I suppose that, since the beginning of musical history, composers have been writing 'mood' music, that is music to create an atmosphere or set a scene: the Pastoral Symphonies in Handel's Messiah and Bach's Christmas Oratorio spring to mind, as do the divertimentos and serenades of Mozart. The first commissioned work of this type, though, appears to have been Haydn's Seven Last Words which was composed for the Good Friday liturgy of the Cathedral of Cadiz in 1785. The form of the service was that after the Introduction, the Bishop uttered the first word and delivered a meditation upon it, and while the congregation pondered these thoughts appropriate music was played. The same procedure was followed for each word and the music ended with a representation of the earthquake at the death of Jesus. The original orchestral version of the work proved so popular that versions quickly followed for chorus and orchestra, as well as for string quartet and for piano.
On this CD, Sandor Vegh and his Camerata Academica use an edition based on the string-quartet version and are recorded at a live performance in the Konzerthaus in Vienna. The audience is surprisingly quiet and the performance has a spontaneity and cumulative tension which it would be difficult to generate in the sterility of a recording studio. There are greater dynamic contrasts and more bite to the accents than a string quartet could achieve, and the phrasing is beautifully pointed. My only disappointment is that the earthquake is a little bit tame.'