Magnificat Missa Nativitatis

... for sure about Jan Dismas Zelenka, beyond the audible fact that he was one hell of a great composer? All our first impressions of him, based on early musicological studies of the scant sources of info about his life, have been challenged by more recent studies, and in fact some of those first impressions made no sense at all once we began to perform and hear his music. Instead of the image we started out with, of a surly and disappointed religious ascetic, it turns out that Zelenka was at least in part a canny and ambitious careerist, who readily composed in the fashionable operatic style when there was need for such, who was available to compose for a festivity at the very last moment, and whose music was not so much neglected by his patrons as hoarded jealously by them.

For thing for sure: Zelenka was not a precocious composer. Born in 1679, his somewhat sporadic musical studies continued into his thirties. From 1716 to 1719, he studied in Vienna with Johann Joseph Fux, certainly not a musical conservative; Fux introduced Zelenka to music that was probably not readily available to an ordinary small-time musician from Bohemia, including the older masterworks of Palestrina, Morales, and Frescobaldi. In Vienna, however, Zelenka had the opportunity to meet and hear the most au courant Italians, particularly Antonio Caldara. Zelenka's private musical library, we now know, was stocked with music by Vivaldi, Lotti, and Allegri.

Those years in Vienna were financed by the Dresden Court, where Zelenka had first been employed as a violone player in 1710. In return, Zelenka was effectively bound to play in the Dresden Hofkapelle and to compose as required by Frederick Augustus II, Elector of saxony and King of Poland. But his career as a composer didn't develop impetus until the mid 1720's, following the success of his wonderful semi-opera "Melodram de Sancto Wenceslao" at the coronation of Charles VI in Prague. And here's a puzzle: roughly half of all Zelenka's known and preserved works were composed in a remarkably brief span, from 1725 to 1729. Does this imply that Zelenka composed chiefly when there was a market for his music, or does it suggest that vast sheafs of his music were lost? I'm inclined toward the former explanation.

The three works on this CD were probably all composed in 1726-1727 for performance in connection with Vespers services in the liturgical calendar. It's known that Zelenka was in charge of music for specific liturgical events, including veneration of Saint Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary. Zelenka had Jesuit education in his background, and the Jesuits were particularly influential in Dresden in the 1720s.

Whatever frustrations Zelenka may have experienced as a professional composer, he certainly had the huge blessing of composing for and playing with one of the most capable musical establishments of his era, with ample forces of virtuosic singers and instrumentalists. Comparisons of Zelenka with JS Bach are inevitable. There was poor Johann Sebastian, stuck in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750, with grudging support from the town council and musical forces that were 'middling' at best. At risk of hyperbole, one might say that Bach composed chiefly for an audience of one, a very discriminating audience ... himself. Meanwhile, it seems both from the biographical sources and from his music per se that Zelenka was indeed a composer for a substantial public on the spot. Certainly the three compositions on this CD are magnificently celebratory, music meant to impress an audience, even if applause would have been unthinkable in church. Zelenka did 'magnificence' better than anyone, whatever the size of his ensemble, and these works were scored with percussion, trumpets, traverso flutes,etc., all the signs that Zelenka intended them to be grandiose.

The forces in this performance, combining large Marburg Bach Choir with the sizable instrumental ensemble 'L'Arpa Festante' -- nine violins, two violas, two cellos, violone, organ, lute, two flutes, two oboes, bassoon, trumpet and kettledrum -- achieve all the magnificence Zelenka surely intended, and fortunately the recording technology of "Genuin Classics" was capable of capturing their amplitude without tinny distortion. The recording was done in March of this year, 2011. There are four soloist singers, whose roles are less prominent than that of the chorus in this music. Basso Markus Flaig and tenor Christian Dietz are excellent. I'm not quite as convinced by soprano Katia Plaschka or alto Anne Bierwirth. They're good, but not as good as the women soloists with 'Collegium 1704' or 'Ensemble Inégal', both of which have been releasing superb CDs of Zelenka lately.

To my knowledge, none of these three works have been adequately recorded previously, so this is certainly a "must buy" CD for Zelenkaphiles, although it isn't quite a Five-star performance in comparison with other currently recording ensembles.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review  4.0 out of 5 stars