Missa Sancti Josephi

Description

It was thought to be lost forever, this Mass written for Princess Maria Josepha and performed on the very day of her Saint Patron's feast on March 19, 1732. The parts were destroyed during the bombing that razed Catholic Dresden in February 1945, but ultimately the manuscript by Zelenka, heavily damaged, reappeared, and Wolfgang Horn was able to produce an edition for Carus, which is now being recorded by Frieder Bernius and his Stuttgart singers and musicians, who are engaged in a Zelenka cycle that is full of revelations. The Bohemian composer was in his fifties at the time, and the sumptuousness of his polyphonies was enriched by the decorations of the Counter-Reformation, reaching a magnificence that borders on ostentation, but what music it is, always irresistible in its momentum, whose radiance is inevitably captured, especially as it is propelled here by a quartet of outstanding soloists; listen to Julia Lezhneva, regal in the "Quoniam tu solus sanctus"! Frieder Bernius adds to this discovery two motets, the shadows of the "De profundis" with its chalumeau blending with Daniel Taylor's alto throughout the admirable "Sustinuit," an absolute masterpiece contrasting with the epic gesture of "In exitu Israel," two faces of the striking art of this baroque genius. But while the masses and oratorios are finally recorded, who will commit to the complete recording of the forty motets, most of which still lie dormant in libraries? (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)