Constant Prayer of St. Augustine
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Text of the General Prior of the Order for Participants of Individual Provincial Chapters
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... the Ambrosian motto "omnia Christus est nobis," "Christ is everything for us," stands at the heart of his understanding of Christian life...
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Handel's music for the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Petr Hadraba
“How I wept at your hymns and songs, so powerfully moved me the sweet-sounding voices of your singing church. Those voices entered my ears, truth penetrated my heart, thus the feeling of piety was kindled, tears flowed, and I felt good in them.”
Saint Augustine, Confessions, 9,6
Rome, the beginning of the eighteenth century...
The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, “Madonna del Carmine”, is always a great event here. An important location for the celebrations is the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria di Montesanto at Piazza del Popolo.1 The celebration begins already on the eve with the first evening praises and vigil, and on the day of the feast, a magnificent mass is held, followed by second evening praises in the evening. The entire area is also decorated, with light arches built in the adjacent streets, whose chain winds all the way to Piazza di Spagna and Piazza S. Carlo.2 It is not only beauty for the eyes; the celebration is annually accompanied by a fantastic musical production, entrusted to the greatest celebrities of Italian musical life.
In the spring of 1707, an exceptionally gifted young musician, almost still a boy, arrives in Rome. The chronicler of the time, Francesco Valesio, writes: “Recently a Saxon has arrived in our city, who is an excellent player on the harpsichord and a musical composer. Today he made a huge impression with his organ playing in the church of St. John Lateran, to the great astonishment of all...” This twenty-two-year-old young man is none other than Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759). He quickly engages in the musical life of Rome. He wins the favor of many important patrons, Marquis Francesco Ruspoli and Cardinal Carlo Colonna. Marquis Ruspoli brings him to the Accademia dell’Arcadia. This academy gathers the cream of the crop of the most renowned figures in Italy's literature, philosophy, art, and aristocracy. It was founded under the patronage of Queen Christina of Sweden, a controversial figure who abdicated the throne, converted to Catholicism, and spent much of her life in Rome. The Arcadia meets in gardens on the Esquiline Hill. Its members included numerous cardinals, princes, queens, and dukes, and eventually five popes. Yet Händel cannot be accepted, as he is still not the required twenty-four...
Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni is a great supporter of music and musicians. He is a patron and personal friend of Arcangelo Corelli, to whom he also provides housing, he supports Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, and Antonio Caldara, and he himself writes librettos for cantatas and oratorios. He resides in Palazzo della Cancelleria. Here, musical life subsequently concentrates when a ban on operating opera is issued in Rome. (Composers now focus even more on creation for the church). Concerts are held in Cardinal Ottoboni's palace, as well as various virtuosity competitions. In one of them, Händel’s opponent is Domenico Scarlatti. Händel wins by a landslide in playing the organ. Later, whenever Scarlatti speaks of Händel, he crosses himself with the sign of the cross... Händel receives the nickname “il Sassone famoso,” famous Saxon, or “caro Sassone,” dear Saxon.
Cardinal Carlo Colonna and his entire family are great friends of Carmel. For many years they support the Carmelite order. It is Colonna who pays for the music and musicians for the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and covers all other expenses associated with the celebration of the feast in the Eternal City. At the beginning of 1707, the Carmelites dream of allowing the nocturnes for this feast, typically sung to the old choral melodies, to be set to music for this year. They consult their supporter, Cardinal Colonna, who proposes and warmly recommends young Händel for this task. Thus, it comes to pass that this noble task of composing music for Our Lady, for the feast of Madonna del Carmine of 1707, is entrusted to this young foreigner, and moreover, a Lutheran.
Rome, the twenties of the thirteenth century...
The community of hermits from Mount Carmel increasingly yearns for their way of life to be recognized by the Holy See. Shortly after the community on Mount Carmel was established, the Fourth Lateran Council prohibited the founding of new orders following their own rule. St. Francis, however, still manages to secure approval for his order by the Pope. St. Dominic also achieves the approval of his order but is left with no choice but to select one of the existing rules for it. The community of hermits, originating from distant Carmel, must face distrust in Europe as it is still little known and is suspected of having arisen in defiance of the council's decision. In January 1226, the Carmelites turn to Pope Honorius III and ask him to approve their rule. He confirms it with the bull “Ut vivendi normam” on January 30, 1226.3
The legend details the events vividly: Pope Honorius III wants to respond favorably to the Carmelites' request. He loves Our Lady in a special way, for he began right after his studies as a canon at Santa Maria Maggiore, and everyone still remembers his beautiful homilies on the Mother of God. (Once his earthly pilgrimage is over, he will be buried in this greatest basilica of Mary.) Now, he would joyfully recognize and approve the Carmelite rule, if it were not for the strong opposition, especially from two cardinals who are so vigorously against it. The anxious Honorius is about to give in to them, he sets the texts of the rule aside, wanting to buy some time.
