Music for a Holy Roman Emperor

Last Friday evening, in the midst of a fierce early March storm, I attended a rare musical event  at the church of St. Luke in the Fields in the Village.  The vocalists of TENET together with the instrumental performers of ACRONYM presented Le Memorie Dolorose, a sepolcro, or kind of oratorio for Holy Week. It would have been first presented in the imperial chapel in Vienna. In fact, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, the composer, was required to write one or two new sepolcri every year (there were Thursday and Friday pieces).  After their initial performance, they remained unpublished and unperformed until the 1970’s.

It was an outstanding performance. The work is not at all an eclectic jumble but has a clear form leading to a dramatic climax in which all musical forces participated. These were significant because, despite the modest length of this work, eleven singers are required. The performances were uniformly outstanding. Originally the sepolcro was semi-staged; this performance tried to duplicate this by the solemn procession-like entrances of the singers.

The Italian libretto by Nicolo Minato is quite sophisticated theologically and poetically. At times it seems almost reminiscent of the eastern liturgy in its dramatic juxtapositions of the divine and the human. The text serves to further integrate the succession of recitatives and arias which make up this work.

An extremely informative lecture preceded the performance.  Prof. Robert L Kendrick of the University of Chicago explained the genre and the libretto and situated Le Memorie Dolorose in its place and time – Vienna of the 1670’s, in the reign of Leopold I.

(Above) Ivory image of Emperor Leopold I in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Contemporary artists in all media seemed to delight in exaggerating Leopold’s not very attractive features.

Leopold I (reigned 1658-1705) is one of the most underrated rulers in history, the victim of the utterly dishonest writings of French, German (Prussian), Czech, Hungarian and Polish nationalist historians. Extremely well educated (he had been initially destined for an ecclesiastical career) he became ruler of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation at its nadir after the Thirty Years War. His entire reign was an exhausting struggle against external and internal foes. At the end he succeeded. It was primarily his forces, not those of Poland, which defeated the Turks in 1683 at Vienna. The forces of the Empire then recovered Hungary from the Ottomans between 1683 and 1699. France, in the ascendant under Louis XIV, proved a more formidable foe. Yet here too Leopold lived to experience the crushing defeat of the French at Blenheim in 1704.  in the north, the elector of Brandenburg, now allied with Leopold, threw back the Swedes. And beyond just conducting seemingly endless wars, Leopold introduced significant improvements in administration – both of his own lands and of the greater Empire itself. The Holy Roman Empire, seemingly moribund in 1658, had acquired a new vitality and prestige under Leopold.

But Leopold’s main claim to fame is cultural. Completely devoted to Catholicism, he consolidated the Church throughout his domains. He cultivated strong cultural links with Italy – this performance is evidence of that. In so doing he ushered in the age of the baroque in the German lands. After 1683 there was a veritable renaissance of art and music. Starting in the Habsburg lands, in Prague and Vienna, baroque architecture, sculpture and painting spread to the other principalities of the Empire: Salzburg, Dresden, Fulda, Passau and Bamberg. Leopold was personally a great enthusiast of music and a composer in his own right. In Leopold’s own Hapsburg domains alone, musicians like Schmelzer, Biber and Fux were active. As for literature, in Silesia, then one of the Austrian territories, there was a long line of baroque poets, including one genius: Angelus Silesius. Leopold’s reign was the start of a glorious revival of art and culture that lasted into the succeeding classical and romantic ages.

Regretfully, we must pass from the past to the present day. The lecturer felt it necessary to “utterly dissociate” himself from parts of the text that feature “anti-Jewish outcry.” I myself was unable discover anything in that regard  in Minato’s text beyond what is contained in the gospels; presumably our speaker would have to qualify a performance of one of Bach’s Passions in the same way. After these remarks, he noted how important it is to make such statements when “hate” is taking over Washington and “countries like Poland and Hungary.” I would note that the speaker, who shows such sensitivity to the alleged anti-Semitic nuances of a 17th century libretto himself feels free to disparage whole peoples of today. And I ask myself; doesn’t he know that the world media are accusing Poland and Hungary of the crime of seeking to restrain immigration – of the same “migrants” and “refuges” who are making life increasingly miserable for the Jewish populations of the UK and France? It reminds me very much of my experiences long ago in East Germany, where every presentation on every conceivable topic had to include a ritualistic reference to the controlling ideology.

But enough of such thoughts! It was a wonderful evening. And I hear this work is being recorded by Friday night’s performers. I would highly recommend acquiring it when it appears!