J. J. Ryba: Stabat Mater

“They make a marvellously incisive sound, so thrilling,” wrote a critic for BBC Music Magazine in a review of a performance given by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra. Another representative of the remarkable Finnish school of music, the group has been active on the scene for over a quarter of a century and, during this time, has evolved into one of the world’s finest ensembles dedicated to the historically informed interpretation of early music. Since 2003 they have been headed by Aapo Häkkinen, a laureate of the celebrated harpsichord competition in Bruges, who was taught by eminent teachers in Helsinki, Amsterdam and Paris, and whose mentor was the legendary organist, harpsichordist and conductor, Gustav Leonhardt. Accompanied by five outstanding singers and the Purcell Choir from Budapest, the orchestra is appearing at the Prague Spring for the first time to perform two masterful sacred works associated with the Czech Lands in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The programme comprises the modern premiere of the oratorio La Purificazione di Maria Virgine (The Purification of the Virgin Mary) from 1807 by Antonio Casimir Cartellieri, second Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz, and Stabat Mater from 1805 by Jakub Jan Ryba, famous as the author of the Czech Christmas Mass.

“Bohemia under the last Holy Roman Emperors enjoyed a surfeit of cultural richness. The country of Dušek, Koželuh, Mozart, Vranický, Dusík and Rejcha was a melting pot of artistic excellence and innovation. The two large-scale sacred pieces on Marian themes programmed for this concert were both first performed in Bohemia during the first decade of the 19th century. It will be fascinating to hear such different approaches to church music,” says Aapo Häkkinen on his Prague Spring programme. Both Antonio Casimir Cartellieri (1772–1807) and Jakub Jan Ryba (1765–1815) were contemporaries of Ludwig van Beethoven (Cartellieri even played in the orchestra during the premiere of the Eroica Symphony and the Triple Concerto with Beethoven conducting). However, while Ryba led a humble existence as a schoolteacher in Rožmitál pod Třemšínem (Rosenthal), Cartellieri, who was born in the Polish city of Gdansk to an Italian tenor and German soprano, was engaged as a music teacher, violinist and later second Kapellmeister by Prince Lobkowitz. Cartellieri thus made a significant contribution to the musical environment at the Lobkowitz residences in Roudnice nad Labem and at Jezeří castle. “The oratorio La Purificazione di Maria Virgine is associated with Candlemas – or the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin – which commemorates the presentation of Jesus at the Temple by Mary and Joseph,” states Häkkinen, who is known for his fondness for performing unjustly neglected or forgotten works. “The most important music periodical of the 19th century, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, reports rather begrudgingly on the premiere, which took place in Prague after Cartellieri’s death on 25 December 1807, lamenting the weak libretto, composed in an overly operatic style – the composer’s evident forte!,” says Häkkinen. “With his Italian background, Cartellieri was an innate vocal composer with an exceptional sense of sound colour, intuitive rhetorical facility, and a joyous imagination. The oratorio enjoyed popularity, and manuscript copies have been found in Vienna as well as in Florence,” he adds. It seems that the composer really was unusually gifted. He studied with Antonio Salieri, his stage works were performed at the Royal Opera in Berlin, and in Vienna in 1795 his Symphony No. 1 and the oratorio Gioas, Re di Giuda (Joash, King of Judah) appeared on the same programme together with the premiere of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Cartellieri was also responsible for one of the most important musical events in Bohemia at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries – the production of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation in Roudnice nad Labem in 1799 and 1805; on the second occasion the work was even sung in Czech. It is indeed lamentable that he died at a mere thirty-four years of age.