Ryba, Jakub Jan Stabat mater

Ryba, Jakub Jan Stabat mater

Jakub Jan Ryba… A God-Gifted Teacher-Musician Who Chose to Take His Own Life

In Ryba’s own words, the Stabat Mater was composed within six weeks during the time when he was
struggling with his “common malady.” Although we do not know the exact nature of his disease, which was
probably psychosomatic and disabled him from his job as a headmaster, we can assume that his altered mental state enabled him to touch the very limits of his compositional art. It remains a paradox that this monumental sacred work has not been performed more often. It was never published until 2015, and a year later, the very first recording available to the public was made.

Simona Šaturová - soprán
Markéta Cukrová - alt
James Kryshak - tenor
Adam Plachetka - bas

L'Armonia Terrena, Martinů Voices
Zdeněk Klauda - conductor

Jakub Jan Ryba…
A God-Gifted Teacher-Musician Who Chose to Take His Own Life
Jakub Jan Ryba is wrongly regarded as a composer of only one piece: the Czech Christmas Mass, without which today it is impossible to imagine Czech Christmas. His legacy as a composer, however, is much more diverse than anyone could think. It reflects the richness of Ryba’s multifaceted talent, stemming in part from his conscious conceptual thinking but at the same time wholly imbued with spiritual charge with which Ryba, a deeply religious man, endowed all his works.
His musical talent, creative powers, congenital diligence and resilience predetermined him for the career of
a professional musician and successful composer – but his fate, or, if you prefer, God led him in a somewhat different direction. And so this versatile artist inspired by the Muses, a composer, poet and philosopher, ended up in the rural town of Rožmitál pod Třemšínem, where he dutifully performed his job as a teacher. However, the sound of music in his heart did not fade away – quite the contrary. He put his talent mainly in the service of church music, writing compositions for the choir of Rožmitál which abound in fresh inventiveness and ability, through musical language, to convey Christian messages and mysteries to the common people.
There is no way for us to know whether Ryba realized the extent of his musical talent and how much he suffered from narrow-mindedness in his social environment, which did not allow him to develop it fully. What we do know is that being a responsible man, he did not neglect any of the duties entrusted to him. As a consequence he often found himself on edge, both mentally and physically exhausted. This further aggravated his constant struggle for recognition, understanding, and often mere existence. The pressure of adverse circumstances, combined with the fragile psyche of the sensitive man and artist, eventually led him to the last resolution in his life, that of dying by his own hand.
Thus tragically ended the life of the Renaissance artist Jakub Jan Ryba, who was never allowed even to touch the worldly success his talent deserved. However, the music he left behind is full of immeasurable spiritual riches, and its permanent value still powerfully speaks to us today.

