musica Dei donum
CD reviews
Johann Simon MAYR (1763 - 1845): Masses
[I] "Messa di Gloria in E minor - in F minor"
Anna Feith, Dorota Szczepańska, soprano;
Freya Apffelstaedt, Maria Grazia Insam, contralto;
Markus Schäfer, Fang Zhi, tenor;
Elia Merguet, Thomas Stimmel, bass
Simon Mayr Chorus; Concerto de Bassus
Dir: Franz Hauk
rec: June 23 - 27, 2019, Ingolstadt, Asamkirche Maria de Victoria
Naxos - 8.574203 (© 2021) (80'04")
Liner-notes: E/D; lyrics - translations: E
Cover, track-list & booklet
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Messa di Gloria in e minor;
Messa di Gloria in f minor
[II] Messa solenne in d minor
Bogna Bernagiewicz, Anna Feith, soprano;
Freya Apffelstaedt, contralto;
Markus Schäfer, Fang Zhi, tenor;
Niklas Mallmann, bass
Simon Mayr Chorus; Concerto de Bassus
Dir: Franz Hauk
rec: July 18 - 24, 2022, Ingolstadt, Asamkirche Maria de Victoria
Naxos - 8.574524-25 (© 2024) (1'36'00")
Liner-notes: E/D; lyrics - translations: E
Cover, track-list & booklet
Spotify
As the regular readers of this site may know, it mainly focuses on music of the renaissance and baroque periods. That reflects my own preferences, but is also partly due to the fact that sacred music is one of my main interests, and that I like to pay attention to recordings of music by composers who are not that well-known. These factors explain why recordings of music of the classical and romantic periods receive not that much attention here. Such recordings mostly concern those works that are regularly performed in concert halls and are available on disc. In addition, many classical and romantic composers did write little sacred music, for various reasons.
However, there are exceptions. One of them is the composer who is the subject of the two recordings to be reviewed here. Johann Simon Mayr not only composed a substantial number of sacred works, but he is also someone who has received little interest, until the German conductor Franz Hauk started to make a series of recordings of his oeuvre for Naxos. If one looks at the Naxos site, one will find recordings of sacred works, but also of operas. The latter have all Italian titles, and the titles of the masses also point in the direction of Italy. New Grove has Giovanni Simone as alternatives to his German Christian names. This all attests to his Italian connections.
Mayr was born in Mendorf, near Ingolstadt in Bavaria. As was often the case, he received the first lessons in music from his father, who was a schoolteacher and organist. Apparently he was a musical prodigy: before he turned eight years he was an able sight-singer and and few years later an accomplished keyboard player and a composer of songs. His further education took place at a Jesuit seminary near Ingolstadt, and in 1781 he began studying law and theology at Ingolstadt University. He learnt himself to play several instruments, and in 1786 he published a collection of songs.
In 1789 he moved to Bergamo to study with Carlo Lenzi, maestro di cappella at the basilica of S Maria Maggiore. It did not last long, and shortly afterwards he moved to Venice, where he became a pupil of Ferdinando Bertoni, maestro di cappella at St Mark's. This had a lasting influence on his development as a composer. In Venice his first oratorio and cantatas were performed. Two operas of his pen were performed in La Fenice theatre which earned him a reputation as one of the best opera composers of the time. In the course of his life many of his operas were performed in Venice, with which he had a close relationship until the end of his life, as well as other cities, such as Milan, Bologna and Turin.
For most of his life Mayr lived in Bergamo, where he founded several civic and cultural institutions, such as a free school of music, where he became the director and professor of music theory and composition. One of his students was Gaetano Donizetti. Mayr played a crucial role in music life in Bergamo until his death. In the course of time he refused many prestigious posts in other cities, such as Paris, St Petersburg, Dresden and Bologna. In 1824 his last opera was performed, and he turned to the composition of sacred works for performance at the basilica, where he also performed music by Viennese masters.
