…in the 18th century!
The Madre Antigua brotherhood of Cádiz was a group of pious believers who, since 1730, had been holding spiritual retreats and prayers in a private house every Thursday from midnight for three hours, consisting of scenes of the Passion and the Lord’s Seven Last Words. However, these gatherings were a ‘thorn in the side’ of the ecclesiastical authorities in Cádiz. They were particularly disturbed by the fact that these prayers and retreats took place in a private house. So the brotherhood was ‘asked’ to meet for their devotions in the church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario.
A chance discovery brings music for Passion devotions from Vienna to Cádiz:
When a cavity, the ‘holy grotto’, was discovered during the renovation of this church in 1756, Don José Saenz de Santa Maria developed the desire for a new sacred building. He was a wealthy man and a member of the Madre Antigua. When he was later appointed spiritual director of the brotherhood, he had a chapel built in 1771 on the cavity that had been discovered by chance. The art-loving founder, who had in the meantime been appointed Marquès de Valde-Inig, not only commissioned important architects and artists of the visual arts to design his Santa Cueva. He also wanted instrumental music to be created that would rank with the highest artistic standards of the time. The generous priest and Marquis, who was also a priest, wanted none other than the already highly celebrated Joseph Haydn, from the enlightened Viennese Empire of Joseph II, to compose the music. 
When Haydn accepted the commission from Cádiz, he was well aware of the extraordinary difficulties of the work to be written. The purpose of the composition provided the framework for the music, as it were. Haydn is said to have received an extraordinary fee for his composition, which was handed over in the form of a cake. He was certainly surprised by the filling of the cake: the inside of the cake was literally gilded, because it contained gold pieces.
Stuttgart premiere of a new version of the forgotten masterpiece
According to VDKC statistics, Joseph Haydn’s vocal version of the ‘Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross’ was performed only 17 times in 16,801 concerts in Germany between 1980 and 2004. Unfortunately, the Stuttgart Oratorio Choir has not included this work in its concert programmes since 1988. A new, as yet unknown version of this rarely performed masterpiece will now be presented by the Stuttgart Oratorio Choir for the first time in Stuttgart at its traditional Palm Sunday concert. Haydn had already experimented with sound in his oratorios. He published his Nelson Mass in two versions: one with strings, a small wind section and organ, and another with strings and a large wind section, which in turn replaced the organ part. Inspired by this practice, Edgar Fackler from Memmingen has also arranged such an organ arrangement of the wind section for Haydn’s ‘Seven Last Words’. This version, together with the original string parts, will be performed in the Leonhardskirche on 24 March 2024. It places an even greater emphasis on the sacred music in the church – and would thus also be entirely in keeping with the intentions of its creator, Joseph Haydn.
Concert tickets are now available from the choir members or via our contact form.