Zdeněk Klauda

The name of the most prominent Czech teacher-musician at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the well-educated teacher and choirmaster in Rožmitál, composer, writer and poet Jakub (Šimon) Jan Ryba (26 October 1765 – 8 April 1815) is still mostly remembered in connection with his Česká mše vánoční (Czech Christmas Mass) from 1796. As the only original Czech mass ever, it ensured recognition for its composer not only across Europe but also overseas. On the other hand, the rest of his extensive and diverse work still goes unnoticed and is only available to a narrow circle of music experts and several enthusiastic admirers.
The backbone of his work is sacred music, which was prompted by practical needs of the Old Rožmitál
chorus and by the duties ensuing from his position as headmaster, which he held from his arrival to Rožmitál
in 1788 until his death. Besides these compositions he also wrote numerous works the scope, instrumentation and complexity of which exceeded local capacities. The majority of them were compositions dedicated to the choir in Plzeň.
Of his abundant work (ca 1,500 compositions) only a minor part has survived: about 400 sacred works, and
a slight torso of secular music. All the same, Ryba’s musical legacy is truly remarkable. He composed dozens of arias, pastorales and other smaller pieces intended for the church, as well as 89 masses, but also some extensive and for his time remarkably progressive compositions.
A peculiar and so far little known part of Ryba’s sacred work are his compositions to a Czech text, which
with the single exception of his signature piece (where he, like in some others, set his own text to music)
have never been performed. All of them provide a valuable evidence of Ryba’s effort to employ the Czech
language in sacred music. Alongside with his absolutely unique Tě Boha vychvalujem (Te Deum), Chválozpěv k sv. Janu Nepomuckému (The Hymn to St. John Nepomuk) from 1803 and two Stabat Mater compositions, his affection for his mother tongue is most clearly attested by his Nešporní zpěvy (Chants for Vespers) from 1798, for which Ryba translated from Latin and put into verse five Sunday psalms and the Magnificat.
However, in most of his sacred works Ryba respectfully uses the liturgical language – Latin. The highlight of this part of his output is his unique project titled Cursus Sacro-Harmonicus, on which he started work in 1808 and wherein he undertook to compose masses, gradualia and offertories (variable components of the mass) for each Sunday of the liturgical year and important holidays. Although during the last years of Ryba’s life only a third of the intended whole was accomplished, his five-volume manuscript on 1,300 pages is not only admirable evidence of Ryba’s mastery as a composer, but especially his indomitable diligence and purposeful effort to uplift the level of church music.
Of his equally impressive secular work (ca 80 compositions), which he started to compose as a student in
Prague, only a few pieces have survived: several unusually technically difficult violin concertos, a concerto for violoncello, two symphonies and four quartets. At the intersection of sacred and secular music lies the only surviving set of organ works from 1798 titled Novae et liberae cogitationes, in which Ryba gave vent to his “new and free ideas.” He provided the introductory Toccata with comments in Latin, enhancing his composition with an extra-musical philosophical program.
Despite his extensive activity as a composer and a writer, the main focus of Ryba’s life was his mission as a teacher, which at the cost of personal sacrifice he relentlessly pursued until his death. Still, his strenuous job did not prevent him from writing tremendous works, often in a difficult personal situation. As a result, he has a permanent place alongside the most remarkable Czech composers.

Hubert Hoyer

RYBA’S STABAT MATER | INTRODUCTION
Ryba’s relationship to the town of Plzeň was permeated with thankfulness to the place where he never lived, but where his compositions found recognition already during his lifetime. He lived to see not only respect and admiration (crowned in 1805 by the town granting him honorary citizenship) but also financial support for his son Vilém when he studied there. Ryba was determined to do his best to return these favors.
Ryba dedicated more than a hundred of his compositions to the town of Plzeň. Of them, the most
rewarding is the Latin oratorio Stabat Mater from 1805, a climactic and perhaps the most important of his
works. He was inspired in its composition by his friend František Křepelka, who at that time led the choir
at St. Bartholomew Church. Ryba obviously thought very high of this composition, because he mentioned
it both in his “family journal” and his versified autobiography from 1806. The composition was dedicated
to František Mattas, who supervised music in the churches of Plzeň. It excels in instrumentation and was
intended for the advanced choir in Plzeň with excellent singers and musicians, so that Ryba could rely on
their proficiency.
In Ryba’s own words, the Stabat Mater was composed within six weeks during the time when he was
struggling with his “common malady.” Although we do not know the exact nature of his disease, which was
probably psychosomatic and disabled him from his job as a headmaster, we can assume that his altered mental state enabled him to touch the very limits of his compositional art. It remains a paradox that this monumental sacred work has not been performed more often. It was never published until 2015, and a year later, the very first recording available to the public was made.

