Zelenka - Missa Votiva, ZWV 18

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Score / sheet music to Zelenka's unparalleled Missa Votiva, /Z. 18/.
Composed late in Zelenka's life, the Missa Votiva draws attention to the health of the composer who had experienced at least two major bouts of illness during the 1730s. At the conclusion of the Missa Purificationis, /Z. 16/, a work almost certainly composed for the churching ceremony of Maria Josepha held six weeks after the birth of Prince Carl /born 13 July 1733/ - Zelenka noted that he was very ill at the time of composing the mas, a setting complete in a mere ten days. Upon recovery, and after composing four major works between 1735 and 1737, he became almost silent again, with one composition only known to have been written between 1738 and 1739 - a Miserere setting dated "1738, 12 Marti".
In 1739 Zelenka emerged from an illness of such gravity that, according to leading Zelenka scholar Janice B. Stockigt: "he vowed to compose a mass upon recovery. The Missa Votiva was the result."
The autograph inscription on the cover to the score reads "Vota mea Domino reddam coram omni populo ejus" /I will pay my vows to the Lord, before all his people/.
Another Latin note at the end of the score stated that the mass was composed in fulfillment of a vow "Missam hanc A[d]: M[aiorem]: D[ei]: G[oriam]: ex voto posuit J[an]: D[ismas]: Z[elenka]: post recuperatam Deo Fautore Salutem".
The autograph score is held in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden (D-Dl): Mus.2358-D-33,1-2, but the 23 performing part that once accompanied the source have been missing from Dresden for more than fifty years. Two 18th century copies of the work are kept in the Prague collection of the Order of the Knights of the Cross with Red Star, an indication of musical exchanges between the church composers of Dresden and Bohemia.
The profound musical expression of the Missa Votiva is carried by four solo voices and a four-part choral ensemble, a string section of violins 1 and 2, with viola, a pair of oboes and a continuo section comprising organ, violoncello, violone and bassoon and - if available - theorbo.
The Missa Votiva is set in five major sections: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. As a model, Zelenka used the large scale mass composition that had emerged from Naples known as the "number setting" in which the main sections of the mass were subdivided into movements /or numbers/ of contrasting musical style and scoring. Hence the 20 movement Missa Votiva comprises a mixture of large scale choral movements juxtaposed with solo arias, brief Szenen /short dramatic episodes into which a number of diverse elements of musical techniques and musical-rhetorical figures are incorporated in close proximity/, and choral fugues. Vastly different musical styles sit side by side, with choral movements in the style of the concerto adjacent to movements composed in the "stile antico" which, in turn, might be placed next to arias with attributes of the latest operatic style.
The Missa Votiva, to conclude, is one of the great High Masses composed by Zelenka during the final years of his life. After composing this work, a grand compositional scheme was commenced in 1740 when, at the age of 61, he began to write a cycle of six masses - the Missa Ultimae...
but the project remained unfinished, another sign of ongoing ill health endured for more than a decade.
Jan Dismas Zelenka died in Dresden during the evening of 22nd of December, 1745, and was buried two days later in the Catholic cemetery in Friedrichstadt.

I: Kyrie I (Chorus) - 00:00​
II: Christe eleison (Soprano) - 4:04
III: Kyrie II (Chorus) - 9:32
IV: Kyrie III (Chorus) - 10:20
V: Gloria (Chorus) - 11:13
VI: Gratias agimus tibi (Chorus) - 15:18
VII: Qui tollis (Soprano) - 18:43
VIII: Qui sedes (Chorus) - 23:50
IX: Quoniam to solus sanctus (Bass) - 25:30
X: Cum Sancto Spiritu I (Chorus) - 29:19
XI: Cum Sancto Spiritu II (Chorus, Double Fugue) - 30:11
XII: Credo (Chorus) - 33:38
XIII: Et incarnatus est - (Alto) - 38:00
XIV: Crucifixus (Chorus, Fugue) - 44:00
XV: Et resurrexit (Chorus) - 46:54
XVI: Et vitam (Chorus, Fugue) - 52:17
XVII: Sanctus (Chorus) - 54:29
XVIII: Benedictus (Soprano) - 56:12
XIX: Osanna in excelsis (Chorus, Fugue) - 1:02:29
XX: Agnus Dei (Chorus) - 1:04:02
XXI: Dona nobis pacem (Chorus) - 1:06:23

Performer(s):    • Missa Votiva in E minor, ZWV 18: 1. K...