Missa Dei Filii, ZWV.20 (Vocal score)

Description

The Missa Dei Filii ZWV 20 ranks among the later works of the Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka. It belongs to an incompletely transmitted cycle of six masses which the composer himself designated as "Missae ultimae." Contrary to the two other "Missae ultimae", the Missa Dei Filii consists only of a Kyrie and Gloria.

Matthias Grünert's piano vocal score is based on the critical edition of the score edited by Paul Horn in volume 100 of the Erbe deutscher Musik, in which the gaps in the musical text found in the autograph towards the end of the Gloria were cautiously supplemented.

"Zelenka's artistic personality, his biography and his compositional style are utterly distinctive. His style is highly experimental. Was Zelenka really one of the greatest composers of the 18th century, or only one of the most interesting? I think that he still has several surprises for us." (Schweizerische Musikzeitung)

"Zelenka's Masses - fine specimens of Baroque choral literature, some parts of which are set even more colorfully than in the corresponding compositions by Bach." (Die Welt)