Canticum Sacrum

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Canticum Sacrum
Sacred choral music
Stravinsky in 1962
Textbiblical
LanguageLatin
Performed13 September 1956 (1956-09-13): St Mark's Basilica, Venice
Duration17 min
Movementsfive
Scoring
  • tenor and baritone soloists
  • mixed choir
  • orchestra

Canticum Sacrum ad Honorem Sancti Marci Nominis is a 17-minute

Blessed Mark, Apostle." The piece is compact and stylistically varied, ranging from established neoclassical modes to experimental new techniques. The second movement, "Surge, Aquilo", represents Stravinsky's first movement based entirely on a tone row
.

Though most often abbreviated "Canticum Sacrum", the piece's full name is Canticum Sacrum ad honorem Sancti Marci Nominis, or Canticle to Honor the Name of Saint Mark.

Text

Stravinsky selected all of his texts except the opening dedication from the Latin Vulgate. They are presented here in an English translation:

  • Dedicato: "To the City of Venice, in praise of its Patron Saint, the Blessed Mark, Apostle"
  • Part I, Euntes in mundum: "Go into the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15)
  • Part II, Surge, aquilo: "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. (Song of Songs 4:16, 5:1)
  • Part III, Ad Tres Virtutes Hortationes
    • Caritas: "And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (
      1 John
      4:7)
    • Spes: "They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion" / "I waited patiently for the Lord" (Psalms 125:1, 130:5–6)
    • Fides: "I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted." (Psalms 116:10)
  • Part IV, Brevis Motus Cantilenae: "Jesus said to him, If you can, all things are possible to him that believes. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!'" (Mark 9:23–24)
  • Part V, Illi autem profecti: "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen." (Mark 16:20)

Orchestration

Canticum Sacrum is scored for

are all absent.

Canticum Sacrum is Stravinsky's only piece to make use of the organ. Its use represents one of many tributes to the traditions of

Saint Mark's Basilica
.

Structure

Canticum Sacrum is in five

Christ. Similar comparisons, structural and textual can be made for each of the movements. For example, not only are movements 1 and 5 both quotations from Saint Mark's Gospel, thus attaching the work firmly to its patron saint and the church, but they also echo the themes of domes one and five which portray the prophets, and the disciples
, respectively.

History

Stravinsky had long had a special relationship with the city of Venice and the prestigious

Stravinsky lacked direct experience with the acoustics of Saint Mark's.[5]

Reception

Stravinsky himself conducted the first performance which occurred in Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice on September 13, 1956. He was 74.

Time magazine titled its review "Murder in the Cathedral",[6] though this barb may have been directed at the performance rather than the composition itself.[7]

To Stravinsky, the epoch that saw the dawn of European polyphony was much nearer to the essential truth—unadorned, harsh even—than the sophisticated response of a declining society's disillusioned minds. "He was stimulated by the early polyphonists' straightforward approach, hardly hampered by harmonic implications, as they were; for the emotionally conditioned harmonic style, which was evident, to a varying degree, in his earlier music, had no longer any attraction for him".[8]

See also

References

  • Weissmann, John S. (January 1957). "Current Chronicle: Italy". The Musical Quarterly. 43 (1): 104–110. .
  • White, Eric Walter (1966). Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press.
  • White, Eric Walter (1979). Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (2nd ed.). .

Footnotes

  1. .
  2. ^ White 1979, pp. 482–3.
  3. ^ White 1966, pp. 282, 442; White 1979, p. 482.
  4. ^ White 1979, pp. 322, 482.
  5. ^ White 1979, p. 482.
  6. ^ "Murder in the Cathedral". Time. 24 September 1956. p. 44.
  7. ^ White 1966, p. 449.
  8. ^ Weissmann 1957, p. 109.

Further reading

  • Cook, Joseph Thomas. 1976. "A Conductor's Study of Igor Stravinsky's Canticum sacrum, Introitus: T.S. Eliot in memoriam, and Requiem canticles". PhD diss., Indiana University.
  • Craft, Robert. 1956. "A Concert for Saint Mark", The Score 18 (December): 35–45.
  • Davis, John Lawton. 1994. "An Analysis of Serial Technique in Webern's Cantata Number Two and Stravinsky's Canticum sacrum with Implications for Performance". DMA diss., University of Georgia.
  • Gerhard, Roberto. 1957. "Twelve-note Technique in Stravinsky". The Score 20 (June): 38–43.
  • Pablo, Kohan. 1988. "La tonalidad en la obra dodecafónica de Stravinsky: La verticalidad en el Canticum Sacrum y consideraciones sobre la musicología acrítica [Tonality in the Twelve-tone Works of Stravinsky: Verticality in Canticum sacrum and Thoughts on Objective Musicology]". In Primera conferencia annual de la Asociación Argentina de Musicología, 91–104. Buenos Aires: Asociación Argentina de Musicología.
  • Stein, Erwin. 1956. "Igor Strawinsky: Canticum Sacrum ad honorem Sancti Marci Nominis". Tempo 40 (Summer): 3–5.
  • Waelti-Walters, Jennifer. 1979. "The Architectural and Musical Influences on the Structure of Michel Butor's Description de San Marco". Revue de Littérature Comparée (January–March): 65–75.
  • Walsh, Stephen. 1988. The Music of Stravinsky. London and New York: Routledge. See esp. 235–238.