Biber and the trumpet
Trumpeters were the nobility of the music profession in the seventeenth century. Not only were they among the best paid of all musicians; in many German cities it was common for violinists to consider their instrument as a mere precursor to learning the more prestigious trumpet. In German and Austrian lands, trumpeters held such prestige that they formed a fellowship under the mandate of the Holy Roman Emperor, to ensure the exclusivity of their instrument by limiting where and by whom it was played.
The importance of the trumpet stemmed from its military and ceremonial role. Along with kettledrummers, trumpeters would lead armies into battle, playing signals to rally troops and to scare the enemy. In peacetime, trumpet-calls were used to herald kings, to create awe at ceremonies, and to accompany tournaments. Most of these fanfares and signals were not written down, instead being improvised or sometimes being a memorised repertory that a master trumpeter passed down to his pupils. A few notated versions survive, however, as with the Cavalry Fanfare of the Bohemian musician Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745).
Besides their military duties, trumpeters would also play in massed choirs as a symbol of secular or ecclesiastical power. Such a style of writing was particularly favoured by the small yet ambitious courts of central Europe, such as the Kromeríz court of prince-bishop Karl Liechenstein-Kastelkorn. In the 1660s one member of the Kromeríz orchestra was Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704), the tercentenary of whose death we celebrate this year. Biber showed his compositional talents in many genres, ranging from solo violin sonatas to school operas, but he was particularly known for his large-scale ceremonial music. Tonight’s concert [30 Nove,ber 2004] includes two such pieces. The sonata for six trumpets, Sonata a 7, starts with stylised fanfares but then develops into a fully fledged movement. More extended is the Sonata Sancti Polycarpi, which was probably written for the Kromeríz church of St Mauritius to celebrate the feast-day of the second-century Christian martyr Polycarp. It has no fewer than eight trumpets, divided into two antiphonal choirs that echo each other. Besides this variety of texture, Biber creates interest with numerous sections in different speeds and rhythms.
Biber also used the trumpet in more intimate contexts such as consort sonatas. Here he moved away from the martial manner of the trumpet corps, instead requiring a softer style of playing that was a relatively new and prized skill among trumpeters. Excellent examples of such chamber writing are found in his 1676 publication of Sonatae tam aris, quam aulis servientes (Sonatas as much for the altar as the table). Biber published this collection when he had left Kromeríz and entered the service of Archbishop Maximilian Gandolph of Salzburg; as the title suggests, the pieces could be used at the archbishop’s mealtimes or as interludes in church services. The writing follows the tradition of Austrian musicians such as the Viennese court composer Heinrich Schmelzer, who sometimes has been suggested as Biber’s probable teacher. Each sonata is for a different combination of instruments, including trumpets, violins, violas and continuo. Most are shaped as a string of different sections, with some movements invoking a dance beat, while others are fugal or may even sound improvised. In tonight’s concert, each sonata is introduced by a trumpet duo from the same 1676 publication. These duos show a quieter side to the instrument; two are even in G minor, a most unusual key for the Baroque trumpet.
Of course, the trumpet was not confined to Austro-Habsburg lands. In Italy, trumpets were used to add lustre to courtly or civic ceremonies, as well as in more intimate contexts. One renowned centre of trumpet playing was the university city of Bologna, where the instruments were regularly used in academic festivals and also for sacred music in the basilica of S. Petronio with its famously spacious acoustic. Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) also experimented with trumpet writing, as in his Concerto in C major for two trumpets RV537. We do not know the place or occasion for which this was written, but — like Biber’s consort sonatas — it shows how the trumpet was increasingly being used indoors, in consort with the string orchestra.
Biber explored many other musical traditions besides that of ceremonial brass-playing. His own instrument was the violin and his virtuoso performances were lauded by figures as diverse as the Tyrolese violin maker Jakob Stainer and the central German music theorist Wolfgang Caspar Printz. Many of his string pieces typify a central European tendency to paint a scene in music. Best known, of course, are his Mystery Sonatas depicting the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary; but there also survives a violin Pastorella that evokes the Christmas melodies of Czech and Moravian peasants, with bagpipe drones and folksy melodies. Another of his violin pieces, the Sonata violino solo representativa, incorporates bird-calls and the sounds of farmyard animals. Tonight we hear his Battalia, a light-hearted depiction of a military confrontation. Such a topic might seem like an obvious excuse to use trumpets, yet Biber confines himself to a string orchestra, getting the string players to imitate the repeated notes of the military signals. Another section of the piece depicts the song of the soldiers — a collage of different melodies, all out of tune — and the piece ends with a tongue-in-cheek lament, as wounded musketeers sink to the ground in agony.
Programme music was not merely the preserve of central European composers; at the start of the eighteenth century it was also popular in France, as well as being explored by Vivaldi. Several of Vivaldi’s string concertos have a descriptive or onomatopoeic intent, especially those in his op. 8 set, Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (1725). Indeed, this publication was dedicated to a Bohemian nobleman, Count Wenzel von Morzin, so it is conceivable that in his choice of pieces Vivaldi was trying to satisfy the central European taste for programmatic string writing. Among the contents of op. 8 is the Concerto in E flat major for violin ‘La tempesta di mare’ RV253, where the outer movements evoke the surging, pelting forces of the storm, while the slow movement shifts and swells like the waves. Vivaldi was always known for the visceral, tempestuous style of his string writing, and this manner of writing required only a little exaggeration in order to depict such extreme weather conditions.
The op. 8 set also includes Vivaldi’s most famous concertos, The Four Seasons, where his programmatic writing reaches a height of detail. Each of these concertos is prefaced by a descriptive sonnet, while in the published partbooks there are captions and cue letters to provide further clues about the programmatic content. Tonight we hear the Concerto in F minor for violin ‘Winter’ RV297, an evocation of the sheer discomfort caused by bad weather, as well as the small pleasures that humans can enjoy in the face of such seasonal adversity. The first movement depicts the chill and shivering caused by ice and snow, captured by unyielding dissonance and the trembling effect of bowed vibrato; the violin solo adds bursts of fearsome wind. The slow movement, by contrast, suggests the pleasure of sitting by the fireside on a day of rough weather: the violin melody is warm and lazily lilting, while the pizzicato accompaniment suggests (according to Vivaldi’s caption) the raindrops beating outside. The finale plunges us back into the icy outdoors, depicting the peasants skating on the frozen lakes and rivers. There are tumbling passages as the skaters lose balance and fall over laughing, as well as sudden violin roulades to suggest the sinister cracks in the ice and the hill blast of the north wind.
In the virtuosity of their violin writing, Vivaldi and Biber began to challenge the traditional supremacy of the trumpeter. The violin had the flexibility to evoke the human voice or the terrifying speed of the winter wind; these were different effects from the pomp and fearsome power of martial brass playing. The violin was becoming a virtuoso instrument in its own right, not merely something to learn as a preliminary to the trumpet. Still, both instruments had the ability to awe an audience and to display the skill of their players. We can only envy those noblemen from Bohemia and Moravia, such as Count Wenzel of Morzin or Karl Liechenstein-Kastelkorn, who had the regular opportunity to enjoy the virtuoso violin writing of Biber or Vivaldi, as well as the Austro-German tradition of ceremonial brass-playing.
This is a programe note for the Academy of Ancient Music’s concert on 30 November 2004.