Born in the Bavarian town of Mendorf, near Ingolstadt, in 1763, Simon Mayr was the son of a schoolteacher and showed some early ability as a musician. He was a pupil at the Jesuit College in Ingolstadt before entering the university to study theology. He continued to demonstrate great musical versatility, but his training as a musician only began in earnest in 1787, when a patron took him to Italy. There, from 1789, he studied with Carlo Lenzi, maestro di cappella of the Bergamo Basilica of Sta Maria Maggiore. There followed, through the generosity of another patron, a period of study with Bertoni in Venice. His early commissioned compositions were largely in the form of sacred oratorios. On this new release, members of the Bavarian State Opera Chorus present his Miserere along with other sacred works, several of which are receiving here their world premiere recordings.

MAYR Gioas • Franz Hauk, cond; Andrea Lauren Brown (sop); Robert Sellier (ten); Cornel Frey (ten); Andreas Burkhart (bs); Bavarian St Op Ch; Simon Mayr Ch & Ens • NAXOS 8.572710-11 (2 CDs: 111:22)


Only two issues ago (36:2), I had my first taste of music by Simon Mayr, on a Naxos CD featuring three of the composer’s concertos led, as here, by Franz Hauk, who seems to be somewhat of a Mayr specialist. In that review, I was forced to admit that I was not previously familiar with Mayr, most likely because his main area of endeavor was opera, a field in which I claim no particular expertise. The review concluded by wondering if, as mainly a composer of opera, Mayr was best represented by a disc of his concertos, and with a promise to get back to the reader with an answer once I gained more familiarity with his work.


The wait wasn’t a long one. Here we have Mayr’s Gioas (Joash, King of Judea), designated a “parody oratorio,” so-called because it draws upon Mayr’s opera, I misteri eleusini for its material. I gather that the work bears certain similarities to the composer’s David in the Cave of Engedi , reviewed by Patrick Rucker in 32:4, and Samuele , both previously recorded for Naxos by Hauk. A parody oratorio, as I understand it, involves the practice of adapting popular operatic works to religious texts so they could be performed during Holy Week while his Holiness looked the other way.


Gioas dates from 1823 and is set to a libretto by an unknown author (or one who preferred to remain anonymous) that tells a story of internecine blood-letting over rights to the throne, treachery, and retribution, all of which through self-sacrifice and appeasement of various gods, goddesses, and priests—that’s the religious aspect—culminates in a happy ending. The work is appropriately referred to in the program note as “pseudo-sacred,” or, to call it what it is, a barely disguised excuse to present an unstaged opera in the guise of an oratorio. Mayr was not alone in fashioning such Church-sanctioned entertainments. The tradition persisted, mainly in Italy, through much of the 19th century, with Emilio Cianchi’s Giudetta , composed in 1854, being performed as late as 1912. Knowing this, it’s a bit difficult to follow the intrigues of the plot and to listen to the impassioned arias, the pattering recitatives, and the solemn and celebratory choruses without a smile and a smirk. No matter how much holy water you sprinkle on it, the opera that’s inside this oratorio won’t be exorcised. Considering that Gioas was written in the same year as Rossini’s Semiramide , Mayr’s work sounds rather dated for its time. But having been born in 1763, Mayr was almost 30 years Rossini’s senior. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that Mayr’s style should more closely resemble Mozart’s than it does Rossini’s.


The music is delightful, often touching, and artfully crafted for the voice. It’s no wonder that Mayr was so celebrated for his operas. The four soloists are all very convincing in their roles and well matched vocally. Add to that enlivened playing from Hauk’s instrumental forces, and you have a winning performance. Unfortunately, Naxos has not provided a text or translation, but the album note gives a pretty good synopsis of the mishmash that calls itself a plot. If you can pretend while listening to Mayr’s Gioas that it’s not just an opera masquerading as a sacred oratorio, you will find much in the work and in this recording of it to enjoy.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

S. MAYR David in the Cave of Engedi • Franz Hauk (hpd, cond); Merit Ostermann ( David ); Cornelia Horak ( Saul ); Ai Ichihara ( Michal ); Sibylla Duffe ( Jonathan ); Claudia Schneider ( Abner ); Simon Mayr Chorus & Ens • NAXOS 8.570366 (2 CDs: 94:13)


The Bavarian-born Johannes Simon Mayr (1763–1845) is probably most often remembered as the teacher and mentor of Donizetti. Until recently, his own works—more than 60 operas, some 600 liturgical compositions, as well as chamber music and symphonies—have been the realm of specialists. At 24 he abandoned studies in philosophy and law at the University of Ingolstadt to pursue a musical career in Italy. He studied first in Bergamo, then with Bertoni in Venice, where he began writing operas. The second he composed for La Fenice in 1796 was so successful that Mayr became much sought after in the world of Italian opera. The next year, his operas were produced in Vienna, and performances in other European capitals and in the U.S. followed. Despite lucrative offers from Paris, St. Petersburg, Lisbon, Dresden, and London, Mayr preferred to remain in Italy. He settled in Bergamo, establishing a music school, spearheading philanthropies to benefit musicians, and becoming an important champion of the Viennese style south of the Alps.