Hubert Hoyer

RYBA’S STABAT MATER | ANALYSIS
The Stabat Mater must have spoken to Ryba very urgently, which is probably why (unlike most composers of his time) he set this hymn to music no less than three times. Twice he used a Czech translation, while his third Stabat Mater from 1805, an extensive and exacting piece for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, mixed choir and orchestra, employed the Latin original. He divided the text into twelve musical movements, wherein each of the soloists was entrusted one aria, and the tenor and bass one more accompanied recitative each. There are also two solo quartets, two choral numbers, a duet for soprano and alto, a trio for soprano, alto and tenor, all this preceded by a weighty and dramatic instrumental overture.
The whole composition is interesting in its stylistic diversity and use of all possible means of expression,
starting with the legacy of the late Baroque, through high Classicism to the beginning of Romanticism.
Especially interesting is the diversity in instrumentation with which the composer endowed the individual
movements.
The work opens with an agitated Introduction, wherein Ryba depicts the drama which preceded Jesus’
crucifixion: the chaos in which the Earth’s foundations were shaken, the cruelty and extreme emotional strain, weeping, compassion and moaning. The dynamic rhythmic pulsation in the strings in triplets is interspersed with semitone sobs in the bassoons and furious interjections of the flute and the clarinet. The music builds rapidly, soon leading to the first climax. Now the turmoil of the sixteenth-note motion in the violins is unleashed.
However, in the deep strings there is still the triplet rhythm and the kinetic tension ensuing from this conflict strengthens the dramatic character of the movement even more. Another striking element of the introduction is a syncopated rhythm, which in its kinetic instability supports even more the overall tense character of the movement. The structure of the whole introduction is just as pulsating as the opening few bars, in which (as in Beethoven) the “DNA” is encoded from which then everything stems. After several climaxes the movement returns to pianissimo and at the very conclusion Ryba presents a pensive semitone motif in the oboe, derived by diminution from the introductory melodic line of the bassoons. The whole movement concludes with a gradual soothing of the rhythmic motion and lowering to pianissimo.
The composer passes into the vocal portion with a surprising, terse E flat major chord of the whole orchestra in fortissimo, which comes quite unexpectedly, immediately after the general pause. Ryba entrusted the first verses of the Stabat Mater sequence to the quartet of soloists. This part already radiates the Romantic spirit of the composition with beautiful melodic inventiveness, which touches the listeners and conveys to them the suffering of the Mater Dolorosa standing right under the cross, on which her son Jesus is dying. Several times 1819 during the movement we hear a sequence of two terse chords of the whole orchestra, which suggest a sword penetrating the mother’s heart (“pertransivit gladius”). The grid of voices is also penetrated by the extended semitone motif, known already to the listeners from the introduction, which works here, among other things, as a unifying factor.
The text “Quis est homo” is set to music as a visceral duet of the soprano and the alto and accompanied mostly by the string orchestra, used in the lower position of the range. The movement opens with an expressive viola solo, and the same instrument then reappears several times as a solo through its counterpoint in dialogue with the vocal lines. After the slow opening (Andante) comes a faster section (Con piů moto), where the urgency of the content is even more intense, but at the very conclusion there is a sudden break to the slowest tempo (Adagio) and the soprano and alto emotionally sing the concluding question “in tanto, in tanto supplicio?”
The movement beginning “Quis non posset” is entrusted to the tenor and conceived as a solo aria with
important roles for flute, oboe and bassoon. The bassoon imitates and develops the thematic material of the aria, whereas the flute and the oboe introduce new musical ideas that are combined in counterpoint with the main melodic line of the solo tenor. The string instruments are mostly entrusted with merely a simple “oompah” accompaniment; only the violas, cellos and double bass join the dominant flute line in contrary motion. The aria concludes with a pensive thematic cello reminiscence.
The choral movement “Pro peccatis suae gentis” is conceived polyphonically with accompaniment by the full orchestra excepting only timpani. In terms of dramatic structure the work climaxes here: after several relatively contemplative passages Ryba brings in dramatic music corresponding to the meaning of the text, and almost the whole performing apparatus rises up to powerfully express the suffering of Christ for our sins. Then the music suddenly subsides and in a slow tempo (Adagio sostenuto) in the solo soprano, supported only by simple held chords of clarinets and bassoons, we hear an angel-like cantilena with the text “Vidit suum.”
