The Monastery of Jasna
Góra, a house of the Pauline
Fathers, is one of the major sites of
pilgrimage in Eastern Europe, not least
because of the beautiful fourteenth
century Icon
of the Virgin and Child which is housed
there. It is sometimes called the Black
Madonna of Częstochowa,
and was, legend has it, the work of
St. Luke and painted on a table-top
from the house of the Holy Family. Some
readers may be familiar with Górecki’s
O Domina Nostra: Meditations
on Our Lady of Jasna Góra
(op.55), for soprano and organ, written
in the 1980s, while Andrzej Panufnik’s
Eighth Symphony (the Sinfonia Votiva
of 1982) was designed as a votive
offering to the icon. But Jasna Góra’s
musical connections go back much further
than such modern works.
Indeed the archives
of Jasna Góra contain some 3,000
musical manuscripts by some 120 different
composers, contributions to the length
musical life of the monastery. The turbulent
political history of Poland throughout
the twentieth century prevented much
serious study of this material until
recently.
Now a society and a team of researchers,
headed by Remigiusz Pośpiech, have
been established, charged with the task
of examining these archives, of editing
material from them (and of associated
material from other archives) and with
preparing chosen materials for
performance and recording. It is an
exciting project. This present recording,
however, is of music from a related
archive, though it appears under the
general banner of the Jasna Góra
project.
Very little seems to
be known of the life of Father
Amando Ivančić. Of Croatian
origins, he was baptised Matthias Leopold
Ivančić on Christmas Eve of
1727 in Wiener Neustadt; we know that
he entered the Pauline Order in 1744
- taking the name Amandus/Amando - and
that he spent some years in a monastic
house in Graz. He later spent some considerable
time teaching in the town of Trnava
in modern Slovakia. Certainly he was
relatively prolific as a composer –
of church music, of symphonies and divertimenti
and of chamber sonatas - particularly
works for flute.
Works by Ivančić have turned
up in archives in Croatia, Hungary,
Slovenia, Austria and Germany, as well
as in Slovakia and Poland.
The
archive of Jasna Góra contains only
one work by Ivančić – a Mass
in C. The works recorded on the present
CD are preserved elsewhere. They
were discovered by the Polish musicologist
Aleksandra Patalas in Modra, near Bratislava,
where, after many misfortunes at the
hands of earlier communist governments,
there were preserved what remains of
the papers of the Piarist monastery
of Podolinec - also in modern Slovakia.
Ivančić’s
Missa Solemnis largely
employs the idioms of contemporary classicism.
This may not be an especially individual
setting, but there are some attractive
passages and the whole work has an impressive
dignity; there are touches reminiscent
of Baroque church music and passages
which make one think, rather, of Haydn.
In the Gloria the writing for soprano
is particularly fine, the melodic lines
graceful, the rhythms quite complex,
all complemented by some inventively
decorative writing for the violins.
The Credo is of interest, in the way
in which the early monophonic texture
is broken only at the words "et
incarnatus", with a switch to the
minor and to vocal interplay. The decoration
of individual words – such as "crucifixus"
– is often both beautiful and moving.
In the Agnus Dei voices and instruments
conduct a constantly interesting dialogue.
The work ends quietly, the closing "dona
nobis pacem" set with great delicacy
and relative austerity of means.
The setting of Regina
Coeli is competent but modest in
its ambitions – doubtless reflecting
the (unknown) circumstances for which
it was originally written. The Salve
Regina is largely carried by
the soprano - here
the excellent Anna Mikołajcyzk
- and, not for the first time, Ivančić
shows himself to be a composer who can
write with particular sympathy for high
voices.
In a CD of music issued
under the auspices, as it were, of the
Madonna of Jasna Góra it is entirely
fitting that the programme should include
a setting of the Loreto Litany, the
Litania de Beata Maria Virgine,
and especially fitting that it should
be a particularly impressive work. The
vocal forces are complemented by organ
and two violins. Different vocal soloists
are given prominence at various points,
and the soloists combined in a variety
of (chiefly) duet combinations. The
writing is powerfully expressive, at
times solemn, at times dancingly syncopated;
the whole makes a fine and radiant piece.
All the performers,
soloists, choir, orchestra and conductor
alike, are significant, experienced
figures on the early music scene in
Poland … and beyond. Insofar as one
can judge without access to scores or
to alternative performances, they seem
to do full justice to the music. Certainly
all are thoroughly competent, the performances
directed with an assured understanding
of the relevant musical idioms.
Full Latin texts are
provided along with Polish translations.
There are very good booklet notes in
English,
translated from the Polish of Alina
Mądry.
Glyn Pursglove
Anna Mikołajcyzk (soprano); Piotr
Olech (alto); Krzysztof Szmyt (tenor);
Mirosław Borczyński (bass) 
