Missa Salisburgensis à 53 voci
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The Missa Salisburgensis à 53 voci is, perhaps, the most large-scale piece of extant sacred Baroque music, an archetypical work of the Colossal Baroque. The author of this work is anonymous, however, recent studies of the work suggest that is almost certainly the work of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Until recently, this Mass has been considered to have been a composition of Orazio Benevoli, or, more likely, Andreas Hofer, Biber's close contemporary and associate. The attribution to Biber is now universally accepted.
This may be only major work whose sole source narrowly escaped being used by a greengrocer to wrap vegetables for sale in the 19th century, a fate marginally less bizarre than that which befell the original engineering drawings for Blackpool Tower which were backed by fabric and were destroyed when the fabric was made into under garments by one of the designer's relatives.
The work is scored for very large forces and is polychoral in structure.
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[edit] Scoring
The work is scored thus:
- Choro I: SSAATTBB in concerto & in cappella, Organo
- Choro II: 2 Violini, 4 Viole
- Choro III: 4 Flauti, 2 Oboi, 2 Clarini (the oboe parts may have been added later; both parts appear to have been simply copied from the Flauto I and Flauto II lines, and there are no oboe solos in the entire Mass)
- Choro IV: 2 Cornetti, 3 Tromboni (each of the cornetto parts are almost certainly intended to be played on the Cornettino)
- Choro V: SSAATTBB in concerto & in cappella
- Choro VI: 2 Violini, 4 Viole
- Loco I: 4 Trombettæ, Timpani
- Loco II: 4 Trombettæ, Timpani
- Organo e Basso continuo
[edit] Styles and compositional techniques
The Missa Salisburgensis is a polychoral composition which takes advantage of the multiple organs and various locations available for groups of singers and musicians to perform in Salzburg Cathedral. The vocal parts feature in concerto (soloists) and cappella (the full choir) parts across the sixteen vocal lines. However, several times in the Mass, the composer "collapses" all the voices into simple four part harmony (SATB) and uses some of the instrumental groups, the cornetto and trombone choir, in particular, to play in unison with the human voices. The work is in C major throughout - necessitated by the used of ten clarino trumpets in C. All the instruments have solo sections except the two oboes, which always play in unison with the first and second flauti (recorders). The work is stylistically similar to Biber's Vesperæ à 32 voci, and the Te Deum Laudamus à 23 voci of Andreas Hofer.
[edit] Recordings
- Escolania de Montserrat, Tölzer Knabenchor, Collegium Aureum directed by Ireneu Segarra Deutsche Harmoni Mundi CD RD77050 1974
- Musica Antiqua Köln directed by Reinhard Goebel, Gabrieli Consort & Players directed by Paul McCreesh ARCHIV CD 457 611-2 1998
[edit] External links
- Biber: Missa Bruxellensis by Dr James Clements - A talk covering the attribution to Biber of two Mass settings.
[edit] References:
- A Catalogue of Music for the Cornett by Bruce Dickey and Michael Collver; Indiana University Press 1996 ISBN: 0253209749
- Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, Vienna: Universal Edition, 1894-1938 Volume 20
- Denkmaler der Tonkust in Osterreich,(DTO).
- The King's Music edition (1997).
- Missa Salisburgensis, large facsimile of the manuscript in the Library of the Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg, (Salzburg : Anton Pustet, 1969). Introduction by Dr. L. Feininger, contains some now obsolete scholarship.
- There is an account of the Missa Salisburgensis mixup by Ernst Hintermaier in several Austrian Musicological Journals in the 1970s, (in German).
- Orazio Benevoli Opera Omnia, ed. L. Feininger, Monumenta liturgiae Polychoralis Sanctae Ecclesiae Romane, (Rome,1966-).