Mayr left a large corpus of music. His operas are considered the link between the 18th-century opera seria and the melodramma of the 19th century. One particularly notable aspect is his instrumentation, and especially the role of wind instruments. For the review of the two present discs the sacred part of his oeuvre is especially interesting. The work-list in New Grove mentions 18 masses and 277 mass movements, 7 Requiems and 20 Requiem movements, as well as many pieces for Vespers, hymns, antiphons, and music for Holy Week.
The three masses which are the subject of the discs under review here are different in length. With nearly an hour the Missa di Gloria in e minor is the longest work on the first disc. As the title suggests it comprises a Kyrie and a Gloria. The Kyrie is divided into three sections. The Kyries are for solo voices and tutti; they attest to Mayr's skills in the field of counterpoint, including the fugue. The Christe is scored for tenor with an obbligato part for the cello. The latter is a feature of several sections of the Gloria.
This mass is a specimen of a so-called messa concertata. We know works of that title from the 17th and 18th centuries, referring to a mass in which passages for solo voices and tutti alternate. That is also the case here, but here we meet a specific feature, concerning the Gloria. "The multi-sectional Gloria usually comprises only the opening 'Gloria in excelsis' and concluding 'Cum sancto spiritu', while the other verses are cast as individual arias which can be inserted depending on what is required and what forces are available" (booklet).
The character of Italian masses was summed up by Mayr himself. "In Lombardy, solemn Masses are nothing but a form of academy, as aside from two ripienos in the Kyrie and two in the Gloria, all the rest is composed entirely of so-called versetti, i.e. lengthy arias (like the Gratias by Guglielmi so often sung by the famous Catalani), almost always with one or two instruments, with obbligatos resembling mini-concertos, with the result that it is not rare for these two pieces alone – that is the Kyrie and Gloria – to be more than an hour and a half in length. Then neither the Sanctus nor the Benedictus, Agnus Dei etc. are sung."
This may well explain why sometimes very long masses could be performed at the liturgy. In this case Franz Hauk inserted several movements of different years of composition, from around 1820 to 1834. Only 'Qui sedes' seems to have been intended for this particular mass. This is a long aria (10'06") for tenor with an obbligato part for violin. 'Domine Deus' is for bass and horn, 'Qui tollis' for soprano with transverse flute and bassoon. These obbligato parts bear witness to the important role of winds in Mayr's music, as mentioned above.
Mayr's Mass in e minor won't come as a surprise to those who know, for instance, the sacred works by Rossini, who was clearly influenced by Mayr. Stylistically there is little difference between this mass and the opera of Mayr's time. Several elements can also be found in the organ music by the likes of Padre Davide da Bergamo, and in later times Giovanni Morandi and Vincenzo Petrali. In a way one can call it the secularization of sacred music.
In comparison the second work on the first disc, the Missa di Gloria in f minor, which also comprises Kyrie and Gloria, and dates from around 1820, is a more modest work in proportions, and apparently written as a unity. The individual sections are much shorter, and don't have the character of solo arias. The violin plays an obbligato role in a number of sections.
The second production is a twofer entirely devoted to the Messa solenne in d minor. It takes more than one-and-a-half hour, and as one may suspect, this mass comprises the complete Ordinary. It is one of the few masses by Mayr of this kind. It dates from between 1825 and 1830; the Kyrie and the opening and closing sections of the Gloria were conceived as a unity. Franz Hauk, in his liner-notes, mentions that the autograph suggests that it was put together in this form from early on.
Like in the Messa di Gloria in e minor the Kyrie is split into three sections; again the two Kyries are characterised by counterpoint which did not fail to make an impression, when the work was performed, according to Mayr's first biographer Girolamo Calvi. In most mass settings of the baroque and classical periods, the Christe is set to a contrasting scoring; here it is for two sopranos.
