Passion music from Michael Haydn and Johann Simon Mayr
Johann Michael Haydn was a very productive composer. He left us a large oeuvre of which sacred music, and especially liturgical music, forms an important part. He composed 27 responsories in 1778, for the last three days of the Holy Week, also known as the Tenebrae. Each day nine responsories are sung, divided over three nocturns. Today, we first listen to the responsories for Holy Saturday (Responsoria in Sabbato Sancto), then one of the responsories for Good Friday and a Passion song from Mozart.
And last but not least, we hear the Stabat mater in C minor from Johann Simon Mayr. He was born in a village in Bavaria, Germany, and was seen as a child prodigy: from the age of seven, he could sing ‘prima vista’ (sight-singing), and was an excellent pianist before the age of ten. He then had already started to compose as well. He left for Italy, taking lessons with Ferdinando Bertoni, maestro di capella at the San Marco. He spent the biggest part of his life in Bergamo, where he was an important part of the music scene, also as a teacher of music theory and composition.
He left us a big oeuvre of mostly vocal music. We will listen to his Stabat mater composed around 1803.
