Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 - 11 October 1896) was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.
Mass No. 1 in D minor, WAB 26
1864 ; rev. 1876 and 1881/1882
1. Kyrie - Alla breve - mehr langsam (D minor)
2. Gloria - Allegro (D major)
3. Credo - Moderato (D major)
4. Sanctus - Moderato (D major)
5. Benedictus - Moderato (G major) - Osanna - Allegro moderato (D major)
6. Agnus Dei - Andante quasi Allegretto (G minor) - Dona nobis - Allegro moderato (D major)
Soprano Lucy Crowe; Mezzo-Soprano Jennifer Johnston
Tenor Toby Spence; Bass Günther Groissböck
SYMPHONIEORCHESTER DES BAYERISCHEN RUNDFUNKS conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Live recording BRSO all rights www.br-so.com/
After he had ended his eight-year study period with Sechter and Kitzler and he had composed a few smaller works, such as the Festive Cantata (1862) and Psalm 112 (1863), Bruckner composed his first grand Mass, the Mass in D minor. He completed the work on 29 September 1864.
The premiere of the Mass in the old Linz Cathedral on 20 November 1864 was successful. A laudatory review in the Linzer Zeitung described Bruckner's potential as a symphonic composer and ranked the D minor Mass in the highest echelon of church music.
Bruckner revised the work in 1876 and again in 1881-1882. The (small) differences between the versions concern mainly annotations about tempo, etc. For the original organ intermezzo of the Credo (after "et sepultus est") Bruckner composed an alternative with woodwind instruments, so that the conductor could choose between these two options.
There is a continuity with previous works. Several passages, such as the Qui tollis of the Gloria, the central part of the Credo, and the devoutness of the word "Jesu Christe", the solemness of "cum gloria" and the dread of the word mortuorum, were already prefigured in the Missa solemnis. Moreover, the string pianissimo in the opening bars of the Kyrie was also foreshadowed in the opening bars of Psalm 146. The Qui cum Patre et Filio in the Credo is quoting the foregoing Afferentur regi.
The repeat structure already stubbed in Psalm 112 - a product of Kitzler’s tutelage - is clearly present in the work: repeat of the starting theme of the Credo in "Et in spiritum", and that of "Deum de Deo" in "Et expecto"; repeat of the "Osanna" of the Sanctus at the end of the Benedictus; and that of the ascending scale of the Kyrie, of "Et vitam venturi" and of the fugue subject of the Gloria in the Dona nobis.
Bruckner used also this ascending scale (a reminiscence of the "Qua resurget ex favilla homo reus" from Mozart's Requiem), as a stairway to heaven in i.a. the Adagio of several symphonies and his Te Deum. Its inversion, which Bruckner had used already in the first part of his Psalm 146, will be later used in the Andante of the Fourth Symphony and is also prefiguring the "Farewell to Life" of the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony.
Bruckner used a citation of the "Miserere nobis" from the Gloria in the transition to the development of the first movement of his Third Symphony. At the end of his life he made again a citation of it, as a kind of supplication, before the climax of the Adagio of his Ninth Symphony. As Nowak wrote
"Perhaps the best indication of the high regard in which Bruckner held this mass is his use of the miserere-motif from the Gloria in the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony. He could think of no more fitting music for his farewell to life itself than the humbly pleading six-four chord sequences of his days in Linz".
16 дек 2016
