MUSIKALISCHER VESPER • Annegret Siedel; cond; Monika Mauch (sop); Tina Zahn (mez); Hannig Voss (alt); Hennig Kaiser (ten); Wolf Matthias Friedrich (bs); Bell’Arte Salzburg • CANTATE 58030 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 57:53 Text and Translation)

HOFER Dixit. Confitebor. Beatus vir. Laudate pueri. Laudate Dominum. Cum jucunditate. Magnificat. Virgo prudentissima. VALENTINI Canzona. DOLAR Salve regina. BIBER Sonata in F

The notes start off with a bit of confusion, indicating that Andreas Hofer (1628/29–1684) is less well known than a Tyrolean Andreas Hofer. If you’re a Napoleonic Wars buff, the rebel patriot who lived from 1767 to 1810 may overshadow the composer. But in liner notes, the composer whose Te Deum was once recorded on LP (not to mention another setting of Laudate pueri on a Sony CD by Konrad Ruhland and a Stella caeli on a current CD recorded in Salzburg) should more readily come to mind. The patriot, whose fate was the origin of the phrase, “Give him a fair trial and shoot him,” should not necessarily be better remembered in Salzburg. After all, the composer, ordained a priest in 1653, became Vicekapellmeister to the archbishop in 1654 and Kapellmeister by 1666, then court Kapellmeister in 1679, so he should not be forgotten. He was succeeded by Heinrich Biber (1644-1704), while Giovanni Valentini (1582-1649) and Johann Baptist Dolar (c. 1620-1673) had been active at the Viennese court during the same time.

This reconstruction of a Sunday Vespers at the Salzburg cathedral uses Hofer’s psalms, some from a printed set of 1654, the rest from the huge collection of manuscripts at Kremsier, the seat of the bishop of Olomouc (German, Olmütz) in Bohemia, as well as the canticle and a concluding motet. Valentini contributes a canzona as the antiphon before and after the Magnificat, while Dolar’s Salve regina falls in the usual place at the end of the service. It is followed by Biber’s Sonata. The only previous recording of Dolar’s music known to me is this Salve regina on the same Ruhland CD mentioned earlier. The program purports to show how all this music might have been used at the cathedral about 1670. The instrumental ensemble was formed in 1995 by its violinist and leader, but the five vocal soloists on this disc are guests. All the participants are more than proficient in bringing this program to life. It is no diminution of the others that soprano Monika Mauch can be singled out for praise, notably for the solo psalm Confitebor. The Super Audio surround sound is warm and natural. This is not the spectacular polychoral music that Biber brought to the great cathedral, but it benefits from the ambiance that the technology reveals. Since all of the Hofer works are first recordings, this is a valuable addition to recordings of the post-1648 Salzburg era.

FANFARE: J. F. Weber