Michel Corrette Carillon des morts (1764)
Johann Friedrich Fasch Fantasie, FaWV O:F1: I. Lamento (s.a.)
Antonio Vivaldi Concerto funebre, RV 579 (1716)
Giovanni Paisiello Sinfonia funebre (1797)
Joseph Martin Kraus Sinfonia funebre, VB 148 (s.a.)
[all programme notes]
[discover also: Curated by... Reinhard Goebel]
[listen also: Bach Fan-Girling & Tartini]
[listen also: Barok in 60 seconds]
08.11.2024 FLAGEY BRUSSEL
The musicologist Philipp Tagg examined, in his paper “'Universal' music and the case of death”, the qualities that give music a mournful tone. ‘Funeral means a ceremony at which a dead person is buried or cremated, and funereal… means “suggestive of a funeral; gloomy or mournful”, and also implies [...] that both funerals and funeral music are likely to be funereal (i.e. gloomy or mournful – ed.). What might such funereal connotations be?’
He concluded that the music is in a minor key, pieces that are played piano and in a slow tempo. Funeral music is often on a small scale, the composer uses notes in the low register and in descending melodic lines. But, and this is very important, those parameters are culturally specific. Only a 21st century, Western European listener will label those elements as ‘funereal’. For the same research, professor Tagg asked participants to listen to funeral music from Central Africa Cambodia and northern Turkey as well. Loud music, with fast tempi, strong rhythms and elaborate melodies. In a blind test, not one of the participants in his survey labelled these works as funeral music.
‘It should be clear from the above arguments that death is anything but universal’, Tagg concludes. ‘Behaviour and attitudes towards death vary radically from one society to another, but […] also vary inside our own cultural sphere.’ This is also a good explanation why the Reinhard Goebel’s programme does not sound particularly downcast. As is the case with geographical and cultural differences today, there is also an enormous historical gap between the present and the Baroque era. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the end of life was seen quite differently. Today, funeral music seeks primarily to be an expression of the sadness of those left behind. Only very exceptionally do people set out in their will that a funeral should not be a sorrowful affair, making room for more uplifting material.
Medieval people saw things a bit differently. Death was omnipresent and inevitable. Moreover, Catholicism and later Lutheranism had a stronger hold on society, as a result of which, a funeral was seen simply as a transfer station towards the hereafter. Although in the rituals there was certainly room for grief, but the general tenor was much less mournful. The arts happily played on this view of life. In so-called ‘vanity’ paintings, artists added a skull to recall the end of life. In the anatomical theatres, not only were corpses dissected but also debated and put to philosophical debates.
In other words, death was more widely accepted and embraced. And music did not lag behind in this regard. Funeral music was big business. Historians estimate that more than half the published music in 17th-century Germany for this purpose. In some regions, even tried to ban its publication. In Nürnberg, for example, restrictions were placed on the maximum number of funeral scores in a collection ‘because the printing and distribution of funeral lieder is all too much abused and almost no distinction is maintained thereby, thus shall there be henceforth no more than two lieder printed in a folio in the first class […] under penalty of six gulden.’ We also know that every one of the Thomaskantors between 1600 and 1750 – and so Johann Sebastian Bach as well, who held the prestigious post as musical director of the St Thomas Church in Leipzig from 1723 – wrote funeral music on commission.
This kind of music is generally much more optimistic in tone. It does not serve as a sad farewell, but as one last greeting – or even a conversation – with the deceased; To achieve that aim, composers used a technique known as prosopopoea. This is a form of personification in which the composer gives musical expression to certain qualities of the deceased. Thus, someone who was a great bon vivant will be given exuberant music upon his death. The structure of the music is thus often dialogical, in which a melodic line is sung responsorially. The harmony often evolves from a minor to a major key, from sorrow to joy. Descending melodic lines are regularly used – as they are today – but alternate with upwards movements to evoke a cheerful mood.
There is, of course, a difference between this (largely) vocal music used in a church context and the instrumental music that is on the programme. And yet there are certainly some parallels between the two genres. The Carillons des morts by Michel Corrette, the Fantasy in F Major by Johann Friederich Fasch and Antonio Vivaldi’s the Concerto funebre are all in a major key. Corrette’s work sounds cheerily contrapuntal, while Vivaldi and Fasch exhibit their orchestral mastery in the colourful scores.
In the mid-eighteenth century, the popularity of this music caused clashes. The average life expectancy was creeping up, and under the influence of the Enlightenment, the perception of death shifted. A meaningful life on earth was much more important than a godly existence with a post mortem reward. This about-face also found expression in music, and as we will see reflected in the remaining two works, in each case a Sinfonia funebre in C Minor by both Giovanni Paisiello and Joseph Martin Krauss. In these works, we hear examples of the elements Tagg highlighted in his paper. The minor key of both works is the most obvious one, but the music is further marked by a limited ambit and melodic lines that use limited intervals. Rhythmic accents in the timpani make the music reminiscent of a funeral march.
At the same time, it is clear that the days of the Baroque era were not far in the past. Paisiello gives his sinfonia an airy quality with characteristic woodwinds. Even Krauss, by far the most melancholy, injects some grandeur into the chorale, and does not allow dejection to outweigh his contrapuntal play in the last movement. As if he were reluctant to give in entirely to funereal despondency.