Vertumnus (painting)
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Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Vertumnus is a painting by Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo produced in Milan c. 1590-1591.
The painting is Arcimboldo's most famous work and is a portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf
II re-imagined as Vertumnus, the Roman god of metamorphoses in nature and life; the fruits and
vegetables symbolize the abundance of the Golden Age that has returned under the Emperor's rule.
[1][2]
52 Chorale Preludes, Op. 67, is a collection of 52 settings of popular
Protestant hymns for organ by Max Reger, composed between 1900 and 1902. Originaly published
in three volumes between 1900 and 1903 with the cover title "52 Choralvorspiele fr Orgel" (52
chorale preludes for organ), the full title of the collection was "Zweiundfnfzig leicht ausfhrbare
Vorspiele zu den gebruchlichsten evangelischen Chorlen".
Contents
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1Background
2Chorale preludes
3Notes
4References
5Further reading
6External links
Background[edit]
In a letter to the publishers Lauterbach & Kuhn in 1902 when he had only composed 50 of the
preludes, Reger wrote, "None are technically difficult and the melodies have been collected by an
organist of 30 years experience. I can surely say without any arrogance that since J. S. Bach, no
such collection has been published!"[1] While he composed some settings in Weiden in 1900, he
wrote the majority of the preludes in Munich between September 1901 and October 1902. Reger's
full title for the collection, "Zweiundfnfzig leicht ausfhrbare Vorspiele zu den gebruchlichsten
evangelischen Chorlen",[2] has been translated as "Fifty-two easy preludes on the most common
Lutheran chorales". They were originally published in three volumes with the cover title "52
Choralvorspiele fr Orgel" (52 chorale preludes for organ) between 1900 and 1903: Volume 1, Nos.
115; Volume 2, Nos. 1636; Volume 3, Nos. 3752.[3]
The idea of writing such a collection dates back to 1893. Its size and formshort pieces with four-
part writing and almost no episodeshas similarities with the 46 "minuaturist" chorale preludes of
Bach's Orgelbchlein. The wording of the title reflects Reger's concern that his shorter pieces should
be accessible and without technical difficulties: his organ works had previously been criticized for
being too difficult and complex. In a 1904 letter to his friend Karl Straube, organist at
the Thomaskirche, advising him on which pieces to perform in a Leipzig recital, Reger indicated his
own preferences, picking out O Welt ich mu dich lassen and Vater unser as amongst the most
beautiful. There is a musical "echo effect" in each of these pieces, with the chorale played a second
time only on the manuals with a subdued dynamic. The musicologist Christopher Anderson
compares Reger's setting of "O Welt" with the last piece from Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122
of Johannes Brahms, published posthumously in 1902, which uses a double echo effect and has a
similar mood of "melancholic leave-taking". Reger's compositional style in the preludes, although
intended to be simple from a technical point of view, was musically complex, occasionally mirroring
musical features of chorale preludes in Bach's collection: Reger's setting of "Machs mir, Gott, nach
deiner Gt" has several similarities with O Mensch, bewein dein Snde gro, BWV 622one of
Reger's favouriteswith the same type of flattened sixth at the close.[1]
Reger's op. 67 represents his most significant contribution to the genre of chorale prelude. In 1916,
the musicologist Harvey Grace described it in The Musical Times as showing Reger "at his best". In
1961 the American organist Allan Bacon commented on "the enormous disparity between the
various pieces from the standpoint of sheer technical difficulty," describing some as "tenderly naive,
flowly gently along" while others were only playable by virtuoso organists like Karl Straube, who
championed Reger's works during his lifetime. In his 1939 biography of Reger, Fritz Stein wrote of
the chorale preludes in Op. 67 and Op. 79b, "In spite of their contrapuntal art and link with the
motivic work of the old organ chorales, they represent no advancement on the depth of religious
expression found in Bach's models. Many are merely workmanlike, but if a chorale rests on Reger's
innermost religious convictionssuch as 'Auf tiefer Not', 'Herzlich tut mich verlangen' and 'O Welt
ich muss dich lassen'then these preludes express pious emotion."[4]
The chorale preludes in Op. 67 can be divided into five types: [4]
Harmonized chorale prelude. These are the most accessible of the chorale preludes, of
varying degrees of complexity. There are eight such preludes (Nos. 19, 20, 29, 33, 37, 45, 50
and 52). They are homophonic, written for four or five voices, with the cantus firmusthe
chorale melodyin the soprano, sometimes also shared with the pedal; in No. 52 the melody is
wholly in the pedal part. The distinguishing feature of these preludes is that the accompaniment
is not constructed from motives derived from the cantus firmus.
Figural chorale prelude. These form the bulk of the collection, all but thirteen of the preludes
having this form. Of the figurative chorales, three are ornamental chorale preludes, a genre
described in further detail below. The figural chorale preludes have
Painting[edit]
Looking from the distance, Arcimboldo's whimsical portraits might look like portraits, but they are
assembled using vegetables, books, plants, kitchen utensils, oils, fruits, sea creatures, animals and
tree roots, each individual object chosen to give the impression of anatomical trait of a human face.
The portrait of the emperor is created out of plants flowers and fruits from all
seasons: gourds, pears, apples, cherries, grapes, wheat, artichokes, peapods, corns, onions, articho
ke, cabbage foils, cherries, chestnuts, figs, mulberries, grapes, plums, pomegranates, various
pumpkins and olives. Rudolf's portrait is composed of fruit, vegetables and flowers were to
symbolize the perfect balance and harmony with nature that his reign represented. These portraits
were an expression of the Renaissance mind's fascination with riddles, puzzles, and the bizarre.
Arcimboldo's traditional religious subjects were later forgotten, but his portraits of human heads
composed of objects were greatly admired by his contemporaries. The painting Vertumnus is part of
the collection at Skokloster Castle in Sweden.[3][4]
