Performance of ZWV 14 by Kammerchor and Barockorchester Stuttgart / Frieder Bernius

    Short notice this but if anyone is in south west Germany this coming week (unfortunately not me) the brilliant Missa Sancti Josephi (ZWV 14) will be performed by the Kammerchor Stuttgart and Barockorchester Stuttgart under Frieder Bernius. The soloists are: Julia Lezhneva (quite sure she will absolutely own that wild solo that Zelenka places near the start of the Sanctus), Daniel Taylor and Tilman Lichdi
    The two performances are:


    18 April, Evangelische Stadtkirche Walldorf, 20.00
    19 April, Leonhardskirche, Stuttgart, 20.00


    Both performances also include Missa in G minor (BWV 235), a very nice work by the Lutheran Zelenka.


    Tickets available at: http://musikpodium.de/index.php

    I visited this concert on wednesday and i was delighted. Surely one of the highligths of Zelenkas works, whith full baroque pomp, but very intimate parts too and a lot of music which is so typical for Zelenka. In the programme we find that a cd with ZWV 14 will be completed this year and a score of the reconstructed mass will appear in the Carus Verlag.

    Quote from Notenschreiber

    In the programme we find that a cd with ZWV 14 will be completed this year


    YES! YES! YES!


    ZWV 14 is easily in my top 5 favourite Zelenka works and so I am overjoyed that a modern edition and Bernius recording will add to the excellent recording Inégal made a few years ago. As you wrote, this mass has everything and the overall shine of it shows a Zelenka clearly at the very top of his game (at a time, when, correct me if I am wrong, he already knew he would not become Kapellmeister). Besides that suckerpunch of a Cum Sancto fugue and the cleverly through-composed Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie and Sanctus-Hosanna this is one of the few Zelenka works where he includes obviously dance-like music, albeit in an almost sarcastic way (see the Laudamus Te and Quoniam). I think this is a nod to Princess Josepha in some way.


    I am not sure that much reconstruction of the mass is required - I worked from the manuscript a few years ago (see my piano transcription of the Quoniam) and found it to be very readable despite a little damage here and there. Or has Frieder Bernius written a Credo for ZWV14?

    Not Bernius, but Wolfgang Horn is the editor the music for ZWV 14. He wrotes in the announcement of the new score
    of the Carus Verlag:
    "Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Missa Sancti Josephi occupies a key position among his circa twenty large masses. In this mass, probably composed in 1732 for a feast of a Saint (thus, without a Credo), for the first time the composer took up the operatic style of Johann Adolf Hasse – the latter had first performed his opera Cleofide in Dresden in 1731. Zelenka’s unmistakable individuality created a completely independent work with great technical demands which in many details presages the important masses among his late works. The sole source for the first edition of this mass, published here for the first time, is a considerably damaged autograph score which, however, can be reliably reconstructed. It is preserved in the Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden."

    Yes, seems that the CD was in the can already last Monday, before the two concerts. This is my own translation from the Musik-Podium Facebook page (photo of the band and Lezhneva rehearsing here:(


    "At an age of over 50 years, Zelenka, following the example of the new opera seria, managed to pull off a little stylistic revolution, all by himself; whoever listens without prejudice would define the music as "galant" or "senstive", despite the vagueness of those terms. In any case, there is hardly any trace of Baroque seriousness and pathos or its uniformly driving rhythm. Instead we hear an inwardly directed differentiation, which is shown sometimes in an almost meditative love of detail, and at others in ecstatic choral jubilation." So writes the musicologist Uwe Schweikert in introduction to the Missa Sancti Josephi by the composer JD Zelenka, with which our ensembles will open the Stuttgart Baroque Festival on Thursday, 19 April at 8 pm in the Leonhardskirche. Already on Saturday Frieder Bernius rehearsed with the ensembles and soloists (here: Barockorchester Stuttgart and Julia Lezhneva, soprano). Today (16 April 2018) we will go to Gönningen, where the work will be recorded [in the Lutheran Church]. The CD will be released this autumn at Carus-Verlag!


    No word on what they are coupling with ZWV 14 on the CD. Presumably BWV 235 because they performed it too?

    I did wonder if Bernius would be tempted to keep on going with his brilliant streak of recordings, the last installment being Missa Votiva in 2010! Looking forward to it.


    Quote from rnkt


    No word on what they are coupling with ZWV 14 on the CD. Presumably BWV 235 because they performed it too?


    It would be like having chalk & cheese. Which reminds me, after hearing it performed side by side with Missa Om. Sanct. ZWV21 in Prague in October last year (Coll 1704), someone told me that it "didn't stand a chance!". I personally do like the Bach Mass, though it's a bit clunky in places as Bach can sometimes be (IMO), although that's partly due to it being cantata parody.

    Quote from Xanaseb


    It would be like having chalk & cheese. Which reminds me, after hearing it performed side by side with Missa Om. Sanct. ZWV21 in Prague in October last year (Coll 1704), someone told me that it "didn't stand a chance!". I personally do like the Bach Mass, though it's a bit clunky in places as Bach can sometimes be (IMO), although that's partly due to it being cantata parody.


    In terms of "exposure" I think we could not wish for more than Zelenka and Bach works being paired on CDs. Personally I think the perfect pairing of ZWV 14 would be Bach's 1733 Missa. The two works were composed within at most 18 months of each other, are for very similar forces and both intended to impress the Dresden authorities in some way. Not sure if it can be done under 80 minutes though!

    This performance is indeed coming to the wireless (at least extracts from it). On Thursday 18 October at 22.00, on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. More details and livestream here


    The CD recording by the same performers can already be pre-ordered on the carus website. Not sure when the release date is though.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login