Classical Music

Classical Music

Missa votive is among a handful of liturgical works composed late in the life of Jan Dismas Zelenka, the Bohemian musician who arrived at the Dresden court in or about 1710 as a violone player in the celebrated Hofkapelle of August II, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. Throughout the 1720s, and whilst still employed as a performing musician, Zelenka composed constantly, mostly producing music for the recently established Catholic court church in Dresden. After the death of Dresden Kapellmeister Johann David Heinichen Zelenka became responsible for the direction of music in this royal chapel, a task at which he worked untiringly with neither appropriate title nor remuneration. The Missa votive draws attention to the health of the composer who had experienced at least two major bouts of illness during the 1730s. The autograph inscription on the cover of the score reads ‘Vota mea Domino reddam. Psal: 115. Versu 5…’ The fifth verse of Psalm 115 is ‘Vota mea Domino reddam coram omni populo ejus’ (I will pay my vows to the Lord, before all his people). Another Latin note at the end of the score states that the mass was composed in fulfillment of a vow. The work is one of the great masses created by Zelenka during the final years of his life.

The Prague-based ensemble Collegium 1704 and its founder Vaclav Luks here perform an oratorio by the Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka. This edifying work, typical of the oratorios produced during the Counter-Reformation, presents the faithful with an imaginary meeting of Mary Magdalene, King David and St Peter at the Tomb of Christ. After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue, Pink and White collections (a total of sixty reissues) which gave a new lease of life to the pearls of the Baroque catalogues from our house labels, here are fourteen new titles which offer a chance to discover other treasures, whether Baroque or dating from an earlier or later era. Like the most recent series, this sixth instalment opens out onto the Classical repertory (Mozart by Ensemble 415 and Chiara Banchini) and the Renaissance (Févin by Doulce Mémoire and Denis Raisin Dadre); recordings that are an integral part of Alpha’s identity and history. Fourteen reissues performed by the leading musicians in the field, most of which received one or more awards on their original release. Proper booklets accompany the discs, with notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from all over the world have been selected to illustrate the covers, this time with the guiding thread of the color green, a symbol of nature, fertility... and hope!

Rameau's career was coming to an end when in 1763 rehearsals began for his last work, Les Boréades, intended for the Fêtes Royales de Choisy in June, celebrating the end of the Seven Years' War. On 27 April the rehearsals took place in Versailles, then… nothing more. Les Boreades was not part of the royal festivities, and the composer’s death in 1764 plunged his last tragedie-lyrique into oblivion, and it was not to see the light of day for another two centuries! Yet, what a splendid opera it is, Rameau’s most accomplished, for he was in full possession of his creative means at eighty years of age. The writing for orchestra and choir is wildly virtuosic, the melodic invention is exceptional, the drama is powerful: it is a veritable musical testament, a succession of violent elements, passionate duets and heartrending lamentations. Taking on this monument of French music, Vaclav Luks brings together magnificent soloists and his choral and orchestral forces, which regularly resound in the Royal Opera: their determination is admirable and Versailles really does owe it to Rameau, since the unfinished rehearsals of 1763, to make a second recording of his masterpiece!

With his Te Deum (1677), Lully produced a singularly important work, which was to impose an "official" genre which lasted a century: a chef-d’oeuvre of musical architecture, the imposing forces require trumpets and timpani and was the religious work the most often performed at that time. Another substantial work the Missa Salisburgensis by Biber is of an exceptional ostentation. The music, is written for fifty-three different voices, which have to be divided up in the space into two choirs. The impressive forces of trumpets and percussion, indicate the solemnity of the ceremony and thereby resonate splendidly, responding to the angelic choirs like divine acclamations, in order to build a musical monument which would be talked about for eternity.

Polychoral music is so synonymous with 16th century Venice that it is easy to forget that the longest flourishing of this style- possibly even its invention- took place in Germany. Whether or not it was in Munich with the works of Orlande de Lassus that the Gabrielis first encountered its effects, polychoral music came to define German textures and techniques for over a century. Both apprentices and rivals to their Italian counterparts, composers such as Hieronymus Praetorius, Schutz, Hassler and Scheidt, as well as Austria’s Biber, fostered a tradition whose influence would extend all the way to the motets of Bach. This performance places a giant of Baroque choral music, Biber’s Missa Salisburgensis, alongside the Venetian choral works of Monteverdi from which it takes its inspiration. The combination is a heady one, a triumphal musical celebration uniquely appropriate to mark the 200th anniversary year of Salzburg’s affiliation with Austria.

On her first Pentatone album, Czech star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená returns to the baroque repertoire that launched her early career. Il giardino dei sospiri is a collection of scenes from secular cantatas on tragic love, ranging from Handel’s Qual ti riveggio to new editions of works by Leo (Angelica e Medoro), Marcello (Arianna abbandonata) and Gasparini (Atalia). These vocal works are connected through instrumental pieces by Handel (sinfonia of Agrippina), Vinci (sinfonia from Maria dolorata) and Sarro (introduzione from Didone abbandonata). Initially conceived as a scenic project, Il giardino dei sospiri offers a richly-faceted and profoundly moving aural drama. Kožená interprets the tragic heroines of these love stories with fervor, accompanied by Václav Luks and Collegium 1704.