Missa Pastoralis Bohemica

Anyone familiar with Bruckner, his symphonic architectures reaching for the stars as well as his later Missas from the 1860s, may well be amazed at how deep his Missa Solemnis is still rooted in the solid tradition of Viennese Classicism. In this recording, this rarely heard and recently re-edited and newly published gem is put into the context of the inauguration service of collegiate provost Friedrich Mayr on 14 September 1854 in St. Florian, for which it was written. It is interspersed with the original Proper settings by Robert Führer, Joseph Eybler, and Johann Baptist Gänsbacher. Recorded at the Konzerthaus Berlin in June 2017. A co-produktion with Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

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.

With radiant accounts from The Brabant Ensemble of the Mass, a Magnificat and a selection of motets, this album of first recordings is a major addition to Guerrero’s still select discography.

The celebrated Choir of Westminster Cathedral goes back to its roots with this recording of some of the towering masterpieces of Renaissance polyphony—a genre which the choir has made its own through the ritual of daily liturgical performance. Recent reviews have declared the choir to be at the peak of its powers, and this disc is an important celebration of a great musical tradition.

This album is part of a series of twenty must-have titles from the Warner Classics catalog, featuring their original and well-known iconic covers. Few musical works express man’s metaphysical aspirations more powerfully than Beethoven’s titanic Missa Solemnis. As Otto Klemperer wrote some years before making this recording, “It is enormously difficult to translate into reality a work which doesn’t take reality into account.” He had first conducted the Missa Solemnis in 1927 and it came to define the epic grandeur of his interpretative style.