Customer Reviews

Jan Dismas Zelenka: Missa Dei Patris, ZWV 19, C-dur

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This one of the last six "missae ultimae" of JD Zelenka. According to what I've read, these masses were never performed during his lifetime - they were written for Zelenka's own satisfaction but alas the cycle of six ended at only three when death claimed him. Much like Bach's mass in b minor, which was also never performed in its entireity during his life time except in his own heart, this mass was written, and perhaps shared with trusted intimates but had to wait for a more enlightened time to see the light of day.

Highly "operatic" here and intimate there, full of pathos and then exuberance, sounding so much like good Opera that it is hard to remember that this is also a Catholic Mass. However if you find the idea of a "Mass" somewhat unpleasant don't let it put you off for it is also first class entertainment. This work shares with all of Zelenka's works a wonderful "surprise" in harmony, in suspense and in consistency of same throughout. Zelenka truly in many ways saved the best for last.

This album was well done by Ludwig Guttler, the Virtuosi Saxonae, the Thuringiser Akademischer Singkreis and four wonderful vocal soloists. Anything I've heard from "Berlin Classics" has that touch of restraint and exhuberance balanced against one another. Here too on this CD you will discover a balance between the two but there is no compromise with quality.

The last five masses composed by Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) are indeed mighty! They are as dynamic in every sense as any music of their epoch: exuberant, theatrical, 'big' enough to blow the stained glass out of the windows of any cathedral in Europe. The only competition for them, in terms of power and glory, would be a certain Mass in B minor, composed by Zelenka's friend and fellow undervalued composer, the Cantor of Leipzig, who shared the useless honorific of being a Royal Court Composer to the Elector of Saxony.

Zelenka certainly had a model close at hand for his 22 or more masses, the 12 masses of Johann Adolf Heinichen (1683-1729). Heinichen was the Big Dog in Dresden -- Kapellmeister in the court of Augustus the Strong -- where Zelenka was merely a double-bassist in the court orchestra. However, in the 1720s, Heinichen's ill health (he had tuberculosis) put his 'assistant' Zelenka at the head of one of the most opulent and artful musical entourages of Europe. When Heinichen died in 1929, Zelenka had every right to expect to succeed him as Kapellmeister; instead, in 1733, that lucrative appointment went to Johann Adolf Hasse. Zelenka was effectively put out to pasture as 'Court Composer of Religious Music'. His biographers suggest that he never recovered from the disappointment, but in fact Zelenka was by his devout nature a composer of religious music above all.

It's almost certain that none of Zelenka's mighty masses composed after 1736 were ever performed in his lifetime, and after his death they were closely withheld from publication by Maria Josepha, the Electress of Saxony. Thus it's bootless to talk about an authentic playing tradition for Zelenka's works, or to speculate on the musical forces he might have employed. On a deep level of artistic consciousness, Zelenka was composing for the Future. That 'Future' took a very long time to arrive; none of his masses were heard by human ears until the latter decades of the 20th Century.

The similarities of Zelenka's masses to those of Heinichen will be obvious to any listener. They are grandiose celebratory 'public' masses -- expressions of prosperity and confidence, announcements of 'Salvation' rather than prayers for it. But Zelenka's masses are more profound in affect, more complex in counterpoint, and above all more structurally unified than Heinichen's, or than the latter masses of Haydn and Mozart. If one could speak about 'concert' masses, the term would suit Zelenka's works more convincingly than any mass before Beethoven's Missa Solemnis of 1824. And that's the musical Pantheon to which Zelenka's masses belong, side by side with the Beethoven and the Bach.

The Missa Dei Patris (1740) was supposedly intended as one of six, to the the apogee of Zelenka's creations, but only three are known to have been completed -- Dei Patris, Dei Filii, and Omnium Sanctorum. Dei Patris is sublimely coherent in its totality, unified by every artifice of thematic development, modulation, forceful repetition. Unlike the vast majority of masses, it begins lyrically and ends thunderously. The triple kyrie which begins nearly every mass is usually the most intense and anguished movement, while the agnus dei becomes a mild consolatory release from passion. In this Missa Dei Patris, Zelenka builds and builds his intensity, from a delicate kyrie to a rousing credo. a sanctus proclaiming the Magificence of the Almighty, and an agnus dei that glorifies Mercy rather than pleading for it.

This recording, made in 1988 by the Virtuosi Saxoniae, is thoroughly modern in aesthetics, unapologetically modern in its musical forces, with modern instruments and a huge choir. Ordinarily I wouldn't expect much from such a performance, but this time it 'works' for me. Conductor Ludwig Güttler maintains iron discipline over his vast ensemble. The choir may be oversized but the tuning is excellent, and the recording technicians have captured a choral resonance that sounds like human voices. The modern instrumentalists, for a change, have the chops -- the technique -- to handle baroque passagework tastefully and with sufficient transparency. There are two recordings on the market of the Missa Dei Patris -- the other is Zelenka - Missa Dei Patris / M. Bach, D. Taylor, Brutscher, G. Schwarz, Bernius -- and this one is the better listening experience.

Other recordins of Zelenka's mightiest masses:
Jan Dismas Zelenka: Missa Sanctissimae Trinitatis A Moll, ZWV17
Zelenka: Missa Votiva ZWV 18
Zelenka: Missa Dei Filii/Litaniae Lauret

The most prominent performing exponents of Zelenka's music, in the 1990s, were Frieder Bernius with Tafelmusik, Hand-Cristoph Rademann with the Dresdner Barockorchester, and Marek Stryncl with Musica Florea. They all produced some excellent and near-excellent recordings. The 'new gang on Zelenka Street', however, is Collegium 1704 with Vaclav Luks conducting. Their performances surpass any of those of the older ensemble:
Music for Funeral Rites of Augustus the Strong: Officium Defunctorum, Zwv 47 - Requiem, Zwv 46
I Penitenti (Dig)
... and the above-listed Missa Votiva. Rumor has it that Collegium 1704 will soon release a CD of Zelenka's Missa Omnium Sanctorum. I can hardly wait!