Canticum Sacrum

"Canticum Sacrum ad Honorem Sancti Marci Nominis" is a 17-minute choral-orchestral piece composed in 1955 by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) in tribute "To the City of Venice, in praise of its Patron Saint, the Blessed Mark, Apostle." The piece is compact and stylistically varied, ranging from established neoclassical modes to experimental new techniques. The second movement, "Surge, Aquilo", represents Stravinsky's first movement based entirely on a tone row.

Though most often abbreviated "Canticum Sacrum", the piece's full name is "Canticum Sacrum Ad Honorem Sancti Marci Nominis", or "Canticle to Honor the Name of Saint Mark".

Text

Stravinsky selected all of his texts except the opening dedication from the Latin Vulgate. They are presented here in an English translation:

*Dedicato: "To the City of Venice, in praise of its Patron Saint, the Blessed Mark, Apostle"
*Part I: “Go into the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15)
*Part II: "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. (Song of Songs 4:16, 5:1)
*Part III, "Ad Tres Virtutes Hortationes"
***"Caritas": "And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (Deuteronomy 6:5) / "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God." (1 John 4:7)
***"Spes": “They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion” / “I waited patiently for the Lord” (Psalms 125:1, 130:5-6)
***"Fides": "I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted." (Psalms 116:10)
*Part IV, "Brevis Motus Cantilena": "Jesus said to him, If you can, all things are possible to him that believes. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!'" (Mark 9:23-24)
*Part V: "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen." (Mark 16:20)

Orchestration

"Canticum Sacrum" is scored for tenor and baritone soloists, chorus, and an orchestra of 1 flute (which plays only in the second movement), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 3 trumpets in C, bass trumpet in C, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, contrabass trombone, organ, harp, violas, and double basses. Clarinets, horns, violins, and celli are all absent.

"Canticum Sacrum" is Stravinsky’s only piece to make use of the organ, an instrument he disliked. Its use represents one of many tributes to the traditions of Saint Mark's Basilica.

tructure

"Canticum Sacrum" is in five movements (or sections, since they are all "attacca"), plus an introductory dedication (which is set apart textually, structurally, and stylistically from the rest of the piece). The work is cyclical and chiastic: the fifth movement is an almost exact retrograde of the first. Movements two and four are also related through their use of solo voice, and the central third movement (by far the longest) has an internal ABA structure. The movements' lengths are 36, 48, 170, 57, and 39 bars respectively (movement five adds three bars to the retrograde for a final amen). The construction is incredibly sophisticated, exhibiting symmetry, proportion, and balance. Movement 3 relates to movements 1 and 5 through their common use of recurring organ versets, and relates to movements 2 and 4 by their common use of dodecaphony.

Several scholars have postulated that Canticum Sacrum bears a strong structural relationship to that of the basilica, the five principal sections of Stravinsky’s piece relating directly to the five domes of Saint Mark’s. Both the central dome of the church, and the central movement of Canticum Sacrum, are the largest and most structurally imposing. Furthermore, it is in this movement which Stravinsky chooses to depict the three Christian virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity) perhaps corresponding to the central dome of Saint Mark’s, which depicts the virtues surrounding Christ. Similar comparisons, structural and textual can be made for each of the movements. For example, not only are movements 1 and 5 both quotations from Saint Mark’s Gospel, thus attaching the work firmly to its patron saint and the church, but they also echo the themes of domes one and five which portray the prophets, and the disciples, respectively.

History

Stravinsky had long had a special relationship with the city of Venice and the prestigious Venice Biennale International Festival of Contemporary Music. In 1925, he performed his Piano Sonata there and in 1934, conducted his Capriccio with his son as soloist, both as parts of the festival.Fact|date=June 2008 In 1951, his opera "The Rake's Progress", one of his last neoclassical works, was a dominating feature of the festival.Fact|date=June 2008 Stravinsky is even interred in Venice on the island of San Michele, as is the man who brought him to international fame with the 1910 commission of "L'Oiseau de feu", Sergei Diaghilev.Fact|date=June 2008 Thus, when in 1955 Alessandro Piovesan commissioned him to compose a new piece for Venice's Biennale International Festival, it is little surprise that he decided to make the work particularly Venice’s own,Fact|date=June 2008 inscribing it to Venice’s patron saint and designing it for performance in the Saint’s own cathedral.

