Songs of War and Peace – a five movement cycle based on music from the Thirty Years’ War
Prague, 1618. What began as a local religious conflict grew into a war throughout Europe that engulfed all the colonies—the first real World War. After thirty years of senseless destruction and horrific mass murders, the Peace of Westphalia was concluded, laying the foundations for the Europe we know today. The Thirty Years’ War thus became indispensable to the self-image of the European nation states that emerged in the nineteenth century, which looked back on it with mixed feelings.
A recorder player and a string quartet sing, in chamber music style, personally and intimately, in five parts, about the different emotions of that period and the memories of it in later times.
The voices of the ravaged peasants, exhausted citizens and whipped-up warriors resound in Bohemian, German and Dutch folk songs and spiritual songs from that period, in a wild musical fantasy of diverse styles.
The recorder, the Baroque period instrument, is the lyrical protagonist, the voice of that era that prays and cries out. The quartet is the ensemble of the nineteenth century, a time of reflection, melancholy or national pride. Together they sing the old songs of war and peace.
Read more about the Battaglia, the Fantasia and the Scherzo: Grimmig Tod
I. Battaglia
The Thirty Years‘ War started when the Bohemian Protestants rebelled in 1618, with support from the Dutch Prince Maurice. After their defeat in 1620, the Eighty Years’ War flared up again in the Netherlands, with Bergen op Zoom being unsuccessfully besieged by Spinola in 1622.
At the beginning of this musical battle story, inspired by the Bataille van Biber (a Bohemian musician), you can hear Merck toch hoe Sterck (the battle song about Bergen op Zoom, with the harmony of the ‘Folia d’Espagne’) in the distance. Then comes the main theme, the song ‘Es geht wohl zu der Sommerzeit’, which rather cheerfully describes how people are going to war all over Europe:
Es geht wohl zu der Sommerzeit, der Winter fährt dahin. Manch kühner Held zu Felde leit, wie ich berichtet bin. Zu Fuß und auch zu Pferd, wie man ihr nur begehrt, ganz munter besunder die beste Reiterei, ein ganze werte Ritterschaft, Fußvolk ist auch dabei.
The season’s almost Summertime, the Winter goes away, many a Warrior goes to war, so many people say. On foot or on a horse, each hero his own course, so brisk and frisky, our best of riders go Our bravest and our best of Knights, and their footmen also
The Bohemian Revolt had roots stretching back to the 14th century and erupted into a storm when the early Protestant reformer Jan Hus was burned at the stake in 1415. The suppression of the revolt in 1620 dealt the final blow to the Hussite movement. Bohemia was incorporated into the Habsburg Empire, and from then on, the people of Bohemia were required to speak German and be Catholic. Old Advent and Christmas carols in the native language are still cherished today as a reminder of the past.
The music plunges deep into that proud and sad history in the middle of the piece. In the turmoil of battle, the recorder leads the strings into the Introïtus of the Bohemian Advent liturgy (related to the Gregorian Rorate Coeli), after which all join in the old Hussite battle song ‘You who are God’s warriors’.
Het Boheemse ‘Rorate Coeli‘: Mnozí Spravedliví – ‘[Lord.] break the heavens and descend’
The old Hussite battle song ‘You who are God’s warriors’.
Listen to Battaglia on Spotify:
II. Fantasia super ‘Dunkle Wolke’
A Fantasia, for recorder, not with viols as in the Renaissance by Gibbons and Byrd, but with string quartet – and yet only with early music. All voices vary through and over each other on the beautiful, simple folk song Dunkle Wolke. The text, from 1630, is a farewell – interpreted in the nineteenth century as that of a soldier:
Es geht ein’ dunkle Wolk’ herein,
mich dünkt, es wird ein Regen sein,
ein Regen aus den Wolken
wohl in das grüne Gras.
[A dark cloud, that will mean for some
methinks, that rain is soon to come
a rain from cloudy heavens
will fall on the green grass]
I have interwoven various melodies from the old Bohemian Advent rite throughout, and the refrain is a simple yet poignant fragment from the opening of Schütz’s ‘O hilf, Christe Gottes Sohn, durch dein bitter Leiden…’.
III. Scherzo: Grimmig Tod und Heilig Kind
A Scherzo loosely based on the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s violin concerto, third movement. Full of joy and innocence. Like the Christ Child, and also destined to die.
…
Aus einer Rose erblüht uns eine Blüte,
jubeln wir!
Aus reinem Leib,
…
uns, uns ist er geboren.
(The Czech Christmas Song ‘Narodil se Kristus Pan‘)
Ever more urgent the refrain sounds: the song ‘Der grimmig Tod’ in instrumental canon:
Der grimmig Tod mit seinen Pfeil
tut nach dem Leben zielen.
Sein Bogen schießt er ab mit Eil
und läßt mit sich nicht spielen.
Das Leben schwindt wie Rauch im Wind,
kein Fleisch mag ihm entrinnen,
kein Gut noch Schatz find bei ihm Platz:
du mußt mit ihm vin hinnen!
