Par GARCIA JOSE MAURICIO NUNES. Garcia, born in 1767 in Rio de Janeiro, and priest and music director at the cathedral there, is still hardly known. Among his spiritual works are four settings of the Mass for the Dead. The present „Missa dos Defunktos“ was commissioned by the Portuguese King Dom Joao VI in the memory of Queen Maria I, who died in 1816. The composition, in the key of D minor, shows…

Passionskantate. Par HOMILIUS GOTTFRIED AUGUST. He was without argument our greatest church composer, wrote the lexicographer E. L. Gerber a few years after Homilius's death in 1785. As a result of the destruction of the Kreuzkirche during the Seven Years War, the longtime Kreuzkantor, a pupil of Bach, performed his professional musical duties primarily at the Frauenkirche in Dresden. The Passions…

B-Dur. Par MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS. To a greater extent than almost any others, Mozart's Masses combine a very high degree of artistic accomplishment and tonal beauty with fulfilment of the demands made by the Liturgy. Even the textually expansive movements 'Gloria' and 'Credo' are, in most of Mozart's Masses, short enough to meet the requirements of a festive service, today as in his time. The ch…

Par RAMEAU JEAN-PHILIPPE. Rameau’s only extant opera based on a libretto by Voltaire has come down to us in two versions (1745 and 1746), that of 1745 having long been regarded as lost. Volume IV.12 of the “Opera omnia Rameau” now provides a complete edition for the first time and thus the means to perform both versions. Voltaire refers to Metastasio in his libretto, in that he wanted to liberate …

Par GARCIA JOSE MAURICIO NUNES. Garcia, born in 1767 in Rio de Janeiro, and priest and music director at the cathedral there, is still hardly known. Among his spiritual works are four settings of the Mass for the Dead. The present „Missa dos Defunktos“ was commissioned by the Portuguese King Dom Joao VI in the memory of Queen Maria I, who died in 1816. The composition, in the key of D minor, shows…

For Speaker And 5 Instrumentalists. Par SCHOENBERG ARNOLD. Pierrot lunaire marks the high point of Schoenberg's expressionistic period, the essence of which he described as renouncing tonal centers and systematic relationships, replacing them with the twelve-tone method he was later to develop, with its dodecaphonic principles. Dethroning tonality and 'emancipating the dissonance' led to a radical…

Passionskantate. Par HOMILIUS GOTTFRIED AUGUST. He was without argument our greatest church composer, wrote the lexicographer E. L. Gerber a few years after Homilius's death in 1785. As a result of the destruction of the Kreuzkirche during the Seven Years War, the longtime Kreuzkantor, a pupil of Bach, performed his professional musical duties primarily at the Frauenkirche in Dresden. The Passions…

Par GARCIA JOSE MAURICIO NUNES. Garcia, born in 1767 in Rio de Janeiro, and priest and music director at the cathedral there, is still hardly known. Among his spiritual works are four settings of the Mass for the Dead. The present „Missa dos Defunktos“ was commissioned by the Portuguese King Dom Joao VI in the memory of Queen Maria I, who died in 1816. The composition, in the key of D minor, shows…

Par GARCIA JOSE MAURICIO NUNES. Garcia, born in 1767 in Rio de Janeiro, and priest and music director at the cathedral there, is still hardly known. Among his spiritual works are four settings of the Mass for the Dead. The present „Missa dos Defunktos“ was commissioned by the Portuguese King Dom Joao VI in the memory of Queen Maria I, who died in 1816. The composition, in the key of D minor, shows…

B-Dur. Par MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS. To a greater extent than almost any others, Mozart's Masses combine a very high degree of artistic accomplishment and tonal beauty with fulfilment of the demands made by the Liturgy. Even the textually expansive movements 'Gloria' and 'Credo' are, in most of Mozart's Masses, short enough to meet the requirements of a festive service, today as in his time. The ch…