Mayr wrote his fascinating oratorio David in spelunca Engaddi (“David in the Cave of Engedi”) during his first creative blossoming. It was destined for one of the four Venetian ospedali , those institutions for orphaned or indigent girls where, earlier in the century, Vivaldi had been employed. Characteristically for a work commissioned by the Ospedale dei Mendicanti, its five solo roles, as well as the chorus, are all treble voices. The libretto by Foppa is based on scenes from Samuel I. King Saul is jealous of David, hero of Israel’s wars against the Philistines and tries to kill him. Saul’s son Jonathan and daughter Michal help David, who is able to stay one step ahead of Saul’s operatives. In the wilderness of Engedi, David comes upon Saul asleep in a cave. Though David has ample cause to kill Saul, he spares the king’s life. David’s display of loyalty reconciles Saul with his anointed successor as King of Israel. Though it’s difficult to say what is most striking about this masterful work, certainly character delineation in each principal role is unusually acute. Through the course of the oratorio, their characters develop with a psychological complexity rare in the genre, particularly in the late 18th century. The vocal writing is superb, florid, idiomatic, and deftly evokes the affects of the text.


Despite its economy of means, the choral writing, mostly in two parts, is extremely effective. And in a proto-Wagnerian sense, the orchestra almost becomes a character, its traditional role of accompaniment significantly expanded. Mayr is a deft and resourceful orchestrator. The brief Sinfonia that prefaces the first part of the oratorio is a little gem, worthy of the young Mozart. The Sinfonia that introduces part II, on the other hand, lasts more than five minutes, a virtual one-movement concerto grosso in Classical garb. Bassoons, oboes, horns and, above all, the harp (David’s instrument) interact with the orchestra in brilliant concertante style. Franz Hauk assembled an uncommonly strong group of soloists, each of whom meets Mayr’s vocal and dramatic demands with artistry and sophistication. Chorus and orchestra respond with ensemble cohesion to Hauk’s imaginative direction. The slow sound decay in the Assam Church of Maria de Victoria in Ingolstadt contributes to the near perfect acoustic ambiance with little blurring of detail. Informative notes are contributed by Iris Winkler, though listeners wishing to follow the text must download a 28-page libretto from the Naxos Web site.


Mayr has long been acknowledged as a key transitional figure between 18th- and 19th-century opera, and a potent influence on Rossini as well as Donizetti. But lately, signs of a fully-fledged revival keep cropping up. Opera Rara, the English company, has three complete Mayr operas in its catalog: Ginevra di Scozia (OR 23) and two productions of Medea in Corinto (OR 11 and OR 215). Cantatas (including one on the death of Beethoven) may be heard on Naxos 8.557958 and the oratorio La passione along with a Stabat mater setting are available on Guild 7251. In the instrumental realm, two of Mayr’s piano concertos may be sampled on Tactus 761301. The strong, nuanced performances that breathe life into David in spelunca Engaddi provide a strong argument for further exploration of Mayr’s imaginative and powerful music. They also suggest that a Mayr revival would be welcome and, perhaps, long overdue.


FANFARE: Patrick Rucker

Though revered as ‘the father of Italian opera’, Simon Mayr also wrote large-scale instrumental and orchestral music. His 1820 Concerto in D minor has an ingenious trick up its sleeve: it introduces each of the four soloists in turn with the flute, for example, soloing in the first movement and the clarinet in the second. This elegant, lyrical work hints at Beethoven but also at folklore in a winning way. The assured Keyboard Concerto reveals the influence of Haydn on the German-born Mayr whilst the Trio Concertante is imbued with Mayr’s vivid operatic impulses.

