With all our high tech gimmickry and huge-budget spectacles–from super bowls to celebrity funerals to millennium parties–we think we know how to do celebrations. But we have nothing on the ecclesiastical/political powers in 17th century Salzburg, who in 1682 staged what must have been one of history’s most magnificent spectacles, with no artificial “special effects”–just the live sights and sounds of thousands of people attending the performance of a festival mass that employed no less than six choirs, several trumpet and drum ensembles, five or six organs, and numerous groups of strings and winds–50 parts in all. Of course, there also was the “kilometer-long procession” of elegantly and extravagantly garbed, assorted and sundry dignitaries parading through the streets into the cathedral; and there was the church itself, with its four cathedral organs and vast, elaborately appointed space, its gold, silver, and fine glass gleaming, reflecting the glorious grandeur of the occasion. The occasion for this giant festival mass, the Missa Salisburgensis, was the 1100th anniversary of Salzburg’s prominence as a center of Christianity, and for this, only a “monster” mass (as conductor Reinhard Goebel calls it) would do. Oddly for us, but not so strange for the time it was written, the author of this work was not identified and has never been conclusively determined. Scholarly best guesses attribute it to Heinrich Franz Biber whose position in the church musical hierarchy apparently didn’t warrant such attribution.
The present recording was made in the Abbey Church of SS. Mary & Ethelflaeda, Hampshire, England, rather than in Salzburg, but no one should have reason to complain that the sound suffers any loss of authenticity: the sonic impact is nearly overwhelming at times. Listeners should be warned not to turn the volume up during the first track, an “offstage” instrumental introit, or you and your speakers will receive a rude shock as the following Kyrie literally explodes full force. Conductor Paul McCreesh loves these grand re-creations, which are not always as successful as the idea is promising. This one, however, has to go down as one of his more successful efforts. The music, which draws from the much imitated and highly revered Venetian multi-ensemble style as well as from French and German Baroque conventions, has a power that equals far more than the sum of its parts. All sorts of devices appear, from bass ostinato figures, brilliant trumpet fanfares, alternating sections of soloists and choirs, antiphonal choral and instrumental effects, and of course the full assemblage of performers–a truly magnificent and expertly recorded sound. There are some really wonderful thematic ideas and developmental turns, especially notable in the Gloria and Credo. And the Agnus Dei is a masterpiece unto itself. Throughout, you can’t help but appreciate how perfectly suited this music is to an event designed both to glorify “the Creator of Heaven and Earth” and bring all concerned a little closer to the heavenly choirs of angels singing from the celestial towers of Jerusalem.
The performers are uniformly first rate–not a weakness anywhere. The soft “c” in words like “pacem” and “coeli” is slightly annoying, but that’s a technicality that only the most picky and inflexible–and sharp-eared–listeners will notice. This is a memorable and tremendously exciting recording of a work that probably won’t get another decent recording for 100 years. After this, it won’t need one.
