Introduction of the last 7 words of Christ for organ - E-score PDF

E-SCORE PDF VERSION

Adaptation for organ by Jean-Paul IMBERT

This work was commissioned in 1786 in Haydn for the Good Friday service of the Santa Cueva Church of Cadiz in Spain: a musical commentary was to follow each of the seven words spoken by the celebrant. Haydn first wrote a work for orchestra, including an introduction and a final. A few years later he made a reduction for string quartet, then he remade it to make an oratorio, with four voices soloists, mixed chorus and orchestra. The introduction, transcribed for organ, opposes passages of interrogative agreements, in pointed rhythm, ended by an ascending interval, to comments played by the solist instruments on a background of ostinato entrusted to the strings..There is a great kinship between this page and the famous adagio in C minor minor Mozart KV 546: same climate of opposition between anxious questions and moments of hope, the two pages ending in the appeasing of the pianissimo.