The Gloria is the longest part of the mass, and divided into six sections. The opening section is for solo voices and choir, whereas the second, 'Laudamus te', is for solo alto, with an obbligato part for transverse flute. The 'Domine Deus' is again a duet for two sopranos, but in this case they are supported by two tenors and bass. The next section is 'Qui tollis', which is a solo for tenor with a four-part chorus. It is probably surprising that the ensuing section, 'Qui sedes', is another solo for tenor. Here the two solos are split among the two tenors, and on the physical release they are allocated to different discs. The 'Qui sedes' has also been preserved in an alternative version of a later date. The entire ensemble is involved in the 'Cum Sancto Spiritu', which is not unlike an ensemble in an opera. It closes with a fugato.
The Credo is something special. One of its features is that the choir repeats the opening word time and again from start to finish. Also notable is the role of the first violin: it is more than just an obligato part, as it plays nearly from the start to the end. One could almost call it a violin concerto. In the Crucifixus the orchestral strings play a tremolo that since ancient times was used to illustrate great distress. The passage on the Resurrection is introduced by signals of the trumpets. In the Sanctus a pair of horns participates; the Benedictus is a solo for bass. The entire ensemble then closes the mass with the Agnus Dei.
These three masses are quite different; each of them has its own character. For me it was the first time I have heard any music by Mayr. I have come to the conclusion that he was an excellent composer, and that the coverage of his oeuvre by Franz Hauk is well deserved. It can only be appreciated that Naxos was willing to give him the chance to present it to a worldwide audience. I was especially impressed by the instrumentation, and in particular his treatment of the wind instruments, a feature already mentioned above. I also like the obbligato parts which are original and attest to Mayr's creativity.
That said, I certainly would not like to listen to this kind of music on a regular basis. These works smell too much of opera, of which I am not a great lover. Therefore my advice to each reader: investigate these recordings - or others with music by Mayr - if you are open to Italian opera from the first half of the 19th century. If you like operas by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti - to mention the best-known - you may well enjoy these masses too. Others may find it harder to embrace these works. Fortunately it is possible to listen to these recordings - or at least parts of them - on several platforms.
Even so, these recordings are of great importance. Performances and recordings of 19th-century repertoire on period instruments is pretty common these days, but opera and vocal music in general are still firmly in the hands of 'traditional' performance practice. Franz Hauk shows how much it can take advantage of a historical approach, with the right instruments.
He has the help of an outstanding vocal ensemble and orchestra, which are entirely focusing on Mayr and are well acquainted with his style. Hauk also can rely on a fine team of soloists. One of the standing forces is the tenor Markus Schäfer, a man with a vast experience in baroque music, but also in later repertoire; he is one of the most impressive singers here. His colleague Fang Zhi is a new name to me, but is excellent in the 'Qui tollis' in the Messa solenne. The soprano parts are among the most operatic, and here we find the high notes one expects in operas of the time. Their arias would not be out of place in any opera of that time. Dorota Szczepańska and Anna Feith have the most of the solo parts to sing, and they are quite impressive, technically (for instance in breath control) and in expression. The latter and Bogna Bernagiewicz are a perfect match in the duets. Freya Apffelstaedt has a nice dark voice, a true alto, which she uses to good effect in the 'Laudamus te' in the Messe solenne. The two basses are of the same high standard; their parts are different as they don't need to search for the top of their range, but Mayr requires great flexibility in the 'Domine Deus' of the Missa di Gloria in e minor, and Thomas Stimmel deals with it admirably. The 'Benedictus' of the Messe solenne does not so much focus on techncal brilliance, but rather the content, and Niklas Mallmann sings it very well. In all cases the balance between the voices and the obbligato instruments is just right.
I can't imagine better advocates for Mayr's oeuvre than Franz Hauk and his ensembles.
Johan van Veen (© 2025)
Relevant links:
Freya Apffelstaedt
Bogna Bernagiewicz
Anna Feith
Niklas Mallmann
Markus Schäfer
Dorota Szczepańska
Fang Zhi