Credo

While the German tradition observes a strict distinction between sacred and secular styles, the 19th-century Italian Mass can feel more akin to attending an operatic performance. Donizetti’s church music, consisting of at least a hundred items, has hardly been explored. Individual movements were often later recycled by the composer, in cantata-like fashion, to form a complete Mass, and it is this ad hoc technique that Franz Hauk has used to create a new work, the Messa di Gloria and Credo in D. This includes an expansive Qui sedes with its violin solo written for the famous violinist-composer Pietro Rovelli, and is completed with movements by Johann Simon Mayr from whom Donizetti learned his compositional craft in settings of sacred texts.

In this new recording, Missa Credo for soprano, saxophone and piano is conducted by the composer, Ulrich Zeitler. The work combines Gregorian melodies from the medieval church with contemporary jazz to make a fascinating fusion of styles on this hybrid SACD. For Ulrich Zeitler the Credo is a program: this deeply felt, very personal profession of faith forms the foundation in this composition. Very much in the tradition of the earliest church music, Zeitler avails himself of the “perfect division”: each metrical unit can be divided into three subunits, as a symbol of the perfection of God, of unity in three persons. The ever-present pedal point d underscores this unity,and, whether intentionally or not, the whole Credo attains a length of 333 measures!

Lotti's Requiem Mass in F major is considered by Thomas Hengelbrock the most important Requiem before Mozart's. It's full of expressive contrast: Lotti has an affection for a quasi-Palestrina style on the one hand and the skill to deploy more up-to-date techniques on the other. This Requiem is essentially in the late Baroque idiom, occasionally recalling certain of Vivaldi's larger sacred vocal pieces.

Harnoncourt offers us two wonderful religious works of the great Mozart: Missa K. 257 and Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento K. 243. Works of great musical beauty where the Arnold Schoenber Choir gives us an excellent interpretation. The soloists, especially the soprano Angela Maria Blasi, magnificent.