A successful musician in the early 19th century, Giovanni Simone Mayr composed the opera Medea in Corinto in 1813, the same year it premiered at the San Carlo theatre in Naples. The two act tragedy with libretto by Felice Romani was Mayr’s most popular theatrical work. The story is that of the Greek myth of Medea. “Michael Spyres, in the role of Jason, confirms to be one of the finest belcanto performers of the moment, endowed with a nimble voice and pure and solid high notes.” (Dynamic)

Johann Simon Mayr, born in Upper Bavaria, left a legacy of sixty operas and more than six hundred sacred and chamber music compositions. In the early 18th century, this extremely productive composer was one of the most successful opera composers in Northern Italy and his works were played all over Europe. It is all the more remarkable that he is practically unknown today. The quality of the music cannot be the reason, as is proved by the present recording of the Mass in C minor and the Stabat Mater. Excellent soloists, the Orpheus Vokalensemble und Concerto Koln under the baton of Florian Helgath do justice to the music.

During the 1813–14 carnival season in Naples, Simon Mayr wrote a much-admired opera semiseria called Elena. The post-revolutionary Napoleonic era saw great enthusiasm for the rescue opera genre and Elena is a perfect example, in which a complex plot, based on French models, sees an innocent falsely accused of a capital offence. Mayr’s subtle accommodation of Neapolitan opera and Viennese Classicism ensures a series of choruses and recitatives that drive the action forward, punctuated with arias, romances, ensembles, lyric richness and moments of witty buffo color.

REVIEW:

Franz Hauk continues his dedicated role championing the music of the German-born, Simon Mayr, now returning to his operas thought to number almost seventy.

First produced in Naples in January 1814, Mayr's Elena was well received and revived in 1816 at the much more influential venue of La Scala, Milan, and that was followed by Florence. At both theatres it is thought is was probably much revised. The story is complex—to say the least—and made even more so as you need to know the history that surrounds events that took place before the opera begins; all that is explained in the enclosed booklet. The opera calls for a dramatic soprano as the wronged Elena, here taken by the German-born Julia Sophie Wagner, who is enjoying a major career on both sides of the Atlantic. Her perky voice is perfect for her dual role where she has to masquerade as a young man when she returns to her homeland. But it is the many other characters who share the bulk of a work lasting around two and a half hours, though it does not seem that long! By this point the fine bass voice of Daniel Ochoa has taken over the score as Elena’s husband, Costantino, the two having parted as they fled from their execution, his long first act aria not far short of ten minutes. We are now introduced to Edmondo, who was part of the plot against Elena, here taken by the tenor, Markus Schafer, whose outstanding performances have graced many Mayr recordings. That leaves me to say how much I have enjoyed the bass, Niklas Mallmann, in the buffo role of Carlo; the bass, Andreas Mattersberger as Urbino, and Fang Zhi in the pivotal part of the Governor. He is joined in the opera’s final rejoicing with the fulsome Simon Mayr Chorus. For Hauk, the conductor, this is another major and unqualified success, his period instrument orchestra, Concerto de Bassus, both neat and with impeccable intonation. A fabulous release in every respect.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Mayr’s great Mass in E flat major is a late work, largely composed in 1843. It conforms to the prevailing Italian messa concertata tradition with its clear divisions into distinct vocal numbers, as opposed to the symphonic Mass which held sway north of the Alps. In this reconstruction and musical revival, Mayr’s imposing, tonally consonant and expressive setting can be heard in all its grandeur and eloquence. With its striking vocal solos and choruses, and characteristically songlike instrumental roles, Mayr contributed a late pinnacle in the long history of this form of the Mass.

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REVIEW:

As a listening experience there is much to enjoy here. Performances are committed, with special praise for the tenor, Markus Schäfer, though no-one lets the side down. Nothing lingers and there is a sense of energy and momentum. It is a valuable addition to the discography of 19th Century masses.

Praise to Naxos, for full notes and for including in the booklet the very familiar words and translation: too often record companies have made false economies by expecting the listener to have recourse to a website.

– MusicWeb International

A successful musician in the early 19th century, Giovanni Simone Mayr composed the opera Medea in Corinto in 1813, the same year it premiered at the San Carlo theatre in Naples. The two act tragedy with libretto by Felice Romani was Mayr’s most popular theatrical work. The story is that of the Greek myth of Medea. “Michael Spyres, in the role of Jason, confirms to be one of the finest belcanto performers of the moment, endowed with a nimble voice and pure and solid high notes.” (Dynamic)

Picture Format: NTSC, 16:9
Sound Formats: Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM 2.0
Subtitles: Italian, English, French, German, Korean
Region Code: 0 (All)
Running Time: 167 mins

A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month!

As an opera-lover with a particular interest in the ways opera developed and proliferated over the centuries, I’ve sometimes dreamt of a world in which every important composer’s first opera was available to listen to. It’s a fantasy: first operas are seldom as good as later ones and the recording industry, quite naturally, tends to seek out the best, not the earliest. Nevertheless, to anyone like me, first operas always have an intrinsic fascination, for they mark the point at which a particular individual talent joins the larger tradition. They often have much to say about a young composer’s influences and aspirations as well as the standards and expectations of those for whom the opera is written.

