Ars Antiqua Austria & Gunar Letzbor

Gunar Letzbor and his ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria are proven specialists for Austrian baroque music. During recent years, they have rediscovered, performed and recorded polychoral Festive Masses by Weichlein, Ramhaufsky and Hochreither and thus Georg Muffat's magnificent 'Missa in labore requies' is a logical choice of repertoire. This work is the only surviving church music by Georg Muffat and is overwhelming in sonic impact and profundity but also a richness of melodic invention. In its polychoral design, the work is in the tradition of Salzburg Festive Masses, reflecting in their extraordinary musical opulence, the almost boundless material wealth of the prince bishops who commissioned them.

Ars Antiqua Austria & Gunar Letzbor - The Music Of The Habsburg Empire (2015) {10CDs Box Set Pan Classics}
FLAC (tracks) - 44/16 bits - Digital Download (qobuz) -> 2.87 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.43 Gb
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© 2015 Pan Classics / Note 1 Music / NDR | PC 10311
Classical / Baroque / Concerto / Sonata

The Habsburg Imperial Court was a melting pot of many different cultures in which the zest for living of southerners, the Slav melancholy, French formalism, Spanish courtliness and the original German-speaking Alpine cultural region intermingled. Together with his Ars Antiqua Austria ensemble, Gunar Letzbor occupied himself over a ten year period to produce this 10CD ""Klang der Kulturen"" box, a musical tour of the individual countries that formed the roots of and influences on the music of baroque Vienna, documenting them in live recordings, with each CD representing one country.

Franz Joseph Aumann was born in 1728, in the city of Traismauer and studied in Vienna. In 1753 aged only 25 he established himself at St. Florian, where he remained until his death in 1797. He composed 12 Requiems, in addition to masses, motets, litanies, offertories and oratorios. In the Requiem recorded here the listener is confronted with early Baroque opulence: the use of almost exclusively solo instrumental parts and singers bring a transparency and layered effect to the composition.

Joseph Balthasar Hochreither (1669-1731) from a family of Salzburg court musicians, was appointed briefly as organist at the Benedictine convent in Nonnberg before taking up his position for life in Lambach in 1694 where he remained until 1721. Almost all of his 21 works to have survived were composed during this period, with the exception of the festival mass on this recording dating from the year 1731. Hochreither was appointed as cathedral chapter organist in Salzburg in 1721. He died on 14 December 1731 in the city of his birth and was buried in the St Peter cemetery.

It was a sensational find in many respects when Gunar Letzbor discovered the Passion by the composer and Augustinian canon Franz Joseph Aumann in the archives of St Florian's Abbey (near Linz, Austria) and other monasteries.