150 years to the day since its first performance – at the festive inauguration of the votive chapel of St. Mary's Cathedral on 29th September 1869 – Bruckner's E minor mass, unique in the entire church music repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries, will be performed in precisely the setting for which it was composed in 1866, to a commission from Rudigier, the bishop of Linz.
The unusual scoring, for an eight-part chorus without soloists and an orchestra of wind instruments, was partly dictated by the circumstances of the first performance, conducted by the composer himself. Building work began much later than planned, so that the work could only be scheduled three years after its composition, on the building site in the open air. Wind-orchestra accompaniments were familiar from so-called „military masses“, and this usage provides a striking resemblance to Schubert's popular „German Mass“, which will therefore also be a part of the jubilee concert. To interpret the Bruckner mass – in 2019 as in 1869 – local forces will be used, in the form of the cathedral choir reinforced by the Hard Chor and the wind ensemble of the cathedral playing on historical instruments. Looking back on the extremely succesful premiere in 1885, Bruckner described it as „one of the most wonderful days of my life“.
Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
Gesänge zur Feier des heiligen Opfers der Messe („Deutsche Messe“) for mixed voice choir with wind instruments and organ accompaniment, D 872 (1827)
Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)
Mass (No. 2) in E minor for 8-part mixed voice choir and wind instruments, WAB 27 (1. Version: 1866)
Domchor Linz
Hard-Chor Linz
Alexander Koller | Choir Director
Wolfgang Kreuzhuber | Organ
Bläserensemble der Linzer Dommusik
Josef Habringer | Conductor
