Chapter IX

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III

In Italy the renaissance of choral composition might be said to begin in 1898, with Don Lorenzo Perosi’s appointment as director of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In his sacred trilogy, _La Passione di Cristo_, comprising (a) _La Cena del Signore_, (b) _L’Orazione del Monte_, (c) _La Morte del Redentore_ (performed for the first time at Milan, 1899, at the Italian Congress of Sacred Music), and in his oratorios, _La Transfigurazione del Nostro Signor Gesù Cristo_ (1898), _La Risurrezione di Lazaro_ (1898), _Il Natale del Redentore_ (1899), _Mosè_, and _Il Giudizio Universale_ (1903), all written in a style ‘made up of all styles and ranging from the Gregorian chant to the most modern modulations,’[91] he shows deep melodic instinct, richness of melodic invention, and a strong dramatic veritism which has done much to make them popular in Italy. ‘Each of the oratorios,’ to quote again the great French critic, ‘is really a descriptive mass, which from beginning to end traces out one dominating thought.’ Critics in general are still divided as to the ultimate value of his music; but its sincerity and strength of purpose are unquestioned.

Of greater importance than Perosi’s disciples Giovanni Tebaldini (_Le Nozze de Cecilia_), and Alfredo Ambrogio (_L’Entrata di Cristo in Gerusalemme_), is Enrico Bossi. The latter’s oratorios, _Canticum canticorum_ (1900) and _Il Paradiso perduto_ (1903), are distinctly concert oratorios in the grand style, more strongly individual and less mystically religious than Perosi’s. His treatment of Solomon’s glowing ‘Song of Songs’ is musically sensuous rather than symbolic, and at times suggestive, in its passion, of Massenet. It is a work rich in imaginative development and, again in contrast to Perosi, the weight is laid on its choral rather than its solo portions. The secular trend is even more marked in _Il Paradiso perduto_, and some of its movements are to be reckoned among the finest in modern choral literature. In both these works, as in his secular cantata _Giovanna d’Arca_, and his symphonic poem _Il Cieco_, with tenor solo and chorus, Bossi has infused the spirit of modernism into the Italian oratorio, and developed it beyond the purely ecclesiastical concept represented by Perosi.

In this direction the influence of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, better known, perhaps, as a composer of opera than of oratorio, has also been noteworthy. His cantata, _Talitha kumi_ (‘Maiden, arise’), on the favorite subject of the daughter of Jairus, written in 1900, was followed by the oratorio _Sulamith_, which, if not dramatically as strong as Bossi’s _Canticum_, betrays melodic charm and warm orchestral coloring.

His greatest choral work, however, is undoubtedly his _La Vita Nuova_, opus 9, in which, using Dante’s text, he has woven together incidents of the love-life of Dante and Beatrice in a succession of idyllic and lyric mood-pictures. The suggestive power of the work is remarkable; dramatic effect, rhythmic variety, harmonic subtlety are combined in well-nigh perfect expressional unity. The composer has followed his own inspiration throughout, and that with the happiest artistic results. There need be no hesitation in affirming that this choral work marks the apex of attainment in modern Italian choral composition, and it may be considered the most valuable individual product of the Italian choral revival.

IV

Turning from Italy to Scandinavia, we find that in general little creative work is done in the choral forms at the present day. In Finland, as in Denmark, the cantata after the Handelian or Mendelssohnian model is still in vogue. Even Sibelius has done little in the way of choral writing--only a ‘Festival Cantata’ and some choruses; nor has anything of importance been written in Norway in this genre since the death of Grieg; while oratorio, though largely given in concert in Sweden, has not stimulated original composition.

In Russia more has been done. The Neo-Russians turn more naturally to symphonic and operatic composition than to the choral forms, and although quite a few of the great contemporaries are identified with choral compositions, collectively there has not been a great deal written, with the exception of music for the liturgic services of the Greek Catholic Church, to which Tschaikowsky, Bortniansky, and others have made notable contributions. This liturgic music does not call for consideration here, as it is discussed elsewhere. The folk-music of Russia, which plays such a prominent part as thematic material in the works of the Neo-Russian school, is chorally more identified with the operatic vocal ensemble, which is also outside the scope of the present chapter.

The original choral compositions of contemporary Russia stand high, qualitatively. Moussorgsky is represented by his virile ‘Destruction of Sennacherib’ (1866) for chorus and orchestra, and a choral number from his opera, _Salâmmbo_, revised, polished and enlarged as a chorus for mixed voices and solo under the title of ‘Joshua,’ one of the few of the composer’s works which show a strong Oriental flavor. Nor has Rimsky-Korsakoff, the friend and editor of Moussorgsky, written much more. There is a cantata for tenor, bass, male chorus and orchestra, ‘The Doom of Olga’ (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1909); another, _Switezianka_, for soprano, tenor, chorus and orchestra, a cantata entitled _Doubmouchka_ and a ‘Gloria’ for orchestra and chorus; as well as fifteen folk-songs arranged for mixed voices.

Glazounoff, the symphonist, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakoff, is the author, jointly with Liadow, of a cantata in memory of the celebrated Russian sculptor Antokolsky, for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra, written after his defection from the ranks of the national school; and Liadow himself has set forty-five folk-songs for female voices and composed a musical setting, for mixed voices and orchestra, of the last scene from Schiller’s ‘Bride of Messina.’

Arensky has given us a fine choral number--‘The Fountain of Bachtchissarai,’ after a Pushkin poem, for solo voices, chorus and orchestra; while Rachmaninoff’s spirited and plastically written choral ballad, ‘Springtide,’ after a poem by Nekrassoff, composed in 1901 for dramatic baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra, has already been heard in this country. A new choral work by Rachmaninoff, set to E. A. Poe’s poem ‘The Bells,’ was given at Petrograd in the recent past with great success. Glière has to his credit a choral suite for female voices, with the four seasons as its textual basis; Ippolitoff-Ivanoff has written three cantatas, Oriental in coloring, each in memory of a Russian poet; Akimenko has composed choruses for mixed voices; Georges Catoire for female voices; and Alexander Tanejew has set two groups of twelve poems each, for four and five-part chorus respectively, while his better-known nephew, Sergius Ivanovitch, who died this year in Petrograd (1915), is the composer of a cantata, ‘St. John of Damascus’ (1884). Stravinsky, too, has a cantata to his credit, composed in 1911, and this practically completes the tale of contemporary Russian choral composition.

In concluding this study of contemporary choral music there only remain to be mentioned, in Poland, Felix Nowowiejski, author of several ‘concert-dramas,’ ‘The Prodigal Son’ (1901), ‘The Discovery of the Holy Cross’ (1906) and _Quo Vadis_ (1907)--rich in theatrical effect; and in Hungary, Mauritius Vavrineoz, with an oratorio, _Christus_. In Spain and Portugal choral music, in the modern sense of the word, is hardly written. Felipe Pedrell’s dramatic cantata _Comte Arnau_, a score distinctly modern in style and treatment, and Grignón’s _La Nit de Nadal_, for chorus, solos and orchestra, are about the only ones that come to mind.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] Schering: _Geschichte des Oratoriums_, p. 546.

[91] Romain Rolland: _Musiciens d’Aujourd’hui_, Paris.

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