Teacher's Guide Cambridge Pre-U MUSIC Available for teaching ...

Cambridge Pre-U Teacher Guide
At the beginning of the century Joseph Haydn was still actively composing. His last two
masses, written for the Esterhazy court, were the Schöpfungsmesse (Creation Mass, 1801) and
Harmoniemesse (Wind-Band Mass, 1802). The oratorio The Seasons (1801) was a secular counterpart
to the earlier The Creation (1798), but less successful on account of its greater length and a libretto
that was not entirely satisfactory. Both were based on the model of Handel’s Messiah (which Haydn
had heard in Westminster Abbey in 1791) and subsequent oratorios looked back both to Handel and to
Haydn as their natural precursors.
Beethoven’s Mass in C (1807) was composed for the Esterhazy court, broadly following the manner
of Haydn’s late masses. The later Missa Solemnis (1823), though first planned for liturgical use, grew
into a work of such length and complexity that it outgrew its original purpose. Because of this, and
because of the way in which Beethoven’s music represented a distinctly personal response to the
text, it established an approach that was widely imitated by later composers who wrote masses that
were not intended for church use. The Ninth Symphony (1824), with its choral finale, also initiated a
trend for incorporating vocal parts into symphonic works. Composers who followed this lead include
Berlioz (Roméo et Juliette, 1839), Mendelssohn (Lobgesang, 1840), Liszt (Faust Symphony, 1856;
Dante Symphony, 1857) and even Wagner, whose music dramas represented (to him, at least) an
extension of principles established first by Beethoven.
The vogue for biblical and religious oratorios produced a steady stream of works throughout the
nineteenth century, but few of them have remained in the permanent repertoire. Beethoven’s
Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives, 1803) is an uneven piece, though it contains
some fine music. Louis Spohr (1784–1859) wrote Die letzten Dinge (The Last Judgement, 1826) for
performance in Kassel, but it became a popular favourite in Britain and was regularly performed until
the First World War. Mendelssohn’s St Paul (1836) has suffered from the tremendous and lasting
popularity of Elijah (1846), which was first performed at the Birmingham Triennial Festival and is the
most frequently performed of all such works. Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ (1854), a somewhat fanciful
account of the Flight into Egypt, is on a smaller scale than many of his major works, and contains
some of his most immediately attractive music. Liszt’s The Legend of Saint Elizabeth (1862) sets a
story about the good works of the eponymous thirteenth-century Hungarian princess, against the
background of the crusades; it is long and rather Wagnerian in style. Christus (1866) sets the story
of Christ’s life in three long sections and includes settings of ancient Latin hymns as well as sections
of biblical narrative. William Sterndale Bennett, an early pioneer of the so-called English Musical
Renaissance, wrote The Woman of Samaria (1867) for Birmingham. César Franck’s Les Béatitudes
(1879) relied perhaps too heavily on Wagnerian chromaticism but was much admired by his circle
of friends and pupils. Gounod’s La Rédemption (1882) was commissioned for Birmingham and its
success was such that a second commission followed, for Mors et vita (1885). Dvoák’s Saint Ludmilla
(1886) was commissioned by the Leeds Festival; it deals with the conversion of St Ludmilla and of the
Czech nation, but did not particularly appeal to the conventional piety of its Victorian audience. Sir
Charles Stanford (1852–1924) wrote two oratorios for Birmingham, The Three Holy Children (1885)
and Eden (1891), but the most enduring British work of the whole century was Elgar’s The Dream of
Gerontius (1900).
Secular oratorios were almost as popular as religious ones but have proved even less enduring, with
a few notable exceptions. Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust (1846) is one of a number of works based
on Goethe’s poem; others include Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust (1853). Goethe was also
the source for a neglected but exciting work by Mendelssohn, Die erste Walpurgisnacht (1832, revised
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