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Music from the time of Napoleon. (Featuring Russian, German, Austrian, French and English songs), c. 1800
‘Not Tonight Josephine’ A slice of musical life in the time of
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821).
Musically speaking the rises and falls of ‘Boney the Warrior’
not only straddle the transition between the classical and
romantic periods, but also helped hasten the change. His
was a time of conflict and contrasts, plain to hear in this
latest fascinating programme from the ever-inventive Jubilate
Singers under the musical direction of Philip Norman.
The ethereal ‘Lacrymosa’ of Mozart’s 1791 Requiem segues
into the blood-curdling anthems of revolutionary France:
‘Chant du Départ’ and ‘La Marseillaise’ (as monumentally
arranged by Berlioz). Florid operatic frippery from Napoleon’s
favourite composer, Italian-born Giovanni Paisiello, is given
ballast by rough and ready British shanties (‘Boney was a
Warrior’, ‘Spanish Ladies’) thumbing their noses at ‘Le Petit
Caporal’ as well as ‘les Grenouilles’ (the French).
The elaborate craftsmanship evident in the Kyrie and Gloria
of Haydn’s Theresienmesse is balanced with the simple,
contemplative beauty of Dmitry Bortniansky’s ‘Da ispravitsa
molitva moya’, an Old Slavic version of the Lord’s Prayer.
While the 1812 Battle of Borodino raged near Moscow,
Irish composer and pianist John Field was in St Petersburg,
composing music to evoke the tranquillity and mystery
of the night in a new musical form he called ‘nocturne’.
In England, Samuel Wesley was looking backwards to the
madrigal with his nostalgic glee ‘O Sing unto mie roundelaie’,
while in Austria Beethoven was looking forward to peace
and prosperity, celebrating the end of Napoleon with his
rambunctious Der glorreiche Augenblick (The Glorious
Moment), commissioned to open the Congress of Vienna
treaty negotiations in 1814. Though as it turned out the
celebrations were premature, our concert closes with the
cantata’s finale, which climaxes in an explosion of choral
sound to rival his evergreen ‘Ode to Joy’.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Knox Church, Christchurch, New Zealand
Tickets