Just by the Ponte del Soccorso in Venice stands the church of
San Raffaele Arcangelo; built in 1518 to designs by Francesco
Contin, though with a later façade,
the church contains, on the railing of an organ of 1750, five paintings by Giannantonio
Guardi which tells the story of Tobias, paintings which probably also date from
around 1750. One of the paintings is reproduced on the front of this pair of
two CD set from Naxos. Indeed, Guardi’s canvases, with their rococo-like
use of the lighter colours of, say, Tiepolo, rather than the richer ones of Titian
or Veronese, make an excellent visual accompaniment or analogy for Simon Mayr’s
very attractive oratorio.
Born in Augsburg, Mayr made his way to Bergamo by 1789, to study with Carlo Lenzi,
who was maestro di cappella at the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore. This arrangement
proved unsatisfactory for some reason, however, and one of the canons of S. Maria
Maggiore, Count Pesenti, arranged for him to study instead with Ferdinando Bertoni,
maestro di cappella of San Marco in Venice. Mayr soon established himself in
the musical life of Venice - and, one would like to think, saw Guardi’s
canvases. After his initial studies, he based himself back in Bergamo, while
writing many stage works for Venice and elsewhere and becoming an influential
teacher: Donizetti was one of his students.
Tobiae matrimonium is an early
work, written for performance in Venice and setting a libretto by Giuseppe Maria
Foppa (available
online,
in Latin and in German translation; there is no sign, however, of the English
translation promised on the back cover of the CD). There had been, of course,
many other musical treatments of the story of Tobias - Mayr’s own teacher
Bertoni wrote one in 1773 and there were others by Anfossi (1780) and Galuppi
(1782). Perhaps the most familiar predecessor is Haydn’s
Il ritorno
di Tobia (1775/84). All derive, ultimately, from the story of Tobias as recounted
in
The Book of Tobit. Most treatments of the story concentrate on Tobias’s
return and his miraculous cure of his father’s blindness.
Tobiae matrimonium, as
its title suggests,
places its emphasis almost exclusively upon
Tobias’s
marriage to Sara, daughter of Raguel and Anna, in Ecbatana. This episode is also
rather infrequently treated by painters illustrating the story of Tobias - although,
as we have seen, Guardi was an exception to this.
Mayr’s music is full of vitality and energy and good tunes are plentiful.
Though this is a Latin oratorio - and was probably performed by the women of
the Ospidale dei Mendicanti - it is of operatic music that one is most often
reminded, music such as that of Cimarosa or Paisiello. Perhaps not coincidentally
Mayr’s first opera,
Saffo, was performed at the Teatro La Fenice
in the very same years as
Tobiae matrimonium, and Mayr went on to compose
many further works for the stage.
This performance of
Tobiae matrimonium makes a very good case for the
work. All of the soloists are thoroughly competent, and handle Mayr’s occasionally
complex passage-work with fair bravura. No one lets the side down at all, though
perhaps it is Cornelia Hauk, as Sara, who catches the ear most completely. The
direction of Franz Hauk is exemplary and well informed - his scholarly credentials,
indeed, are evident from the note on ‘The Sources’ that he contributes
to the CD booklet. The excellent documentation also includes an introduction
and synopsis (by Anja Morgenstern), a note on the Biblical background (by Isidor
Vollnhals) and observations on ‘The Oratorio Performance Practice of the
Mendicanti’ (by Iris Winkler).
All in all this is the sort of issue which - if we had not been spoiled by so
much of what Naxos has done in recent years - we would rush to proclaim an astonishing
bargain. We still should.
Glyn Pursglove
see also review by Robert
Hugill
Raguel - Judith Spiesser
(soprano) 
