Frieder Bernius

There can be no doubt - the Missa in C minor KV 427 by W.A.Mozart is a fascinating work. Simply calling it a "mass" is inaccurate; indeed, there is hardly more than a musical torso full of enigmas and problems - and brimming with magnificent music.

Extraordinarily well-written, prodigiously inventive, and relentlessly exciting–these aren’t terms normally used to describe 18th-century Masses, but then there is nothing “normal” about this late work by Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka. Simply put, if you aren’t acquainted with Zelenka (or if you’ve experienced a previous aversion to Masses), when you hear this piece-a substantial and powerful conception, from the first note of the Kyrie to the final chord of the Dona nobis pacem-you will wonder why this composer does not enjoy much greater esteem and popularity with performers, particularly alongside J.S. Bach (his contemporary) and Mozart.

Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice (Vienna Version-1762)
Nancy Argenta / Michael Chance / Kammerchor Stuttgart / Tafelmusik / Frieder Bernius
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 362 MB | Artwork: 38 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Sony Classical # SX2K 48 040 | Country/Year: Germany 1992
Genre: Classical | Style: Opera, Viennese School

Frieder Bernius began his career primarily as a conductor of choral music, focusing largely on repertory from the Baroque and early Classical periods. Gradually he took a greater interest in orchestral music while still maintaining a preference for choral works. He has favored authentic performance practices and has become one of the leaders in the historically informed performance (HIP) movement. (…) Bernius began recording with Sony Classical in 1989, and among his most successful early recordings for that label was that of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1992), with Nancy Argenta and Michael Chance. Along with his successes in the recording studio in the 1990s and first decade of the new century, Bernius continued to lead many highly acclaimed concerts at home and abroad with his three Stuttgart ensembles.

Jan Dismas Zelenka (16 October 1679, Louňovice pod Blaníkem, Bohemia - 23 December 1745, Dresden, Saxony), baptised Jan Lukáš Zelenka and previously also known as Johann Dismas Zelenka, was the most important Czech Baroque composer, whose music was notably daring with outstanding harmonic invention and mastery of counterpoint.

These miniatures are exquisitely shaped, with a directness of delivery and coherence of phrasing that cannot fail to charm.

The Easter Oratorio of J.S. Bach has been paired here with one of the most vibrant compositions by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel: This recording includes the first, sacred part of C.P. E. Bach’s Dankhymne der Freundschaft (1785), a work which was forgotten for more than two hundred years. Once again Frieder Bernius gives these two works a stellar performance.

Johann Wenzeslaus Kalliwoda, born in Bohemia, was one of the few composers whose symphonies got traction in Germany in the years after Beethoven's death. His Symphony No. 1 in F sharp minor has received occasional performances down through the years, and conductors and scholars have begun to unearth his other six symphonic works. Even Schubert wondered what there was left to accomplish in the symphonic genre after Beethoven. He eventually figured it out, and Kalliwoda, in his Symphony No. 5 in B minor, Op. 106, seems to be thinking along some of the same lines as Schubert in his Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the "Unfinished."