That night, Our Lady herself appears to him in a dream. She is serious, with a stern expression on her face, speaking to him in Latin: “My wish must not be resisted, and the matters I advocate must not be left unnoticed!”4 She commands Honorius to disregard the opponents and to confirm the rules of Carmel immediately, for the order will be a source of great good for the Church. Then she informs Honorius that both mentioned opponents will soon be taken from this world. In the morning, shocking news comes: both cardinals indeed died suddenly that night! Honorius immediately calls for the text of the rule and confirms it with the bull we have already mentioned.
The Carmelite brothers are filled with great joy. From the beginning, they feel Mary’s gentle maternal hand, the protection of her mantle, and her guidance. Now Our Lady intervenes on their behalf through her apparition. The recounting of these events is lovingly preserved within the order, annually recalled at the nightly office on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, later becoming the subject of the Latin text of the motet, which the Carmelites commissioned to accompany the nocturnes for this feast. It begins with the words “Saeviat tellus inter rigores”:5
Though the earth rages cruelly,
attacks, storms, you, Carmelites, do not be afraid!
Even if Lucifer roars amid the flames,
plots deceit, laugh at the threats of the underworld!
To confirm the Carmelite order,
Our Lady appears to sleeping Honorius,
her light flickers throughout the night and
grows so much,
that compared with it
the sun is dim, the moon is dim.
O, sweet night, bright peace,
may you last long and unshaken for the Carmelites!6
Let the cruel Megera not disturb you,7
as long as Mary’s loving light shines!
Faithful stars, may it be your concern,8
to keep the Carmelites safe from the world;9
may your peace be firm and safe,
with which they may bless10 mortals.11
Under the protection of such a distinguished Lady,
Carmelites, celebrate victory,
Lucifer is powerless,
his arrows are harmless,
Carmelites, rejoice! Alleluia!
This text was thus given to young Georg Friedrich for setting to music. For that, also the texts of the psalms, of which there were five at that time in the office.
A brief guide to Händel's music for the feast
The motet “Saeviat tellus” is composed for solo soprano with orchestra. The soprano part seems as if it was not written for a person with their human limitations. Especially the first aria and the stunning concluding Alleluia ignore the possibilities of the human voice. Dizziness-inducing coloratura, triplets at a terrifying pace, as if the soprano were to have keys on her neck! Quick notes suddenly stop on a long tone—when there is no place to catch a breath! And then those crazy heights, the three-line “c”... Apparently, the composer heard it sing by someone not limited by our physical world...
The middle section “O, sweet night, bright peace,” is on the contrary calm, lovely, comforting. In this music, we can already hear distant echoes of Händel's later very famous aria from “Messiah” about the Good Shepherd: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd,”12 full of Jesus' tenderness and love. Here, in the motet for the Carmelites, we are filled with Mary’s tenderness and love through this music; we feel the deep peace from God with which the Lord blesses the Carmelites. The concluding Alleluia is among the finest works Händel ever wrote. But let us not be mistaken: the copyright belongs to the Holy Spirit! Georg Friedrich merely transcribed it neatly...
Today, only three psalms set to music by Händel are known. The first completed was Psalm 110 (109) “Dixit Dominus”, “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.” It is composed for the largest ensemble: two sopranos, alto, two tenors, bass, choir, and orchestra. The manuscript bears the date April 4, 1707, and is probably the oldest surviving autographed work of Händel. The music begins extraordinarily dramatically and captures our attention to the Word of God, which predicts that the Messiah will not only be David's son but also God's. The interpretation of this psalm was left to us by the Lord Jesus Himself in the Gospel of Matthew.13 When we listen to this music, we will never be able to let the words of this psalm “flow” through our ears and minds just like that. The riveting chords of the choir and orchestra engrave the Lord's word into our very bones. The setting of the text “The Lord has sworn and will not repent” carries crushing force. The concluding doxology is crowned by Händel's virtuosic polyphony, which at the words “sicut erat in principio” culminates in a brilliant fugue, no less impressive than the masterful fugues of the author's peak creative period.