Johann Simon Mayr’s Saffo (1794) is a superlatively good and superlatively interesting first opera. Mayr wrote some seventy operas in the course of his three-decade operatic career and the vast majority have not been recorded, nor indeed performed since he enjoyed his final premiere in 1824. Franz Hauk’s decision to excavate the very first is thus both enterprising and unexpected, yet the results fully vindicate the project and the efforts of those involved. Saffo is revealed as an extraordinarily confident and masterful work with the composer’s mature personality already largely developed. A major reason for this, no doubt, is its comparative lateness: Mayr was already thirty when it received its premiere at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice. It is hard to think of any other important opera composer from this era, Beethoven always apart, who waited so long before seeing his work on stage. Cimarosa, the leading Italian opera composer when Mayr’s career commenced, composed fourteen operas before he was thirty; Rossini, the dominant presence at the end of Mayr’s career, managed over twice as many as that.

Delay, in Mayr’s case, appears to have been all to the good. There is something very deliberate about Saffo, a work bearing none of the signs of haste and inexperience that mar so many composers’ first operas. It is carefully planned and beautifully composed with a strong feel for the dramatic potential inherent in Antonio Simeone Sografi’s fine libretto. Gluck was surely a powerful influence and it is easy to suppose that Mayr, a German, may have dreamed of being a second Gluck. A more immediate influence was no doubt Ferdinando Bertoni (1725-1813), Mayr’s teacher in Venice, who was himself influenced by Gluck – to the point where Gluck did not scruple quietly to ‘borrow’ some of Bertoni’s arias. Then there was the larger influence of the Venetian operatic world which had become a hotbed for experimentation with the forms of opera seria – with Paris in turmoil, there was surely no better city for a composer of Mayr’s originality to be making his debut.

Sografi’s libretto is in two acts; as Marion Englhart points out in the Naxos notes, this was itself unusual, as three acts were standard. As each act of Saffo lasts almost exactly an hour on this recording, we thus have the distinctively modern shape of a two-hour opera with a single interval. Nothing seems hurried, yet there are no longueurs either; the pacing and overall dramatic arc of the opera are finely judged. The story is simplicity itself. Saffo, Alceo, Faone and their attendants have come to the Greek city of Leucadia to hear the Pythia, or High Priestess, pronounce an oracle inspired by Apollo. Saffo, the legendary poetess (known in English as Sappho) loves Faone, but it is not reciprocated; he is mourning the death of his wife Cirene. Alceo, a poet, loves Saffo. This much is established in Act One. In Act Two, the oracle is finally pronounced, and as was often the case with oracles, it is not perfectly clear:

Saffo ardisca! Saffo dare!
Alceo, gemi! Aleco groan!
Tremi Faone! Faone tremble!
(The Naxos translation gives ‘Saffo ardisca!’ as ‘Saffo bears it’, which is surely an unfortunate mistake.) This winds the emotional situation up to a higher pitch. Saffo, with some encouragement from the Pythia, believes she should commit suicide by undertaking the famous Leucadian leap. However, at the last moment the tragedy is averted by Faone, encouraged by Alceo, showing some sympathy for Saffo’s sufferings.

I must say this ending came as a complete surprise, and not a welcome one. It has the sort of tacked-on happy ending quality found in so many earlier opere serie — and beautifully sent up in The Beggar’s Opera — but this was certainly not a requirement in Venetian operas of the 1790s. I was taking it for granted that the opera would end with Saffo’s spectacular suicide, in the manner of Giovanni Pacini’s much more famous Saffo of 1840. Interestingly, another Sappho opera of 1794, Jean Paul Égide Martini’s Sapho, did end tragically. The general dramatic movement of Mayr’s opera seems to be towards tragedy, and the sombre colouring of his music prepares one for it. Perhaps, for some reason, he was not allowed to compose the ending he would himself have chosen.

This was my only disappointment with this really exciting release. At no point does Mayr’s score sound routine or turgid, nor is there any of the fluff and padding that make so many eighteenth-century operas much longer than they need be. His recitative is incisively dramatic; his arias strongly shaped, brief and to the point; his choruses noble; his use of the orchestra colourful and inventive. One feels throughout that the subject and libretto were very congenial to Mayr, allowing him to play to his strengths in the alternation of grand ceremonial scenes with the emotionally-fraught conflicts between, and within, the three principal characters. In his 1989 book on Mayr, John Stewart Allitt refers to Saffo briefly as ‘a block-buster of an opera’. He does not elaborate on his grounds for that judgement, but now the evidence is here, such an accolade seems fully justified.

