Johann Heinrich Schmelzer: Le Memorie Dolorose

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer died of plague in 1680, only a few months after being awarded the position of Kapellmeister at the imperial court of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. Schmelzer had worked for many years at the Hapsburg court, first as a violinist and composer for Leopold’s father, Emperor Ferdinand III, and later director of instrumental music and vice-Kapellmeister for Leopold. He was widely known as one of the best violinists in Europe, and was an influential composer of instrumental music, especially the violin sonata.

Yet Schmelzer, as an employee of the emperor, wrote music for all occasions, as befitting the needs of the imperial court. The Viennese court tradition for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday included performances of sepolcri, an oratorio-like genre staged with characters, scenery, and dramatic action in front of a replication of the tomb of Jesus. This album is the first recording of one of Schmelzer’s three sepolcri, Le Memorie dolorose (The Dolorous Memories), first performed on Good Friday in 1678 and containing two recitative-aria sections composed by Leopold himself. Also receiving their first recordings are two of Schmelzer’s instrumental sonatas, inserted into the sepolcro as tracks 13 and 23.

Le Memorie dolorose tells the story of the Passion and burial of Jesus from the perspective of various characters, including the Virgin Mary, the three Marys who were believed to have visited the tomb of Jesus (the Marys Magdalene, Cleopas, and Salome), Joseph of Arimathea, several disciples, and a host of angels. The sepolcro’s libretto, written by court poet Nicolo Minato (lightly edited on this recording to remove anti-Semitic references), pairs ten happy memories of Jesus’ life with ten sad ones, each pair sharing a central theme; the last, for example, contrasts the raising of Lazarus from the dead with the burial of Jesus.

The recording is luminous. The singers of TENET Vocal Artists, both solo and tutti, exude a sense of refined pathos and rhetorical gesture apropos for the work’s original intimate courtly setting. The instrumentalists of ACRONYM more than match them in emotiveness; the continuo is warm, resonant, and supportive, the full ensemble beautifully unified. The enthusiasm and sense of attack in the plucked strings, counterbalanced by the sweet melodic lines of the upper voices, and the full ensemble’s commitment to the different moods of each section, show the first interpolated sonata to be a real hidden gem.

In the pop-music world, a supergroup is a musical ensemble made up of artists well known for their other solo or ensemble work. Although named separately here, both TENET and ACRONYM are stars in early music. Both ensembles have consistently received the highest praise for both their engaging live performances and recordings, which have included everything from warhorses such as the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 to premiere recordings of works by Biber, Valentini, and now, Schmelzer. This album is TENET’s sixth recording, ACRONYM’s ninth, but their first together, and the combination is nothing short of “super.” A highly recommended album, and may we hope that these two ensembles join forces again.

-Karen Cook, 6.17.19, Early Music America

Recorded here for the first time is Johann Heinrich Schmelzer’s oratorio Le Memorie Dolorose on a text by Nicolo Minato. It was originally performed in Vienna on Good Friday of 1678 before the effigy of Christ’s tomb in the Hofburgkapelle. The drama takes place in the moments immediately following Christ’s burial. There is nothing particularly new in the drama itself. In fact the performance of an Easter play involving Angels, the Virgin Mary, Apostles, the three Maries (Magdalene, Cleopas, and Salome), and Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea—11 parts in all—goes back to the rich medieval history of the Passion play. The tradition continued well into the modern era. What is new is the organization of the drama into ten pairs of meditations, juxtaposing mourning with joyful reminiscences about Jesus’ life. In addition, Acronym inserts three sonatas by Schmelzer at logical breaks between scenes. The program begins with a five-part Sonata in A minor. A four-part Sonata in A minor precedes the scene involving the three Maries, and a five-part Sonata in G minor comes before the scene of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. The drama unfolds in a series of dialogs between characters, mostly in recitative over basso continuo. Arias are simple, strophic pieces with instrumental ritornellos between stanzas. The aria ‘More Christo’ comes at an especially poignant moment at the end of the scene involving the three Maries (Kate Maroney, Elizabeth Baber Weaver, and Dianna Grabowski). In recitative the Virgin Mary (Jolle Greenleaf) sings ‘Udite, Udite un Altra’ as she happily remembers how the people of Jerusalem cheered as Jesus entered the city. She recalls how they cut down tree boughs as a sign of their rejoicing; but joy turned to savagery when only a few days later they cut the tree trunks to make a cross. The aria that follows is gentle, full of pathos, sung over the descending tetrachord in the accompanying violin and continuo parts. The emotion continues, ineffably, into the ritornellos. The end of the final scene, beginning with ‘Christo More’ makes a powerful statement. Here a trio consisting of Mary Magdalene, Maria Salome, and the Virgin Mary balance against an ensemble of Apostles (Andrew Fuchs, Brian Gieber, and Jesse Blumberg). The trio of women acts as a refrain between Mary Magdalene’s exclamations of sorrow. There is a better feminist argument to be made here than the ungainly one that follows, but here goes. Predictably, while the women give voice to the emotion of grief, the apostles declaim the theological significance of the scriptural events. It pits the thundering (low-range) voice of the Petrine church against the emotional (high-range) voice of the Magdalene church. The oratorio concludes with the entire ensemble in a final pietistic statement—essentially, if Jesus did this for me, whatever can I do for him? “In eterno piangero” (I shall weep eternally). The performance is absolutely gorgeous. The singers’ voices are full of expression, and ornamentation is spot on. The instrumentalists play with complete understanding of the performance practice. Texts and notes are in English.

-Peter Loewen, 6.21.19, American Record Guide