Festive Mass At The Imperial Court Of Vienna 1648 / Seymour

This first appeared as Novello 105, later as Pickwick 974, but the program was originally heard in public at the Yorkshire Early Music Festival. The notes describe the program as “the music of a complete Mass that may have been heard shortly after the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.” No claim is made that there are any grounds for choosing this particular group of selections, only that this music was in general use at the court at the time. Christoph Straus (c. 1575–1631) was Kapellmeister at the court from 1612 to 1619, succeeded by Giovanni Priuli (c. 1575–1629), who served until his death, while Antonio Bertali (1605–1669) succeeded in 1649. Straus composed the Missa Veni sponsa Christi heard here, while the Propers of the Read more Mass were written by Andreas Rauch (1592–1656), an Austrian Lutheran who served in nearby Sopron, Hungary, but nevertheless found favor with the court. Two of Priuli’s motets are inserted at appropriate points during the Mass. Girolamo Fantini (c. 1602–c. 1645), whose imperial sonatas open and close the celebration, was a brilliant trumpeter, presumably at court.

None of these composers is entirely unknown on records. The two Fantini sonatas, in fact, were both included in an Andrew Parrott liturgical recreation of Monteverdi’s time made just before this disc (13:4). All four of Rauch’s motets were recently included in a complete recording of the published work, “Currus triumphalis musicus” (29:3). Another Mass by Straus made a telling impression on a recent disc devoted to him, the name there spelled Strauss (23:1). Priuli and Bertali have been less well represented, the former by some canzonas under Roland Wilson’s direction, the latter by two different sonatas under Konrad Junghänel (22:5) and a lament under Reinhard Goebel (23: 3).

There is an incessant celebratory nature to the program. Haydn wrote a number of symphonies in C Major, always with trumpets and drums, but they were not deployed as constantly in every movement as we hear during the course of this Mass. There are nice spatial effects captured in a chapel in North Yorkshire that convey the experience of a celebration in church. The personnel of the 1989 recording include singers and players who were already well known or soon became so. Everything is realized at a high level of accomplishment, but there is a lower level of genius to be heard in most of the music. I was most surprised at Fantini’s opening and closing fanfares, which are usually attributed to the Gonzaga court and used by Monteverdi to open L’Orfeo and the Vespers. The notes cover the lives of the composers adequately, but no other information is proffered, and the English translations without the original texts are not what we expect. The engineering is as professional as the execution.

-- J. F. Weber, FANFARE
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1. Sonatas (8) for Trumpet and Basso Continuo: no 1 "Detta del Colloreto" by Girolamo Fantini

Conductor: Peter Seymour
Orchestra/Ensemble: Baroque Brass of London
Period: Baroque
Written: by 1638; Italy

2. Attolite portas by Andreas Rauch