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Jan Dismas Zelenka: Missa Sanctissimae Trinitatis A Moll, ZWV17

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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 Sanctissimae Trinitatis was composed in 1736, the first of the five all-glorious masses Zeelenka composed in his last years, possibly for his own artistic satisfation since they were probably never performed. Sanctissimae Trinitatis, despite the grandeur of its conception was scored for remarkably small forces -- no brass, two violins, two oboes, two flutes, chalumeau, viola, and continuo! On this CD, the continuo includes cello, two lutes, double bass, organ, and bassoon. (Zelenka was a string player with a marvelous predilection for bassoons and oboes -- "reed envy" would be my psychological diagnosis.) The whole operatically-structured mass features delightful interpaly between the vocal soloists and the vocal ensemble. This performance uses 13 singers, with all soloists included in the choir. In simple terms, this is a far more 'historically informed' performance, with original instruments, than the older performances of various masses by the Virtuosi Saxoniae, the Dresdner Barockorchester, and Tafelmuisk Stuttgart. It's easily one of the best Zelenka recordings available.

Other recordins of Zelenka's mightiest masses:
Jan Dismas Zelenka: Missa Dei Patris, ZWV 19, C-dur
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, though the blue ribbons go to Musica Florea. 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.

The good news is that Ensemble Inegal, which shares many musicians with Collegium 1704. will release a CD of Zelenka's Missa Omnium Sanctorum in November or December of 2011. I can hardly wait!