范哈爾: 莊嚴彌撒 / 聖母悼歌 / 交響曲 瓦茲拉夫．紐曼 指揮 布拉格室內合唱團 Vaclav Neumann / Vanhal: Missa Solemnis, Stabat Mater and Symphony in D

瓦茲拉夫．紐曼 指揮
布拉格室內合唱團

Prager Kammerchor
Vaclav Neumann

With a few aberrations, Johann Baptist
Vanhal's biography largely fits in with
Joseph Haydn's life span. Like so many
Bohemian composers, the eastern
Bohemian Vanhal had moved to Vienna
early in his career and can thus be
viewed as a member of the select core of
composers consisting of Haydn, Salieri,
Mozart and Beethoven, to whom we owe
Viennese classicism. But Vanhal should
not be dismissed as a minor master.
In his early years especially, he was an
almost pioneering composer, a pioneer
in a large number of genres, but above
all in the field of the symphony. Sadly,
in mid-life Vanhal displayed symptoms
of delusion: he heard voices telling him
to avoid ‘profane trumpery' and write
purely ecclesiastical music. It was only
after a five-year ‘recreation holiday'
(during which he composed roughly
60 masses, 60 motets, two requiems,
various litanies, a Te Deum and a Stabat
Mater) on the Hungarian and Croatian
estates of the magnate family Erdody
that Vanhal completely recovered.
The Missa Solemnis is an outcome of
this remarkably productive life crisis. The
mass is noteworthy not just for its quality
and opulence, but surprises the listener
above all with three prolonged concert
solo arias. By comparison, Vanhal's Stabat Mater seems formally more
conservative in its usual alternation
between choir parts and solo numbers. It
is above all the rich melodic imagination
that is captivating.

In conclusion, we can hear an example
of the symphonist Vanhal. As such, he
was equated to Joseph Haydn during
his lifetime. Indeed, as a form model the
symphony owes Vanhal many stimuli,
which were long overlooked due to focus
being placed on Haydn's symphonies.
The Symphony in D major here is
surprising, for instance, with an unusual
formal structure, in which the minuet
does not form the final movement, but
in terms of design seems to point ahead
in the direction of the later type of the
Beethoven Scherzo.

Rainer Aschemeier