The second psalm 113 (112) “Laudate pueri,” “Praise the Lord, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord,” was completed on July 8, just a week before the start of the feast. An amazing mezzo-soprano aria with an oboe solo evokes a suggestive image as to how this psalm is probably sung in heaven by Our Lady herself, Queen of Carmel. It is she who calls upon the Lord's servants, the Carmelite brothers, to praise the name of the Lord. And the choir truly responds: the Carmelite brothers sing alternately with their Queen...
The last surviving psalm is Psalm 127 (126) “Nisi Dominus”, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain,” completed just three days before the feast! Händel works in great haste, barely meeting the deadline. However, this is not noticeable in the composition. There is not a single note, nor a single chord or passage, about which we could doubt whether it could have been written differently. Everything seems to be dictated from above... Some sketches remain, which show how Händel worked. His manuscript bears marks of great haste. He mostly starts to notate in four voices, then three voices, a bit further just two voices, and finally only bass... Just some catch points, the roughest outlines, the other voices and details will be added later. From somewhere he has already heard the entire finished piece in the resulting tempo... When musicologists examined the original Carmelite choral melodies for the nocturnes, they discovered a remarkable thing: Händel incorporates several excerpts and motifs from the original choral melodies into his compositions without disturbing his own distinctive style. However, today’s listener can no longer perceive these choral melodies since they are not commonly known.
The feast of Madonna del Carmine would typically conclude with a solemn procession to the altar of Our Lady accompanied by the singing of “Salve Regina”. The Carmelite “Caeremoniale” (instructions for the liturgical execution of the ceremony) for the nocturnes of the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel from 1616 has been preserved, which attests to this. Händel is therefore also entrusted with setting to music the text of this antiphon. He did so already in June of that year at Ruspoli's country residence in Vignanello, where he was then invited. The two introductory sections “Salve Regina” and “Ad te clamamus” are very intimate. It is not just a respectful greeting to the Queen, but a complete opening to her and surrendering even the most intimate nooks of the heart to the beloved Mother. The third part “Eia ergo, Advocata nostra” begins with a striking organ solo. At the feast, Händel reportedly played the organ part himself and thus originally wrote this organ solo for himself. The concluding part “O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria” is among the most intimate spiritual music ever written. The ending is like an ecstasy, fading into complete silence. It is absolutely impossible for such music to have been composed without a deep relationship with the one to whom the prayer is directed...
Händel also set to music two more antiphons: “Haec est Regina virginum” and “Te, decus virgineum.” Both were intended for the evening praises of the mentioned feast. Both are composed as soprano and alto arias, accompanied by strings and basso continuo. They are small in scope, but both can confidently be described with St. Augustine's statement introduced at the beginning of this article. Words cannot simply characterize them; they are two beautifully polished diamonds set in the crown of Our Lady of Mount Carmel... Unfortunately, no further antiphons have been preserved.
Händel's works for Our Lady
We try to imagine the feast as it probably took place, but we only have a few fragmentary reports and documents, and important details still elude us. We will never know exactly what led to the commissioning of the nocturnes for music set by young Händel. However, it is more important to see things from the perspective of divine Providence: to write the motet “Saeviat tellus”, to set to music five festive psalms, including the famous “Dixit Dominus”, and even “Salve Regina”, is a significant work dedicated to the Mother of God and the religious order that belongs to her, which is specially hers.
Now, three hundred years later, we see how our dear Lord led all the threads of seeming coincidences, circumstances, and remarkable coincidences so that this work could be accomplished by the one granted the most talents. We can imagine how fierce the competition must have been in Rome, how many outstanding and well-established composers lived here, what envy, intrigues, and conflicts must have prevailed. Yet the task safely falls into the hands of this twenty-two-year-old boy from the other side of Europe, a Protestant, who as a composer has everything before him... Let us also notice that even the ban on opera is in God's plan: it prevents the young Händel from being tempted and distracted by the theater. And how is it that a Lutheran is setting texts about Our Lady to music? After all, the Lord has more Marian texts ready for him to compose! The talents of amazing talent that the Lord placed within him allow him to glimpse into the musical heaven and literally transcribe the music from there and bring it down to us on earth... In the process, his heart ignites with love for the one for whom he writes this music. She herself will plead for this love!
