Herve Niquet possesses two constant character traits: he is an indefatigable excavator of forgotten music, and he loves polyphony and 'large forms'. A few years ago, he caused a sensation by exhuming the monumental music of Striggio. To mark the thirtieth anniversary of his ensemble, Le Concert Spirituel, he now tackles a new peak of polyphony: a mass by Orazio Benevolo (1605-72) performed by eight choirs of four singers, accompanied by fifteen continuo players. In concert, the choirs are spread out around the nave, with the audience in the middle. Benevolo was born to a Burgundian confectioner father who had emigrated to Rome. Educated at the choir school of San Luigi dei Francesi, he became one of the greatest geniuses of polychorality, a prolific composer who represented the splendours of French art in Rome. He ended his career as maestro di cappella at the Vatican. This music has been resurrected thanks to the work of the great musicologist Jean Lionnet, who spent many years copying out by hand the music of numerous Italian composers in the Vatican archives, from which it was impossible to borrow documents. As a result of his labours the Missa Si Deus pro nobis has now been recorded, accompanied by vocal and instrumental pieces by Monteverdi, Frescobaldi and Palestrina.
In a commentary on the group of works called "Tradition", Dieter Schnebel writes that he wishes to track down what is urgent and lively in the time-honoured forms and contexts of the past and lead them to a new present and future in a dynamic way. As one of the most significant works in which that is displayed with great clarity, the "Missa" stands out from Schnebel's oeuvre.
"Missa" has got an ecumenical and political character: elements of every kind of Christian church music - and also music of the synagogue - are incorporated into it. Over and above this it acquires a specific connection with Berlin: in memory of the "Bekennende Kirche" [confessing church] in particular of Martin Niemoller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth and the first performance (1988) took place in the Church of Jesus Christ in Dahlem, where Martin Niemoller once preached and which was once the centre of the church resistance movement against the Nazis.
"Missa" ends with the "Dona nobis pacem" in a multi-lingual cry for peace - rebellion and unfulfilled plea in one.
This production received the quarterly German Record Critics' Award!
Christoph Eschenbach has a longstanding association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and this release adds to critically acclaimed recording of Bruckner Symphony No. 6 released in 2011. a prolific recording artist over five decades, Eschenbach has recorded as both a conductor and a pianist on labels including Deutsche Grammophon, Sony/BMG, Decca, Ondine, Warner and Koch. The stellar quartet of soloists includes the great lyric soprano Anne Schwanewilms, who enjoys an unparalleled reputation for her performances of Strauss and Wagner, and tenor Nikolai Schukoff who is destined to become a leading voice of his generation.
Zelenka: Missa Nativitatis Domini; Magnificat; O Magnum Mysterium / Stryncl, Musica Florea
Supraphon
CD
$31.99Jan 29, 2013
At times startling and innovative sacred choral works by the most important Bohemian composer of the Baroque era, Jan Dismas Zelenka. Digitally recorded on 7 and 8 December, 2011 in the Church of St. Simon and St. Jude in Prague. Album includes booklet notes in English, French, German and Czech with lyrics sung in Latin and translated in four languages.
I Fagiolini continues it's rediscovery of multi-choir masses from mid-17th-century Rome by maestro and 'fixer' Orazio Benevoli. The four-choir work on this new recording, 'Missa Benevola', is accentuated with even more instrumental colour to allow the ear to appreciate the dance between the four separated ensembles. Enjoy the famous 'mule' technique that Handel noted 50 years later and then re-used in Messiah. Alongside this, Carissimi's well-known Jephte transposed to the lower pitch at use in Rome at the time, injecting a more profound colour into both individual voices and it's famously plangent final chorus. All the Masses in I Fagiolini's Benevoli series are premiere recordings.
Finck: Missa super Ave praeclara & Sacred Works / Bruser, Josquin Cappella
CPO
CD
$18.99Nov 18, 2016
Heinrich Finck was born in Bamberg and quite probably spent his formative years at the court chapel in Cracow or Warsaw in Poland. In any case, this is what can be gathered from comments by his grandnephew, Hermannn Finck, in his Practica Musica of 1556. Here we also read that his granduncle was famed as a master already in the 1480's. After a short period of study in Leipzig he then was active as the church music director at the Polish court in Cracow for a number of years. He interrupted his activity there in 1490 in order to accept a position at the Hungarian royal court, but this arrangement was not permanent. When the ducal ensemble was disbanded in 1514, Finck probably became a member of the imperial court chapel. He later served the Salzburg Cathedral chapter, then at the Scottish Abbey in Vienna, where he contributed to the development of the choral and instrumental ensemble, and finally as the chapel master of Emperor Ferdinand I's court ensemble.
Beethoven: Missa solemnis / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan
BIS
SACD
$21.99Mar 02, 2018
Beethoven began composing the Missa solemnis in 1819, when he learned that his patron (and pupil) Archduke Rudolph was going to be appointed Cardinal Archbishop of Olmütz. The plan was for the mass to be ready for performance at the enthronement celebrations in March 1820, but one year proved to be too little time. It wasn’t until almost three years later, in January 1823, that Beethoven was able to complete the work. As might be expected, it was unparalleled in every respect – although composed for use during church services, even Beethoven’s contemporaries found that it exceeded the bounds of the genre. Beethoven himself was quite aware of both the dimensions and the importance of the work: in a letter he described it as ‘my greatest work’. It is also a work which over its course encompasses great contrasts: from the solemnity of the Kyrie and the intense excitement at the opening of the Gloria to the disturbing intimations of war during the closing Dona nobis pacem.
