Zelenka's Zenith

[Eli]

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Classical CD Of The Week: Zelenka To Fall In Love With

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2017/02/18/classical-cd-of-the-week-zelenka-to-fall-in-love-with/#56a37e7e78e2

[HIPster]

Nice review Jens! 

Wishlisted now. 

[Rinaldo]

Classical CD Of The Week: Zelenka To Fall In Love With

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2017/02/18/classical-cd-of-the-week-zelenka-to-fall-in-love-with/#56a37e7e78e2

Word. And Blažíková is truly amazing.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Nice review Jens! 

Wishlisted now. 

Word. And Blažíková is truly amazing.

Thanks! Pleasure to know it's read and that tastes align. And I have more Zelenka/Blažíková-joy to come, by way of the album of Italian Arias, which was also recently released.

[Spotted Horses]

Mainly I know Zelenka for his Trio Sonatas, based on the recordings by Soloists of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Zafiro. Anyone have a favorite recording of these works that they would care to suggest?

[Que]

Mainly I know Zelenka for his Trio Sonatas, based on the recordings by Soloists of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Zafiro. Anyone have a favorite recording of these works that they would care to suggest?

Zefiro is very nice (oboe: Alfredo Bernardini and Paolo Grazzi,  bassoon: Alberto Grazzi, continuo: Rinaldo Alessandrini, Rolf Lislevand, Lorenz Duftschmid), so is this:

[Rinaldo]

Rekindling this thread with a few snaps from my summer pilgrimage to Zelenka's birthplace, Louňovice pod Blaníkem. Cozy little market town, not much to see there, but a common stop on the hike to the top of Blaník mountain, which might sound familiar thanks to a certain guy named Smetana.

And yeah, the Votiva (and especially Blažíková weaving ,,Eleison" at 6:19) still melts my heart.

[Kalevala]

Rekindling this thread with a few snaps from my summer pilgrimage to Zelenka's birthplace, Louňovice pod Blaníkem. Cozy little market town, not much to see there, but a common stop on the hike to the top of Blaník mountain, which might sound familiar thanks to a certain guy named Smetana.

And yeah, the Votiva (and especially Blažíková weaving ,,Eleison" at 6:19) still melts my heart.

Thank you so much for posting the video, the photos and your comments!  I really hope to visit Czechia one day as some of my favorite composers are from there.  I'm also a big Supraphon fan as well and love to travel.

K

[Rinaldo]

I really hope to visit Czechia one day as some of my favorite composers are from there.  I'm also a big Supraphon fan as well and love to travel.

Feel free to hit me up with questions if you ever get a chance to go. The least I can do is advise you on Prague tourist traps  And point you to the last remaining Supraphon store!

[Daverz]

Bit of a mystery this Miserere:

Zelenka is listed as co-composer with Allegri.  I can't find any info about Zelenka's part in it.

[Que]

Bit of a mystery this Miserere:

Zelenka is listed as co-composer with Allegri.  I can't find any info about Zelenka's part in it.

 Ensemble Inégal are my favourite Zelenka performers!

I found this on the ARTA site, probably from the liner notes:

Allegri – Miserere (ca. 1638)

Zelenka's own inventory and manuscripts in his private collection document his special interest in the polychoral form in the early 1730s. Not only did he compose works for "2 Cori" during this period (Te Deum, ZWV 146, 1731; Missa Theophorica, ZWV 241, ca. 1732, now lost), but he also studied music for the double and triple choir settings by the composers Francesco Mancini and Antonio Lotti, respectively. Another fascinating work which entered Zelenka's collection at the time was the four-part model of Grigorio Allegri's (1582-1652) Miserere. A score copy in the hand of Zelenka is preserved in the SLUB; a full set of parts for "2 Cori" went missing in 1945, only to be rediscovered in Moscow in 2005 during the visit of Karl Geck, the head of the music department of the SLUB. Following an agreement between the SLUB and the Russian State Library, musical manuscripts that had been removed from Dresden to Russia in 1945 began appearing online in the websites of the two libraries, allowing scholars to examine for the first time the Allegri copies and a couple of other works from Zelenka's collection.

How Zelenka came to possess Allegri's Miserere, a work so well guarded by the Vatican, remains a mystery. But he might have received it from Vienna in the early 1730s from his former teacher, the imperial Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux, along with two other Miserere settings known to have entered Zelenka's collection at the time: one by Fux and the second by the imperial Vice-Kapellmeister Antonio Caldara. In any case, Zelenka's copy is one of the earliest known examples outside of Rome and Vienna. Upon receiving the score Zelenka began preparing the music for performance by adding colla parte instruments and adjusting the dynamic instructions – a fairly standard procedure as seen in the many works of Palestrina in the Dresden collection. And yet, in this instance he goes against the established convention that dynamics usually escalate towards cadence with dissonance, not the other way around as here. The musical outcome of this unusual retouching is very impressing indeed.

In essence, Allegri's genius setting lies in its simplicity and the haunting beautiful melody. The two choirs, consisting of CATB as Coro I and CCAB as Coro II, alternate with each other for the twenty verses of the text, before joining together for the doxology 'Gloria Patri' at the end, with 'Tutti' as prescribed by Zelenka. On this recording Coro I is supported by a basso continuo section of cellos, double bass, bassoon and organ, while Coro II – here recorded from a slightly greater distance – is accompanied by an eight-stop violone and theorbo.

A close study of the Miserere parts reveals that they were not written out by the copyists employed at the time by Zelenka; instead, by using several members of the Kapellknaben this was to be a part of their studies, given the weight and importance of music so rare and precious. The copyists include for example the ensemble's organist Augustin Uhlig, while the violone part is copied out by the Dresden Hofkapelle double bass player Johann Samuel Kaÿser. Both of these musicians were compositional students of Zelenka, and their personal relationships despite the difference in age and position seem to have been one of friendship and respect. For example, when Uhlig married in February 1737, Zelenka acted as the best man; later that year, the Catholic Zelenka became a godparent to the Lutheran Kaÿser's son.

It is quite possible that Allegri's Miserere was first heard in the Catholic court church on 23 March 1733. On that day the Jesuit diary noted that classes had been cancelled because the Miserere had been rehearsed at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Two hours later, the Miserere was performed. This somewhat unusually entry is typical for the Jesuits when they reported on musical novelties or other special moments in the church.

https://www.arta.cz/index.php?p=shop_item&site=en&id=DNI176