Vanhal: Missa Pastoralis / Missa Solemnis

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Cat No: 8555080

Release Date: 06 January 2001

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313508020

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: VANHAL

Description
Johann Baptist Vanhal (1739 - 1813) Missa Pastoralis in G major; Missa Solemnis in C majorOne of the most curious aspects of Vanhal's large musical output is the surprising number of sacred works given that at no stage in his long career was he employed first and foremost as a church musician. Among these works are around fifty settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, a substantial body of work by contemporary standards. Haydn, for example, who like Vanhal cannot be considered a 'professional' church musician, composed a dozen Masses, half of them late in life and for very specific occasions. Leopold Hofmann, Vienna's leading church musician for much of his life, wrote over forty Masses although the exact number remains uncertain. We know that Vanhal enjoyed close associations with a number of monastic foundations and it is possible that they commissioned works from him from time to time. Nonetheless, it cannot be discounted entirely that he wrote many of these works from inner conviction. There was certainly little financial gain to be had in composing church music in comparison with other genres and Vanhal, the most important and successful freelance composer in Vienna, would have been only too well aware of this.Although the notion of composing a Missa pastoralis was relatively new, the origins of the pastoral style have been traced back to seventeenth-century Italy where composers such as Corelli created a style of composition suitable for performance at the Christmas Eve service. In Bohemia, where Vanhal grew up, the style became especially popular and composers wrote 'pastoral' symphonies as well as, 'pastoral' motets. Interestingly enough, Leopold Hofmann wrote in both genres and yet did not compose a fully-fledged Missa Pastoralis. Vanhal's sole?¡-surviving Mass in the pastoral style, the Missa Pastoralis in G major, was composed no later than 1782, the date of the earliest documented performance, and is a relatively early and extremely important example of the genre in Vienna. Four copies of the work survive, an indication that the Mass enjoyed a reasonable level of popularity during the composer's lifetime.The pastoral style in eighteenth-century music is characterized by its simplicity and rustic charm. Two of its most obvious stock devices - the drone bass and what can best be described as a yodeling pattern - are found in works as diverse as Hofmann's motet Pastor bone and Johann Stamitz's famous Sinfonia Pastorale in D major. Vanhal had no hesitation in adopting these hoary old cliches but his use of them - not only to set the scene but, as Bruce MacIntyre has observed, 'to promote a coherent musical unity for the Mass cycle' ?¡- is sophisticated and highly effective. Thus, thematic material from the Kyrie - or close derivations of it - ?¡also finds its way into the Gloria, Et resurrexit, Benedictus and Dona nobis settings. The simplicity of the 'pastoral' sections of the Mass is leavened by ingenious orchestral writing and the remain
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