Otto Nicolai’s sacred music has neither been as often
performed nor as often recorded as his more popular works. It’s not
simply
The Merry Wives of Windsor that has vanquished his legacy in
this respect, but in fact almost everything else, so much so in fact that
this Carus disc restores three of the six works in first-ever recordings.
Nicolai wrote
a capella and orchestrally-accompanied sacred
music from his early twenties onwards. The biggest work in this recital is
the Mass in D major, which has been recorded before. It owes its genesis to
the rapprochement between Nicolai and his father - they had not seen each
other for six years, as a result of the young Otto having rebelled against
the authoritarian teaching practices of his father. By all biographical
accounts the reunion was very successful and Nicolai duly produced a Mass
for performance in Poznan Cathedral in 1832. Twelve years later, whilst
living in Vienna, he revised the work, taking advantage of his intervening
Italian travels and his increasing command of operatic music. As a
Protestant working in Catholic Vienna his position was always precarious but
the work was accepted for performance - but not publication. It’s
certainly a discreetly yet warmly orchestrated Mass. Nicolai eschews high
winds and the string writing remains discreet. The horns bathe the patina
with consoling richness but without grandiloquence. The solo voices blend
beautifully with the chorus and where Nicolai uses the small orchestral
forces soloistically, such as the role for first violin, it’s to
prefigure solo vocal entries. Everything is beautifully shaped, lyrically
attractive and - where appropriate - celebratory.
The
Liturgie No.2 dates from 1847, two years after the
revision of the Mass and two years before Nicolai’s untimely death.
Written in four parts it’s appropriately intimate in scale, and
beautifully refined in execution. Only the concluding
Heilig is
extended, the whole piece lasting just five minutes. This is its first
recording. The
Psalm 13, completed the previous year, is scored for
voices, chorus and piano and it too is receiving a premiere recording.
It’s supposed in the notes that this is an autobiographical work
reflecting Nicolai’s frail health and turbulent time as Kapellmeister
of the Vienna Court Opera. If it is indeed a self-lament it’s highly
accomplished and does lighten in tone.
Psalm 84 is for double-choir
though only as a result of the caprice of the Prussian King who demanded it
of Nicolai, who had merely intended a more simple setting. He had to
re-write the work to conform. There are hints of Allegri in its rich
amplitude, and its deliberate archaisms are accompanied by a richness hard
to resist.
Ecce enim Deus is a lovely, succinct and Italianate
setting, barely two and a half minutes in length.
Pater noster, Op.33
was dedicated to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the aforementioned King of Prussia,
and the eight-part work is suffused with more Italian influence, no doubt as
a result of his studies and sojourn in Bologna.
The performances are very beautifully done, sensitively directed and
finely recorded. This is a much unexplored area of the repertoire and Carus
has here made a positive step toward reclamation of Nicolai’s
surviving sacred works.
Jonathan Woolf
Previous review:
Michael Cookson
