Caldara: Missa dolorosa

"This is repertoire that definitely deserves to be heard and, at Naxos' budget price, is well worth acquiring by lovers of Italian Baroque sacred music and choral-music fans. Each of the choral works is preceded here by an instrumental Sinfonia excerpted from a Caldara oratorio from the same Vienna period. They give the Budapest ensemble Aura Musicale a chance to shine, showing how polished and elegant its playing is. This is some of the most gorgeous string playing the early music movement has produced."
- CDNow.com (Steve Holtje

In May 1716 Antonio Caldara left Rome and his post as Maestro di cappella to the Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli to become Vizekapellmeister at the imperial court of Charles VI in Vienna. It was the climax of a career that had seen Caldara move from his native Venice initially to the Gonzaga court at Mantua and then on to Ruspoli's palazzo in Rome.

Caldara's first appointment, as Maestro to Ferdinando Carlo, Duke of Mantua, in the summer of 1699 had followed a decade of freelance activity as a composer and cellist - itself a period that emerged from his years of training, some, allegedly, with Giovanni Legrenzi. Unfortunately, his employment at Mantua was blighted by the wars of the Spanish Succession which saw the court more often absent than resident in its home state, and it ended unceremoniously during the Duke's final exile in Venice in 1707.

There followed an eventful eighteen months. Rome, Barcelona and Venice all welcomed Caldara and his music before he took up his position with Ruspoli in mid-1709. This offered a secure haven, politically, financially and artistically; Caldara was absent only once. In 1711 a quest for an imperial appointment ended in disappointment in Vienna and he returned to his tolerant patron midway through 1712. Paradoxically, four years later, correspondence secured the long-sought position when the death of the Kapellmeister Marc'Antonio Ziani in January 1715 brought a reshuffling of personnel at the Viennese court.

Caldara honed his musical skills with each position. Opera and oratorio were his main concerns in Venice, although his efforts in smaller forms gave rise to two sets of trio sonatas, published in 1693 (Op. 1) and 1699 (Op. 3), and a volume of cantatas (Op. 2), also printed in 1699. Operas dominated Caldara's Mantuan years, reflecting the pleasure--loving Duke's great passion. A few surviving pieces of church music in ceremonial vein hint at widening horizons. Ruspoli's demands, however, centred on, the conversazioni held in his palace each Sunday morning throughout much of the year. These gatherings of the Roman literati and secular and clerical dignitaries showcased the talents of his musical ensemble and his maestro. The cantata was the favoured medium and within seven years Caldara had produced some 200 works.

Yet these experiences, individually or together, could scarcely have prepared Caldara for Vienna. An array of instrumental and vocal resources, lavish and talented as befitted the pre-eminent musical establishment of late-baroque Europe, awaited him, as did the challenge of an extremely onerous and complex annual round of duties.

The court operated a remarkably full calendar and observed a strict protocol. The liturgical seasons and feasts as well as the saints' days were commemorated with music befitting their status. There were lengthy and brilliant Missae solemnes for the high feasts, more slender Missae mediocre for the lesser feast days and chaste da cappella settings for Advent and Lent. New music usually marked the secular Galatäge, the birth - and namedays of members of the imperial house. An annual carnival opera was required; four new oratorios graced each Lenten season. Caldara's record tells its own story - 23 oratorios, 32 operas, numerous feste da camera and serenatas, more than 100 Masses, scores of psalms, antiphons and offertoriae, all written within twenty years.

The compositions on this recording belong to the Viennese court's observance of Lent and Holy Week, although they do not all come from the same year. The oratorio Gioseffo che interpreta i sogni ('Joseph interprets the Dreams') was performed in the Hofkapelle in 1726; Sant'Elena al Calvario ('St Helen at Calvary') in 1731. An opera or oratorio overture (Introduzione) might well be recycled as a stand alone 'Sinfonia' or 'Sonata'; modification of the original was another matter, however. Both our 'Sinfonias' have sprouted additions - and their authorship is in question. In Gioseffo the new Minuet conclusion avoids the original slow-tempo close which had led into the first vocal number of the oratorio; the concluding slow-fast pair of movements attached to Sant'Elena converts the two-movement original into a balanced, and more practical, four-movement cycle.

The Stabat Mater had its place as the Sequence at Compline on the four Saturdays in Lent. On these occasions court protocol required extended settings of the medieval text - an opportunity Caldara appears to have welcomed. Just under half of the twenty verses are set individually; verses 2-4 are combined, as are verses 5-10 and 16-17, into larger units. In the resulting twelve-movement structure the choral movements (I, IV, VI, VIII and XI/XII) act as pillars linked by arching episodes for the soloists. These episodes are gorgeously coloured whether by differing combinations of the voices, by varied accompanying instruments or by diverse textures. The choral movements are more severe. Instruments strictly double the vocal lines; textures, both homophonic and imitative, are suffused with chromaticisms; note especially the tormented Fac me tecum (VI), arguably the emotional climax of the work. Only in the concluding movement (XII) does Caldara allow himself space for contrapuntal writing. The double fugue is really a coda - the confident rising figure at Paradisi gloria quells the despairing morietur which closed the previous movement; its technical mastery and great length is a vision of the safe and everlasting haven of the soul.

In 1727 Pope Benedict XIII instituted the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary (Festum Septem Dolorum Beatae Mariae Virginis) to be celebrated on the Friday between Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday. On 5th February 1735 Caldara completed a Missa a 4 Voci concertata con V.V. [violini] adding 'Dolorosa' alongside the title. To all intents this was a Mass written especially for the new feast day, and with Easter falling late in 1735 there was good time for the vocal and instrumental parts to be copied and rehearsals begun.

This extended setting has all the hallmarks of Caldara's late sty1e. The concluding fugues of the Gloria and Credo as well as the Kyrie II (returning as the Dona nobis pacem) display his rich and seemingly effortless counterpoint. His expressive melodic style permeates the vocal writing and instrumental obbligatos in the duets (Christe eleison; Gloria: Domine Fili - note the solo bassoon - and Quoniam; and Benedictus) and the one solo movement (Gloria: 'Domine Deus'). His sense of structure, more obvious in 'the ritornello-based closed forms of the solo and duet numbers, is just as secure in those ongoing sections where phrase after phrase of text is held together by recurrent motives in the accompaniment or by a moto perpetuo instrumental line (Credo: Et resurrexit). From the opening Kyrie his intermingling of solo ensemble with chorus has emotional impact. But most masterly of all, perhaps, are his inspired harmonic touches that illumine the Qui tollis (Gloria) and the Et incarnatus and 'Crucifixus' (Credo).
- Brian W. Pritchard