Any piece written especially for performance in Saint Mark’s Basilica necessarily places itself in a long and venerable musical tradition. Although polychoral music is absent from "Canticum Sacrum", Stravinsky does employ some antiphonal devices, such as the alternation between tutti choral-orchestral and solo organ sections in movements 1 and 5 (a practice which recalls the alternatum massFact|date=June 2008), and the alternation between soloists and chorus in the "Spes" section of the Virtues.Fact|date=June 2008 The mixed instrumental ensemble also conforms to Venetian tradition, as does the use of the organ, though Stravinsky limits its use primarily to solo statements, accompanied only by bassoons doubling its lowest register.Fact|date=June 2008

Although Stravinsky lacked direct experience with the acoustics of Saint Mark’s, he did spend a good deal of time testing the acoustics in a number of Venetian churches.Fact|date=June 2008 The sound resulting from his scoring, however, is harsh and austere, especially when compared with the music of the Gabrielis, Monteverdi, or Willaert.Fact|date=June 2008 The tutti orchestration is notably impoverished of treble sonorities; even the trumpets take on a rather dark quality.Fact|date=June 2008

Reception

Stravinsky himself conducted the first performance which occurred in Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Venice on September 13, 1956. He was 74. Crowds of listeners heard the work broadcast through loudspeakers outside the cathedral.Fact|date=June 2008

The commission was expected to be a setting of the Passion, and many of the festival's organizers were initially chagrined by the brevity of "Canticum Sacrum".Fact|date=June 2008 Time Magazine entitled its review “Murder in the Cathedral”, though this may be referring to the quality of the performance, rather than the composition.Fact|date=June 2008

Scholarly reviewsweasel-inline|date=June 2008 were kinder, though also initially reticent. Robert Craft denounced the critics for noting “an austerity that is irrelevant rather than a directness which is profound. They touted influences which are trivial, having failed to perceive inimitability.”Citequote|date=June 2008

The public and academic confusion to which he refers might be explained by the fact that in an artistic climate dominated by emotion, drama, and ego, Stravinsky was moving towards a musical philosophy that eschewed the clamorous and imperious artist in favor of the selfless artisan.Fact|date=June 2008 To him, the epoch that saw the dawn of European polyphony was much nearer to the essential truth—unadorned, harsh even—than the sophisticated response of a declining society’s disillusioned minds. “He was stimulated by the early polyphonist’s straightforward approach, hardly hampered by harmonic implications, as they were; for the emotionally conditioned harmonic style, which was evident, to a varying degree, in his earlier music, had no longer any attraction for him.” (WeissmanFact|date=June 2008 )

References

*Anon. “Murder in the Cathedral.” "Time", 24 September 1956, 44. *Craft, Robert. “A Concert for Saint Mark.” "The Score" 18 (December 1956): 35-45.
*Stein, Erwin. “Igor Strawinsky: Canticum Sacrum Ad Honorem Sancti Marci Nominis.” "Tempo" 40 (Summer 1956): 3-5.
*Van Den Toorn, Pieter C. "The Music of Igor Stravinsky". New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. See esp. 414-426.
*Waelti-Walters, Jennifer. “The Architectural and Musical Influences on the Structure of Michel Butor's Description de San Marco.” "Revue de Littérature Comparée" (January-March 1979): 65-75.
*Walsh, Stephen. "The Music of Stravinsky". London and New York: Routledge, 1988. See esp. 235-238.
*Weissman, John S. “Canticum Sacrum.” "The Music Quarterly" 43 (1957): 104-110.
*White, Eric Walter. "Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works". Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. See esp. 481–89.

Further reading

*Cook, Joseph Thomas. “A Conductor's Study of Igor Stravinsky's "Canticum sacrum", "Introitus: T.S. Eliot in memoriam", and "Requiem canticles".” PhD diss., Indiana University, 1976.
*Davis, John Lawton. “An Analysis of Serial Technique in Webern's "Cantata Number Two" and Stravinsky's "Canticum sacrum" with Implications for Performance.” DMA diss., University of Georgia, 1994.
*Gerhard, Roberto. “Twelve-note Technique in Stravinsky.” "The Score" 20 (June 1957): 38-43.
*Pablo, Kohan. “La tonalidad en la obra dodecafónica de Stravinsky: La verticalidad en el "Canticum Sacrum" y consideraciones sobre la musicología acrítica [Tonality in the 12-tone works of Stravinsky: Verticality in "Canticum sacrum" and thoughts on objective musicology] .” In "Primera conferencia anual de la Asociación Argentina de Musicología", 91-104. Buenos Aires: Asociación Argentina de Musicología, 1988.

ee also

*Igor Stravinsky
*St. Mark's Basilica
*Neoclassicim
*Serialism
*Robert Craft
*Venetian School