Franz Schubert: Mass in A flat

Franz Schubert: Mass in A flat

HC22041 (Hänssler Classic, CD)

FIRST RELEASE (3 February 2023)

Playing time: 43'33"
Tracks: 6
Booklet pages: 24
℗ 2022 Profil Medien GmbH / Hänssler Classic
© 2022 Profil Medien GmbH / Hänssler Classic
Main country of recording: Germany
Reviewer: Gerald Fenech
Review of Franz Schubert: Mass in A flat published on 3 March 2023

Johanna Winkel, soprano
Elvira Bill, mezzo-soprano
Florian Sievers, tenor
Arttu Kataja, baritone
Kammerchor Stuttgart
Hofkapelle Stuttgart
Frieder Bernius, conductor

Franz Schubert (1797-1828):

Mass in A flat, D 678 (1819-22, revised 1825)
1 Kyrie
2 Gloria
3 Credo
4 Sanctus
5 Benedictus
6 Agnus Dei

In his Mass in A flat, Schubert set himself the great task of composing a 'Missa solemĀ­nis', as he later entitled the work. As with the Mass he wrote in the last year of his life, he severed the bonds imposed by tradition on the four earlier works of 1814-16. His highest ambition for the effect it might have on the world - there is evidence of his early intention to dedicate it to the Emperor Franz and his consort - is linked in the A flat major Mass with a deeply personal confession, the formulation of his own faith, of 'true devotion' as he put it in 1825. There can scarcely be another work upon which Schubert worked so long, so intensively and with such revision: begun in November 1819, the Mass was not finished unti I September 1822; given one performance at the end of that year and possibly another in 1823 in the Alt-Lerchenfeld parish church in Vienna, it was by no means 'finished business', being modified by Schubert by 1825.

Recorded 6-8 October 2021 in the Hegelsaal, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Germany.