The Naxos studio recording is bright and forward to the point of occasionally being a little claustrophobic, but there is something gripping about its immediacy. Franz Hauk, who has done so much for Mayr (see below) and is surely the greatest living authority on the composer, conducts with authority and panache. The singers are uniformly impressive, with the principals entering into the drama of the opera rather than just singing beautifully.

What’s not to like? Well, you have to download the libretto, which always annoys me, but I haven’t enjoyed a first opera so much for a long time, nor felt so enlightened by the experience of listening to one. Saffo will be an essential acquisition for anyone who loves Mayr’s music and, at Naxos prices, it should prove very attractive to anyone interested in the way opera developed in the crucial period after the French Revolution and Mozart’s death.

– MusicWeb International

There is every reason to be grateful to Franz Hauk and his co-workers for digging out and making available to the public this treasure-trove of music.

The indefatigable Franz Hauk continues his exploration of Simon Mayr’s enormous output of vocal music. This is the second volume of his motets. The previous volume (review) concentrated on his early essays in this genre, composed mainly in the 1790s. On the present volume we meet the mature master in works spanning the years 1800 – 1830. He was by then established as the leading opera composer in Italy, and it is easy to find influences from that field. His skilful handling of the orchestra with particular focus on the woodwind is one characteristic that regular buyers of Mayr recordings will be familiar with, his rich melodic vein another. The former feature is well illustrated in the Salve Regina I-BGc 307/2 (tr. 3), where the oboe is prominent throughout; the melodic gift is omnipresent but O Virgo immaculata is uncommonly tuneful and also for other reasons stands out. Like the opening, Litaniae Lauretanae it begins darkly and fatefully, there is a dramatic recitative followed by a decidedly operatic aria with quite extensive decorations. Then more recitativo accompagnato, up-tempo this time, and so a cavatina in two parts with a lot of coloratura, and finally an Alleluja. This is a great piece of music and Markus Schäfer is the excellent soloist.

The just mentioned Litaniae is also an interesting composition. Dark colours and a noble melody. Halfway through a fanfare introduces a faster section with contrapuntal writing, but the work ends as it begins, slowly and contemplatively. This is the grandest of the motets here with full chorus and a group of soloists which functions as a unit as well as individual voices. In Salve Regina I-BGc 307/1 as well as the concluding Ave Regina the chorus is reduced to four choir soloists. Andrea Lauren Brown and Markus Schäfer have been featured soloists on several previous recordings in this series and they are very good. Ms Brown impresses with her coloratura singing in the third Salve Regina (tr. 6) and Schäfer is a pillar of strength in Regina coeli (tr. 5) and the fourth Salve Regina (tr. 7), the former jubilant and quite elaborated. The third soloist was new to me, German baritone Daniel Ochoa, a former student of Thomas Quasthoff. His dramatic singing in the first Salve Regina (tr. 2) is excellent, and exposed in full-length portrait in Laudem volo cantitare (tr. 8) he reveals beautiful tone, fluent coloratura, nuanced singing and operatic expressivity – he is since a handful of years a permanent member of the Vienna Volksoper. Great singing indeed – and attractive music. Ochoa also opens the concluding Ave Regina. The fourth soloist, alto Johanna Krödel is only heard briefly.

There is every reason to be grateful to Franz Hauk and his co-workers for digging out and making available to the public this treasure-trove of music from the pen of Johann Simon Mayr.

– MusicWeb International (Göran Forsling)

As one of the leading operatic composers of his generation, Johann Simon Mayr nurtured a fascination with the chivalric stories of medieval England. Le due duchesse, an opera semiseria with buffa elements, is set during the reign of the 10th-century King Edgar. Huntsmen’s and Knights’ choruses and troubadour-like songs give great vivacity to a score that is both lyrical and dramatic. Mayr’s compound of Viennese Classicism and Italianate melodic beauty, allied to his ambitious writing and a skillful libretto, produced an important and influential opera couched in his own unmistakable idiom.

Medieval England exerted a strong influence on Johann Simon Mayr, especially during his final proto-Romantic period. Alfredo il Grande was to be one of his last operas, with a narrative that takes us to a land under threat of war with the Vikings. Escaping capture, Alfred the Great travels incognito, ultimately defeating the enemy and rescuing his beloved Alsvita. With its grandiose choruses and sensuous melodies, this opera was conceived on a monumental scale and proved both impressive at its premiere and influential on the next generation of bel canto composers, making a substantial contribution to the development of the melodramma romantico.