Zelenka - Officium defunctorum. Requiem
Collegium 1704; Collegium Vocale 1704 / Luks
Accent ACC24244 (2CD)

Release date May 2011

Jan Dismas Zelenka was the most important Czech Baroque composer. Around 1710 he became a violone player in the royal orchestra at Dresden, a city where he remained, acting as assistant to the Kapellmeister Heinichen and gradually assuming his duties as the latter’s health declined. After Heinichen’s death in 1729 he became acting Kapellmeister, and so when the Catholic Elector of Saxony and King of Poland died in early 1733 it fell to Zelenka to produce the music for the funeral. He had to work quickly – the memorial services were fixed for mid-April, and were not confined to a Requiem Mass but extended to a Liturgy of the Hours for the Dead, customarily celebrated the preceding day. Thus Zelenka produced an hour of music for this Officum defunctorum, consisting of an elaborate tapestry of orchestrally accompanied solo vocal, ensemble and choral music interleaved with occasional unaccompanied plainchant. Prague baroque orchestra Collegium 1704 and the seventeen singers of Collegium Vocale 1704 plus four soloists handle each element beautifully, performing with a grave dignity that allows the beauty of the music to shine through, whilst maintaining a flow – quite a feat, considering the mix of relatively short passages involved in the liturgy. The solo chanting of the lessons is among the most sensitive I have heard, distributed amongst the tenors and basses of the choir. The Requiem is an altogether more splendid affair, concerned as much with the resurrection and apotheosis of the sovereign as with his death. Trumpets, horns and drums join strings and woodwind in music of splendour and variety, including a rousing fanfare-like duet for tenor and bass in the Tuba Mirum. New to me was the use of the chalumeau, a forerunner of the clarinet that was used in Vienna and Dresden to express above all feelings of deepest emotion and grief. Its effect is especially poignant in the Agnus Dei. With the booklet essays providing illuminating background to the music and its function, the entire two-disc package can be most highly recommended. This is the best recording of Zelenka's music that I have encountered, and one of my favourite releases of 2011.

Reviewed by Anne McAlister