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DDD Recorded: All Saints,Tooting, London – 3-4 May 2002 - Total Time = 73:56 The Zurich Reformation, led by Ulrich Zwingli, resulted in instrumental music being banned in all churches until the early 1800s. This by no means led to a dearth of music-making, but made the private house for many years the principal venue for playing and hearing music; the works composed in Zurich until the mid-1700s were accordingly small in scale. Zurich was at that time a town of only some 10'000 inhabitants, but in cultural terms it was of considerable significance, playing a major rôle in the propagation of the ideas of the Enlightenment. It also had a vogue for English literature. Johann Jakob Bodmer published a translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost in Zurich in 1732, and it did not take long for one of the latest bestsellers to reach Zurich: The Seasons by the Scottish author James Thomson (1700-1748), first published complete in London in 1730. A selection from Spring was published in Hamburg in 1740 in a German translation by the poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747), who five years later brought out a translation of the whole work. The work of both Brockes also became very popular in Zurich in the mid-18th century. His Irdisches Vergnügen (‘Earthly Pleasures’) was even brought out in a four-volume edition in Zurich between 1740 and 1757. Its first volume, published in 1740, included many musical settings by Johann Caspar Bachofen (1695-1755), cantor of the Grossmünster (Zurich’s main cathedral) and at the time the dominant figure in Zurich musical life. The poetic contemplation of the seasons was no less a pastime of Brockes than it was of Thomson, and Bachofen’s contribution of over three hundred songs (almost all for two sopranos and bass) accordingly includes settings of poems dealing with assorted aspects of spring, summer, autumn and winter; a selection of these is included on this CD. The next Zurich composer to engage with the topic of the seasons has remained until recently a shadowy figure: Hans Jakob Ott (1715-1769), who was a Member of the Zurich parliament (the ‘Grosser Rat’) and of the ‘Physical-Economical Societies’ of Zurich and Berne. He owned the ‘Rôtel’ estate in Wipkingen, today a suburb of Zurich, where he indulged in horticultural studies, even publishing several tracts on the subject. Only four musical publications by him have survived, the largest being a setting of Brockes’ German translation of Thomson’s Hymn to the Seasons, namely the cantata Lob-Gesang auf die Vier Jahrs-Zeiten for three solo voices (two sopranos and bass), three-part chorus (ditto), bass continuo and solo cello, published in full score by Heidegger of Zurich in 1747. At 56 pages, it was the most ambitious single piece of music hitherto composed in Zurich. It is also of more than purely local interest, for it seems to have been the first ever musical setting of any section of the poem The Seasons, a work remembered today thanks largely to Joseph Haydn’s oratorio of the same name (also based, in part, on Brockes’ translation). Ott divides the poem into individual musical numbers, each with just a few lines of text. There are no recitatives. His use of two sopranos and bass with accompaniment is typical for Zurich of the day, though his use of solo cello is highly unusual. His foreword states that the cello part is ad libitum, though its omission would in fact be highly detrimental to the music. It is possible that Ott played the instrument himself, and wished for a major part in the performance of his music; but this must remain speculation. Ott’s setting contrasts three solo voices with a chorus placed opposite them, and he expressly mentions Benedetto Marcello’s psalm settings as having provided the model for this arrangement. The preface to the score makes clear Ott’s fondness for the Italian style. In this, he declares his opposition to the aesthetic favoured by the older Bachofen, who in his foreword to his Brockes settings of 1740 took a swipe at Italian music, writing that ‘I have taken great care to steer clear of the new Italian ‘passages’ that are now fashionable . . . for I believe that such capricious notions and these whims that are mostly unpleasant to the ear are irksome to the greater part of the music-loving public.’* There is no record of Ott’s cantata ever having been performed. He was not, however, the last Zurich composer of his day who felt called to give musical expression to the seasons. In 1761, Bürkli published a Hymnus oder Lobgesang auf die Allmacht, Weißheit und Güte Gottes, wie sie sich in den IV. Jahrs-Zeiten, in den 3. Reichen der Natur und an dem Menschen offenbahren, by one Johannes Schmidlin (1722-1772). This cantata too is set for two sopranos and bass with continuo. The author of the text is anonymous, though a comparison with the Brockes/Thomson Hymn almost suggests that Schmidlin’s author was trying to quote it from memory, and could remember the principal verbs, adjectives and nouns, but neither the order in which they come, nor their proper context. Like Ott, Schmidlin avoids recitative and divides his work into individual numbers, with assorted solos, duets and trios, taking care that the work should close in the same key in which it began (in this case E major). There is little doubt that Schmidlin was acquainted with Ott’s setting of the Hymn to the Seasons. But Schmidlin’s was the greater melodic gift, while his continuo line also shows more independence, giving the music more of a Rococo ambience than is present in the earlier work. The fact that three composers in a single city should, within a space of twenty-one years, devote themselves to a musical depiction of the seasons might seem of little importance. However, they do in their own way reflect the intellectual interests and passions that ruled Zurich in the mid-18th century. The attraction of the seasons as subject matter for Bachofen, Ott and Schmidlin is a symptom of a subtle shift that was taking place, away from the purely devotional, to a more rational view of natural phenomena. Their compositions might glorify God, but their origin lies not in mere piety, but rather in the fascination of the seasons as God’s engine that drives the world. Hans Jakob Ott could even stand for us as an ideal embodiment of Enlightenment Man: politician, scientist, musician, linguist; cultured, questioning, and keen to impart the fruits of his knowledge and labours to others. That he alone should have been so quite forgotten is a matter for regret. If one wished to stress the irony of his case, then one could claim that he called his fate upon himself. The final line of Thomson’s Hymn cries ‘Come then, expressive Silence!’ – and come it did. But the time has now come to let Hans Jakob Ott hymn his seasons once more. Chris Walton University of Pretoria Page revised 06.08.03 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
