456 578-2
Monteverdi Choir
Deborah York
Sally Bruce Payne
Neill Archer
Michael George
Robert Burt
Colin Campbell
Robert McDonald
Mhairi Lawson
Lynette Alcantara
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Schubert
- Mass in A flat, D. 678
- Hymnus an den Heiligen Geist, D. 948
- Psalm 92, D. 953
- Stabat mater, D. 175 (extra section containing the alternative
“Et incarnatus est”)
- Credo II
- Et incarnatus est
- Et resurrexit
Schubert
Mass in A flat • Messe As-dur
- More Schubert from the unsurpassed
Monteverdi Choir, accompanied by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire
et Romantique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
- Schubert wrote six settings
of the Mass, four of them comparatively short and simple works in the
years 1814-16, and his last, in E flat, in the closing months of his life
in 1828. Between these, in November 1819, he began what is perhaps the
most lyrical Mass of them all, in A flat. It was a work to which he devoted
much care, and in September 1822 he completed a second version (substantially
the one here recorded).
- Apart from the six Masses,
Schubert wrote many shorter sacred pieces.He was drawn to the 13th-century
poem Stabat mater dolorosa. The more substantial of two settings
he made was of a full-length German paraphrase by Klopstock in 1816, but
he in 1815 had already written the more private, devotional G minor setting
of the first four verses, which is here recorded.
- The Hebrew setting of Psalm
92, written after the E flat Mass in 1828, was one of a number of works
stimulated by Salomon Sulzer, chief cantor of the Vienna main synagogue.
Certainly there are signs in the piece’s eight verses, which consists
of antiphonal exchanges between a solo quartet and the full chorus, of
awareness of an idiom that gave the solo cantor himself suitable opportunities
(he seems to have rejoiced in a resonant high F). The work is sung here
in a German translation from the original Hebrew.
- The Hymus an den heiligen Geist is a setting for male voices of A. Schmidt’s poem Herr, unser Gott! Schubert made three versions: one, for male quartet, is lost; a second is for quartet with chorus; later, after completing the Mass, as almost the last music he wrote, he made a third version with a wind accompaniment that, again, included three trombones.
Reviews of earlier Gardiner
recordings:
- “...One cannot
help being carried away by Verdi’s Te Deum as conducted by
Gardiner: once again, through the depth of colours, the surprises, the
feeling for the melodic line, its ‘pomposity,’ the work becomes
divine. It’s a must!” – Diapason
- “Straight to the top
of my list goes Berlioz’s rediscovered Messe solennelle. A record
of a great musical event, not to be missed. – Gramophone (Critic’s
Choice)
- “This electrifying and utterly convincing live recording from Westminster Cathedral led by John Eliot Gardiner... A fascinating discovery...” – Stereo Review on Verdi Requiem