The soprano aria “Eia mater” is the very heart of the composition. This extensive and masterfully throughcomposed aria with several concertante instruments (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, viola and cello) is a real gem in the genre of sacred aria. Its clarity and brilliance refer to the musical language of the high Classical style. When we listen to the virtuoso clarinet part we must think of the aria of Sesto (“Parto, ma tu ben mio”) from Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito. Did Ryba know this opera? The “minor-mode Ryba” never ceases to amaze us with his versatility and compositional mastery. Just when we are starting to feel that nothing can surprise us, he brings in a pensive violoncello solo, to which the solo voice momentarily subsides and which “sotto voce” (in muffled voice) presents its sensitive counterpoint.
The following bass aria “Fac, ut ardeat” presents flute as the concertante instrument and also brings to the fore the solo heckel-clarina. To this instrument he only entrusted the typical rhythm and melody of a fanfare, but in combination with a soft flute part and the brilliantly composed bass solo it forms a well-balanced whole. The solo part is replete with heroic male singing, giving vent to the joy redeemed by pain, but also with delicate (dolce) and virtuoso coloratura passages.
Another weighty musical number in Ryba’s Stabat Mater is “Sancta Maria.” It is the longest part of the
whole piece which at the same time uses the most modest instrumentation. It is composed for soprano, alto and tenor; all that is left of the orchestra are the violins, cellos and basses, supported by a pair of French horns adding color. The solo voices are supplemented by instrumental solos of violins and viola. These two instruments are entrusted with the opening section and their harmonious interplay forms the overall positive character of the movement. The main theme is then taken over by the alto. The soprano and the tenor introduce new themes, which are further developed and undergo a series of transformations. This section is especially inventive, consisting of three recurring thematic segments. The concluding coda is formed from the material of the main theme.
The brief tenor recitative and arioso “Fac me vere” is written in the unusual key of D flat major; the vocal line is supported only by string instruments and continuo (harpsichord or organ). After several bars the recitative flows into an arioso, where as a reminiscence the introductory theme from the first part of the Stabat Mater reappears.
Next comes the lovely alto aria “Virgo virginum” with solo oboe. Its basic melodic contours are sprinkled
with very short notes as variations. The aria is accompanied only by the string section of the orchestra
playing pizzicato, with occasional passages played by pairs of bassoons and French horns in the background. Thus the entire musical and extra-musical message is concentrated in the vocal part. Its genuine humility and modest but effective means of expression are very typical of Ryba’s style.
The accompanied recitative (accompagnato) “Fac me plagis” is composed for bass and strings with continuo.
The dramatic opening represents Christ’s wounds; the calmer vocal line and orchestral responses represent a voice pleading for protection and salvation. This music leads to the second quartet of solo voices “Christe cum sit hinc exire,” which is quite unusually accompanied only by eight wind instruments (two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and two French horns), while the strings (the usual basis of orchestral sound) are completely omitted, which gives the movement an exceptional sound. The more or less homophonic texture of the solo voices is led by the soprano, lightly soaring to the heights; the same procedure is then imitated in the tenor. In the winds, the solo motifs of the oboe, the
clarinet and the French horn come to the fore. The whole movement is permeated with a soothing figuration of semiquavers in the clarinets, helping to create an airy harmonic foundation, over which other thematic lines float elegantly.
The final “Quando corpus” utilizes for the first time the whole performing apparatus of the work (four
soloists, chorus and the complete orchestra), including the contrabassoon which has not played before at
all. The contrabassoon has no independent part, only accentuating the bass line an octave lower. The choir enters directly without any introduction and from the quiet opening unison intensifies both in harmony
and in dynamics, supported by the triplet motion of the string section. It is no coincidence that this motion
reminds one of the fierce triplets of the introduction. However, here these triplets are not part of the chaos
suggested in the introduction, but lead to heavenly paradise. The exaltation of the whole message inspired
Ryba to this magnificent movement, which is not far removed from Beethoven’s vocal-instrumental works,
especially in its intellectual and moral-ethical charge. He has the soprano section of the choir soar up to
the three-line octave and three times has it sing a held “c3”! Also remarkable in this movement is the slow
middle section (Adagio), where in the relatively remote key of A flat major the solo quartet sings the whole
text within merely seven bars. The concluding “Amen” begins with the solo soprano singing an absolutely
unheard of interval for this word: the interval of an augmented fourth (the tritone, formerly also known as
the diabolus in musica, i.e. devil in music); later other voices join the soprano and resolve the dissonance back to the tonic. Here in a bright C major the whole composition ends and the path “per aspera [C minor] ad astra [C major]” is completed. The spiritual message of the meaning of Christ’s death reverberates in every bar of this work, indeed in every single note.

Zdeněk Klauda