Caryl Clark

The voice of nations : European national anthems and their authors

Acknowledgments The Setting Ancien Regime Anthems The Netherlands: Wilhelmus van Nassouwe--Philip Marnix van St. Aldegonde? The United Kingdom: God Save the King (Queen)--Author unknown Denmark: Kong Christian--Johannes Ewald and Der er et yndigt land--Adam G. Oehlenschlager Resistance Anthems France: La Marseillaise--Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle Poland: Dabrowski Mazurka--Jozef Wybicki Portugal: A Portuguesa--Henrique Lopes de Mendonca Ireland: Amhran na/bh Fiann--Peadar Kearney Liberation Anthems Hungary: Himnusz--Ferenc Kolcsey Greece: Hymnos eis ten Eleutherian--Dionysios Solomos Belgium: La Brabanconne--A. Dechet (Jenneval), C. Rogier, R. Herreman Norway: Sang for Norway--Bjornstjerne Bjornson Unification Anthems Germany: Das Lied der Deutschen--August H. Hoffmann von Fallersleben Italy: Inno di Mameli--Goffredo Mameli Anthems of Contentment Sweden: Du gamla, du fria--Richard Dybeck and The Hymn--Carl A.V. Strandberg Luxembourg: Ons Hemeecht--Michel Lentz Bibliographical Note

Adapting a Canonical Canadian Novel for the Operatic Stage: A Dystopia for Our Times

A plain, cream-coloured leaflet listed the program for the day-long Opera Exchange symposium at the University of Toronto – ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: No Balm for this Gilead.’ From 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday 2 October 2004, a mixed audience of academics, students, and members of the general public assembled to hear a series of lectures and presentations on Margaret’s Atwood’s chilling futuristic novel turned opera. While the house lights are up and people are taking their seats and reading their programmes a proscenium-arch-filling Video Conference screen displays ... four moving ‘screen-savers’ [the first of which reads] ‘International Historical Association Convention, 20–25 June, 2195, Twelfth Symposium on the Republic of Gilead (Formerly the United States of America).’ (Ruders, xiv)

Haydn's career and the idea of the multiple audience

For whom did Haydn write? This simple question, easily enough answered by such obvious recipients as his patrons or the public or particular performers, masks a series of more complex questions about Haydns career as well as about his muse. How did he balance his own desires with those of his patrons and public? How did he respond to the abilities of the performers, whether soloists, orchestral musicians, or students, for whom he composed? How did he seek to communicate with different audiences, and were his communicative strategies and modes of persuasion always successful? While these questions might be asked of any composer, especially those in the later eighteenth century who had to adapt to an evolving menu of career opportunities, they have special pertinence for Haydn, whose career and works reveal, as well as revel in, the idea of the multiple audience that emerged in this period. This essay will explore the ways in which the shape of Haydns career, his sometimes inexplicably defensive tone in letters and memoirs, and his musical self-assessments stem from this new source of inspiration. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Haydn, unlike C. P. E. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, left no record of disparaging remarks about the public.

Haydn's Conversion Masses

Among the “multiple audiences” for Haydns Masses were nonbelievers and catechumens: that is, congregants in the process of converting to Catholicism. The clue to this interpretation is Haydns omission of a crucial article of faith in the Credo settings of four masses. In three settings, the textual omission relates to the conversionary experiences of the patron saint in whose name the mass is offered: St. John of God, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Martin of Tours. A detailed examination of the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Missa St. Joannis de Deo (ca. 1775), a missa brevis honoring the patron saint of the Barmherzige Brüder (Brothers Hospitalers), suggests that Haydn was sensitive to the needs of both the clergy and the congregants to whom they ministered. Haydns use of brevior practices disguises the textual omission by declaiming different lines of text simultaneously. The resulting polytextuality produces the aural equivalent of Mauscheln, a term associated with the muddle or mixture of language, dialects and accent associated with Yiddish or Jew-speak. In accommodating the needs of transitioning believers, Haydn demonstrates his understanding of the important role played by conversionary ministry in the history of the church.

Haydn's exoticisms: “difference” and the Enlightenment

In Persia, a sofa married an easy chair; the Indians of the Molucca Islands Fashion wigs from wire; in China, a Muscovite man gave birth, while a satrap in the Indies was impaled for making love – so reads aloud Sempronio, the pharmacist in Haydns Lo speziale (1768), from his newspaper. The librettist, Carlo Goldoni, at once indulges and ridicules his periods fascination with the fabulous, unnatural, and irrational incidents in far-flung climes reported in journalism and travel writings. Goldoni parodies Sempronios gullibility, and implies that the pharmacists preoccupation with world news renders him oblivious to events closer to home. As Sempronio reorganizes the war-torn world with the help of a compass and globe, his unqualified assistant mixes and muddles the potions that his master will dispense. Sempronios fanciful internationalism blinds him to Mengones designs on his ward, Grilletta. Indeed, Sempronios fascination with the exotic makes him an easy target when Mengone sues for Grillettas hand in the exalted costume of a Turkish ambassador. Mengone is not the only suitor to don Turkish disguise in the hope of winning over Grillettas reluctant guardian. Masquerading as an ambassador to the “King of Moluccas,” Volpino (a frequent visitor to the pharmacy) offers Sempronio a job in Turkey as the Kings pharmacist. Volpinos related aria “Salamelica, Semprugna cara” (Act III) begins with Italian-derived gibberish, standing in for Turkish, while the last two lines refer ungrammatically to singing and dancing, as if in celebration of the impending wedding.

The sublime and the pastoral in The Creation and The Seasons

Haydns oratorios When Haydn returned to Vienna from London in 1795, he had become a cultural hero. Many of his remaining works originated in collaboration with the cultural-political establishment and were staged as “events” of social and ideological as well as musical import. As a result, his compositional orientation changed fundamentally: he composed little instrumental music except string quartets, devoting himself instead primarily to masses and oratorios. He had composed one earlier oratorio, Il ritorno di Tobia (1774–75); the libretto (by a brother of Boccherini) narrates the story of the blind Tobit from the Apocrypha, whose sight is restored by his son Tobias. Haydn fashioned a magnificent example of late Baroque Austrian-Italian vocal music, comprising chiefly long bravura arias; most of the recitatives are expressive accompagnati . In 1784 he modernized the work, shortening some of the arias, adding two magnificent new choruses, and revising the instrumentation; in this form it has been revived with success. Haydns remaining oratorios date from the late Vienna period. He collaborated on all three with Baron Gottfried van Swieten, the imperial librarian and censor and the resolutely high-minded leader of the Gesellschaft der Associirten, an “association” of nobles that subsidized oratorios and other large-scale works. The Seven Last Words of Christ our Saviour on the Cross (winter 1795–96) is not a true oratorio, but a reworking of Joseph Frieberts choral adaptation of Haydns programmatic orchestral work of 1786.