarium missae sind gering an Zahl, musikalisch freilich „ein weites Feld”.
Die estnischen Musiker nähern sich diesen Kompositionen wahrhaft andächtig, sie wählen die Weise der Betrachtung, der Kontemplation, die selbst der spannungsreichsten Harmonik eine tiefe innere Ruhe verleiht, eine leuchtende Schönheit, eine weise Gelassenheit. Hinsichtlich technischer Meisterschaft, Virtuosität und Präzision lassen sie keine Wünsche noch des verwöhntesten Hörers offen. Chor und Orchester müssen den Vergleich mit der westlichen Prominenz nicht scheuen, im Gegenteil: ihr Wissen um die Musik scheint tiefer gegründet, durchgeistigter, geheimnisvoller, ein eigenes Zeitmaß lenkt Gedanken und Atemzüge. Nennen wir es Spiritualität, Versenkung oder wie auch immer – eine Erfahrung jedenfalls, die sich bei John Eliot Gardiners brillanter Einspielung des Gloria (Philips, 2001) keineswegs aufdrängt. Gleichwohl ließen sich gegen Kaljustes Vivaldi-Andacht auch Einwände vorbringen: Sollte diese Musik nicht zuweilen und andeutungsweise von Klage, Skepsis, den Erschütterungen des Glaubens sprechen? Im Magnificat RV 610, das die CD ergänzt und beschließt, wird sogar das „Et misericordia”, das Herzstück des Canticum, zum Zeugnis weltentrückter Abgeklärtheit. Welche Anspannung und Zerrissenheit dieser Satz birgt, enthüllt dagegen eine Aufnahme des Tafelmusik Chamber Choir (Hyperion, 1987), der mit ausgefeilter Deklamation eine beklemmende Atmosphäre zwischen Hoffen und Bangen erzeugt. Tonu Kaljuste aber erkundet eine andere als die psychologische oder dramatische Wahrheit, er umkreist die verlorene Mitte, meidet alles Phantastische und Exzentrische (in auffallendem Gegensatz zur vorherrschenden Vivaldi-Interpretation der vergangenen Jahre).
Vielleicht würde der estnische Dirigent mit dem Lyriker Walter Neumann übereinstimmen, der in einem Gedicht über Vivaldi bekannte: „Schöne Musik. / Du bewahrst ein Erinnern / an das ungeschiedene Sein, / heiter und leuchtend.”
Wolfgang Stähr
Quelle: Klassik heute, 09.02.04