In 1703, a devastating earthquake struck Italy. In some areas of the Lazio province, not a stone was left upon a stone. The Romans prayed to Our Lady, asking for protection for the Eternal City. On Candlemas, the Romans saw a huge rainbow arching over the city, on which sits Our Lady herself. The Romans know they have been heard, the city will be spared! It is necessary to thank the Mother of God for this. Annually, on the anniversary of this day, thanksgiving services are held. Also on Candlemas in 1708, there will be a thanksgiving service.14 Cardinal Ottoboni therefore hands Händel more texts to set to music, this time Italian, that describe this miraculous event. During the service, a completely new cantata “Donna, che in ciel,” “Lady, who in heaven,” composed especially for this occasion, will be played.15 The Lord arranged it once again so that the beautiful music could thank His Mother precisely through “caro Sassone”...
Music long inaccessible
Despite the composer's youth, Händel's music composed for the feast of Madonna del Carmine reaches an extraordinary level of mastery, comparable to his best later works. How is it that this work was not performed as often as, for example, Messiah? Because it was lost. It only recently came to light. The modern performance and reconstruction of Händel’s Carmelite nocturnes was made possible by the discovery of several volumes of Carmelite songs in a private Roman archive and the accidental discovery of two antiphons related to the Carmelite feast, set to music by Händel, along with other materials dating from the composer's stay in Rome, in the premises of a house in Manchester in 1985, i.e., in the year of the three hundredth anniversary of Händel's birth.16
Some musicologists believe that some compositions we now consider part of Händel's setting of the Carmelite nocturnes could have originally been composed for other commissioners. The psalm “Dixit Dominus” and the antiphon “Salve Regina” were indeed often set to music as standalone motets. But even if these pieces were written for another occasion, it was entirely common at that time for even such previously composed works to be used elsewhere. Händel himself applied the concluding Alleluia from “Saeviat tellus” in 1724 as the conclusion to another motet on the Italian text “Silete Venti” (which deals with love for the Lord Jesus) and the famous Alleluia from “Messiah” in the work “Foundling Hospital Anthem” (composed for a charity concert to raise funds for opening an orphanage).
Today, it is impossible to say with certainty which pieces were played on the feast in 1707 and how the festivity proceeded. Some musicologists believe that Händel did not set all five psalms and all the antiphons to music, and that a large part of the nocturnes was sung in the original chant. According to this hypothesis, in 1987, the British ensemble “Taverner Choir & Players”, with Andrew Parrott, tried to reconstruct the Carmelite nocturnes. An album of two CDs was produced, containing the entire second nocturne sung in Latin by the schola to the choral melodies, into which were inserted the seven parts set to music by Händel.17 Another opinion is that the parts of the nocturnes that Händel did not set to music were then supplemented with compositions by another author (or authors), which was also commonly done at that time. However, no attempt has yet been made to assemble a program of the then-feast according to this hypothesis. We therefore consider it more likely that only compositions by Händel existed and that the other parts of the nocturnes were indeed left in the chant.
Since the first modern performances and recordings, this work has gained interpreters and listeners around the world. However, neither the musicians nor the audience of today’s secularized world generally have an idea of the spiritual connections surrounding the creation of this work. But all equally feel that extraordinary spiritual charge emanating from it, regardless of whether they profess and practice faith in life or not. The difficulty of the vocal parts is such that they can only be realized by a handful of the most gifted. However, this does not prevent many aspirants to singing and conservatory students from attempting it. The appeal and popularity of the work among singers is so great that an educational CD recording of these nocturnes without solo parts has even been created, only orchestra, choir, and organ. This is so that sopranos can also sing at home with the accompaniment of all instruments and create the illusion of a concert performance in domestic conditions.
If we take any history of European music in hand and open it to the section discussing Baroque music of the first half of the eighteenth century, we will read many notable names of composers—certainly outstanding ones. Each of them could have set the Carmelite nocturnes to music very well. But there are only two names of musical giants who passed through the thickest sieve of history and whose genius significantly surpasses all others: Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel. The former, although also a Lutheran, composed the most beautiful Magnificat ever written in history for the Mother of God. The latter was chosen by Our Lady to write the most beautiful and most precious musical jewel for Carmel, for her order, for that “matter she advocates”... Carmelitae, jubilate! Alleluia!
completion
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