PhilPaine.com

This is one of three dif­fer­ent ver­sions that Haydn pre­pared of a work meant to dra­ma­tize read­ings of “Die sieben let­zten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze” (“The Sev­en Last Words of Our Sav­iour on the Cross”), known more com­mon­ly in Eng­lish by the more suc­cinct “The Sev­en Last Words of Christ”. The first ver­sion was for full orches­tra, meant to be pre­sent­ed in the Cathe­dral of Cádiz. Haydn him­self wrote: “The walls, win­dows, and pil­lars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large lamp hang­ing from the cen­ter of the roof broke the solemn dark­ness. At mid­day, the doors were closed and the cer­e­mo­ny began. After a short ser­vice the bish­op ascend­ed the pul­pit, pro­nounced the first of the sev­en words (or sen­tences) and deliv­ered a dis­course there­on. This end­ed, he left the pul­pit and fell to his knees before the altar. The inter­val was filled by music. The bish­op then in like man­ner pro­nounced the sec­ond word, then the third, and so on, the orches­tra fol­low­ing on the con­clu­sion of each dis­course.”  He lat­er pro­duced a choral/oratorio ver­sion in Vien­na. In this lat­er, string quar­tet adap­ta­tion, the first vio­lin “speaks” the words at the begin­ning of each sec­tion. The sev­en “sonatas” are brack­et­ed by an intro­duc­tion and a brief con­clu­sion. The work is star­tling­ly sweet for some­thing meant to rep­re­sent the events on Gol­go­tha, becom­ing presto con tut­ta la forza only in the last sec­tion. It seems more appro­pri­ate a musi­cal accom­pa­ni­ment to con­tem­plat­ing sev­en rose gar­dens, or sev­en pleas­ant after­noons in coun­try. But I’m not reli­gious, and the twists and turns with which the devout inter­pret the pas­sion of Christ don’t come nat­u­ral­ly to me. I may just not be “get­ting it”. But it’s love­ly music.