Missa Bruxellensis

The Missa Bruxellensis is a baroque mass setting for eight-part double choir and eight solo voices.

The composition, based on the style of the Venetian multiple choirs, has been anonymously handed down and is now attributed to the prince-bishop Kapellmeister of Salzburg, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704) , through a style comparison . It is named after the place where the notes were found in Brussels , where the only surviving copy of the score is held by the Royal Library of Belgium .

The mass in C major is believed to have originated between 1696 and 1704. It may have been performed for the first time in 1701 on the occasion of the foundation of the Order of St. Ruperti . Like the earlier Missa Salisburgensis  , it was ascribed to the composer Orazio Benevoli for a long time and has recently been published under his name. However, by comparing the handwriting of the copyist's sheet music in the original manuscript with other sheet music manuscripts of works by the same copyist and because of the paper clearly produced in Salzburg, Biber could be identified as the composer of the mass.

The two choirs are accompanied by an instrumental ensemble consisting of two violins , three violas (or bassoons ), two prongs , four baroque trumpets and three baroque trombones, as well as timpani and basso continuo .

Recordings

• Missa Bruxellensis . Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (composer), Jordi Savall (conductor), Le Concert des Nations (performer), La Capella Reial de Catalunya (performer). Audio CD

literature

• Ernst Hintermaier: Missa Salisburgensis. New knowledge about origin, author and purpose . In: Musicologica Austriaca , 1, 1977, ISSN  1016-1066 , pp. 154-196.
• Eric T. Chafe: The Church Music of Heinrich Biber . UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor MI 1987, ISBN 0-8357-1770-4 (English).
• Petrus Eder OSB, Ernst Hintermaier (ed.): Heinrich Franz Biber, 1644–1704: Music and culture in high baroque Salzburg, studies and sources . Selke, Salzburg 1994, ISBN 3-901353-06-2 .
• Gerhard Walterskirchen: Heinrich Franz Biber. Church and instrumental music. Congress report (= publications on the history of music in Salzburg. Volume 6). Selke, Salzburg 1997, ISBN 3-901353-15-1 .
• Ernst Hintermaier (ed.): Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber - Georg Muffat. Two world-class musicians in baroque Salzburg (exhibition and documentation). Salzburg 2004, OCLC 749875180 .

Web links

• Jonathan Freeman-Attwood: Biber Missa Bruxellensis , gramophone.co.uk (review of the first recording by Jordi Savall, English)