Originally founded with the aim of performing the choral works of Bach, the Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki are now taking another great leap, after their recent release of Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. Described as ‘refreshingly open-hearted, spontaneous and natural’ their interpretation received a 2017 Gramophone Award. Joined by an eminent quartet of vocal soloists, the team now applies its expertise in period performance to Beethoven’s masterpiece.
----- ,/br> REVIEWS:
The performance has warmth, energy and an exact feeling for tempo. The Japanese chorus rise fearlessly to Beethoven’s demands. A memorable musical and emotional experience.
– Sunday Times (UK)
This recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Op. 123 offers a revelatory performance that is so clear in its textures, lively in its tempos, meticulous in its execution, and detailed in its parts that this monument of western choral music seems to have shaken off all the mossy accretions of nearly two centuries. Highly recommended.
Orazio Benevoli: Missae Angelus Domini & Dum complerentur
Coro
CD
$19.99Apr 17, 2026
Two multi-choir Masses from mid-17th-century Rome (one for Easter, the other based on Palestrina's motet for Pentecost) complete I Fagiolini's dazzling series exploring the 'Colossal Baroque' and paying tribute to the 'lost' music of Orazio Benevoli. Maestro of the Cappella Giulia at St Peter's, Rome, Benevoli's mastery of surround-sound is clear in these very different works. The sheer quality of his music shines through and, sung by a group at the height of it's powers, changes our view of 17th-century multi-choir music. All the Masses in I Fagiolini's Benevoli series are premiere recordings.
The opportunity to celebrate, in 2020, the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven alongside the 30th anniversary of German reunification is akin to a gift for a label that has been instrumental in preserving the recording heritage of the GDR, offering as it does the opportunity for a retrospective view and assessment of the past. This series with 10 new editions from the archive of ETERNA recordings includes audio productions from the early days of the label as well as later productions from the late 80s. Partly remastered from the original tapes and provided with the original covers, these historic-legendary recordings shine in new glamour. The present volume presents Beethoven's Mass in D Major: "Missa Solemnis," performed by the Rundfunkchor Leipzig and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of Kurt Masur.
The challenges and rewards of performing early music are here vividly illustrated by The Binchois Consort, as creative scholarship comes to the aid of two substantial-but fragmentary-works by Jacob Obrecht, and an audacious recorded sound attempts to recreate the experience of the original performers 500 years ago. A novel twenty-first-century motet is also included, emerging from the prevailing Renaissance textures to reflect on themes of mourning and loss.
Following the huge success of the Symphonies boxsets, and considering Jordi Savall's expertise in sacred music it was invevitable that he should record the Missa Solemnis. As in his previous Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn recordings, the Catalan maestro delivers a recording freed from the weight of past traditions to underline the dynamics, the section balance and the timbres that are required in this repertoire. He ignites the Promethean fire as imagined by Beethoven's demiurgic mind.
Jeremie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie launch a new collaboration with Alpha Classics, with several projects planned, following the Mozart operas released on the label in 2016 and 2017. Here they tackle a monument of the sacred repertoire that is fascinating for it's rich, complex, even 'mysterious' conception. Rhorer tells us that his interpretation pays close attention to the question of tempi, which have often become progressively slower and heavier since the post-Romantic period: the tempi have 'a direct bearing on the vocal comfort of the singers, since breath control is one of the great difficulties of this work', he says. For this recording, he has called in a quartet of top-flight soloists along with the Audi Jugendchorakademie, a remarkable German youth choir founded in 2007. In conjunction with his period-instrument orchestra, soon to celebrate it's twentieth anniversary, they offer a passionate vision of Beethoven's masterpiece.
Benno Ammann’s oeuvre reveals influences from impressionism to free tonality, yet he belongs to no stylistic school. The Swiss composer wrote Missa Defensor Pacis (‘Defender of the Faith’) in 1946 for the official canonization, at St Peter’s in Rome, of Nicholas of Flüe, patron saint of Switzerland. This prestigious commission, with its complex polyphony, countless variations, and use of the cantus firmus technique, is one of the most important and extensive Masses by a Swiss composer for a cappella choir. The Basler Madrigalisten are one of the most traditional professional vocal ensembles in Switzerland and are primarily devoted to demanding repertoires from the Renaissance to contemporary music. The ensemble, founded in 1978 by Fritz Naf at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, has been under the direction of Raphael Immoos since 2013 and has toured Europe, the USA, Australia, and Asia.
Beethoven’s Missa solemnis is the one work the composer admired above all his compositions. It was written for his great patron and friend Archduke Rudolf of Austria at around the same time that he embarked on his Ninth Symphony and as the writer Donald Tovey noted, ‘there is no choral and no orchestral writing, earlier or later, that shows a more thrilling sense of the individual colour of every chord.’ This insightful documentary follows Frieder Bernius on a journey of discovery as he immerses himself in Beethoven’s monumental masterpiece in preparation for a recording.
![Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Documentary And Performance) / Bernius, Kammerchor Stuttgart [Blu-Ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3842144-2587189.jpg?v=1790295187&width=800)
![Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Documentary And Performance) / Bernius, Kammerchor Stuttgart [Blu-Ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/730099011662.pt01.jpg?v=1790295187&width=800)
![Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Documentary And Performance) / Bernius, Kammerchor Stuttgart [Blu-Ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3842144-2587189.jpg?v=1790295187&width=400)