EDWARD ELGAR
The Black Knight, Op. 25, symphony for chorus and orchestra
ALFRED SCHNITTKE
“Seid nüchtern und wachet…” (Faust Cantata)
Iva Bittová voice, Jan Mikušek countertenor, Richard Samek tenor, Jiří Brückler baritone
Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno, choir director Petr Fiala
Filharmonie Brno, conductor Dennis Russell Davies
Faust is a topic that accompanied Alfred Schnittke throughout his creative life. When looking for the text for his “Faust Cantata” (1982), he deliberately avoided Goethe’s Romantic version and chose a 1587 chapbook. The moral of the story begins with the words “Be sober and watch”, which were adopted by Schnittke for the title of his cantata. Depicting Faust’s death, the seventh part of the work serves as its focal point; Schnittke conceived it as a tango, dominated by Mephistophelia’s contralto, thundering over the orchestra with the aid of a modern sound system.
Iva Bittová, one of the most distinctive figures of the Czech alternative music scene, first performed the part of Mephistophelia in Schnittke’s cantata in 2008. Her spontaneity, her vocal talent and her expression allowed her to embody this role perfectly, as later convincingly demonstrated to the Brno audience as well as to Vladimir Spivakov, who invited her to perform the “Mephistophelian tango” in September 2019.
The compositional oeuvre of Edward Elgar (1857–1934) was influenced by the English tradition of choral singing and church music and cultivated by German neo-Romanticism. One of the works standing on these foundations is The Black Knight, a cantata in four movements written in 1889–1893 and described by the composer as a symphony for chorus and orchestra.
