7 last words of christ haydn biography
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Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross
One Piece – Three Versions
/in Choral works in focus/by Wolfgang Hochstein
It is rather unusual for a composer to publish his or her own work in three different versions. But that is exactly what Joseph Haydn did with his setting of Die Sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze (The Seven Last Words): The work exists in the original version for orchestra, then in an arrangement for string quartet, and – with the addition of voices and modified orchestration – in oratorio form. It would certainly not be wrong to interpret these three arrangements as a sign of the personal pride Haydn took in his composition.
According to the Gospels, before his death on the cross Jesus uttered seven short sentences. These were compiled in the late medieval period to form a “septenary of words on the cross”; they were used as the basis of the hymn Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund (pre), and, for example, the well-known com
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Joseph Haydn—Seven gods Words
Joseph Haydn. The sju Last Words of Christ on the Cross. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, ca. pp.
Music Library MH41 S5
Haydn wrote TheSeven gods Words of Christ on the Cross in in response to a kommission from the bishop of Spain’s Cadiz Cathedral. The bishop requested music to accompany the cathedral’s Good Friday service that year. In addition to introductory and concluding sections, Haydn wrote a movement for each of Jesus’ gods sayings or utterances from the cross, creating a total of nine sections. For the service, each movement followed a recitation of the corresponding saying and an accompanying meddelande by the priest. Thus, Haydn’s work in its original setting was not meant to be a single enhet within the service, but rather interspersed throughout.
The mo
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The Pragmatic Mystic
The Oratorio de la Santa Cueva in Cádiz is, as its name suggests, an underground oratory — a “cave” church (you can read about it here).In , Franz Joseph Haydn ( - ) was commissioned to compose, as Timothy Judd has described it (here), “a series of slow, meditative ‘sonatas,’ each relating to one of the seven last words of Christ during the crucifixion, as outlined in the Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John.” Fifteen years later, Haydn himself described the project this way (again, I’m indebted to Judd’s short piece for the citation):
Some fifteen years ago I was requested by a canon of Cádiz to compose instrumental music on the Seven Last Words of Our Savior On the Cross. It was customary at the Cathedral of Cádiz to produce an oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large la