Jan Dismas Zelenka: Missa Omnium Sanctorum

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Zelenka’s autograph score of this single mass movement in E minor was originally kept with the Cum Sancto Spiritu fugue which closes the Missa ultima titled Missa Dei Filii (ZWV 20). The aria Christe eleison is scored for contralto solo accompanied by strings and basso continuo. Although today the work stands alone in Zelenka’s output, it is likely that this beautiful movement belonged with one of Zelenka’s final Missae ultimae. While it is possible that this aria is a fragment of an otherwise unfinished final mass, a convincing argument based on style and tonality is presented in the Zelenka-Dokumentation that this movement was intended as a replacement for a Christe eleison of one of the completed masses – probably the Missa Omnium Sanctorum. No event presents itself for the composition of what was to be the beginning of Zelenka’s great final cycle of unfinished mass settings. The last-known completed mass of the series is Missa ultimarum sexta et forte omnium ultima dicta Missa OO SSrum (‘the sixth of the fi nal masses titled Missa Omnium Sanctorum’), whose Gloria is dated ‘3. Februar 1741’. Zelenka’s reason for naming Missa Omnium Sanctorum as the sixth mass of the series is unclear, but the third, fourth, and fifth masses of the project are either lost, or might have been settings composed at an earlier time, or else they were never written. Each of these three completed final masses is scored for four vocal soloists and four-part choir with instrumental accompaniment. The setting of the mass, as it developed in Naples during the first half of the eighteenth century, undoubtedly influenced Zelenka. Missa Omnium Sanctorum is a typical example of a ‘number’ setting composed in the stilo misto comprising, as it does, tutti choruses juxtaposed with brilliant concerted vocal and instrumental movements, powerful fugues written in the stile antico, double fugues, fugues with independent instrumental accompaniment, and solo vocal arias in which a range of galant features are evident. At an unknown time in the 1730s Zelenka composed at least two, and possibly three, motets featuring a solo bassoon obbligato. They are the secular motet of one movement titled Qui nihil sortis (ZWV 211), Sollicitus fossor (ZWV 209) and the dazzling ‘Motetto pro Resurrezione’, Barbara dira effera!. Zelenka entered this motet into his Inventarium as ‘Mottetto. Barbara dira effera! A Contralto Solo, Violini 2, Oboe 2, Viola, Fagotto e Basso Continuo. Z’. The motet is set for solo voice with instrumental accompaniment. The author of the Latin text remains unknown. Barbara dira effera! is constructed in three movements. It opens with a virtuosic and extended ‘rage’ aria marked ‘Allegro assai, e sempre fiero’ scored for alto soloist, bassoon obbligato, accompanied by strings, double reeds, and basso continuo. Following a dramatic outpouring of anguished fury, a recitative moves from the horror of death to the triumph of life which, in turn, leads straight into the final aria – a joyous ‘Alleluia’ setting. This format of aria–recitative–aria was employed for motets sung in Viennese court churches at that time. The autograph score of Barbara dira effera! was once accompanied by thirteen performance parts, but these are now missing from Dresden.