Franz Schubert - Deutsche Messe; The 6 Latin Masses

Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)

Deutsche Messe

The 6 Latin Masses

Bach Collegium Japan, 

Leverkusen Capella Vocale, 

Spandau Kantorei, 

Berlin Bach Collegium, 

Hamburg Vocal Capella, et al.

 Vienna Symphony Orchestra

 

Hans Gillesberger, Martin Behrmann

These masses are Schubert's hymn-like works with an enormous melodic charm. He composed part of them to texts of Johann Philip Neumann, who was a professor at the Vienna Polytechnical Institute, and they were intended for use by the students congregation at that Institute. He finished the first mass when he was only 17 and the last one just a few months before he died, so his masses, the latin as well as his german ones, really span over a relatively long time of the creative part of his career.

Technically speaking these masses seem easy, but they surely rank among Franz Schubert's best works. They certainly constitute a very mature body of work, most part of which written by the great composer towards the end of his short but very prolific life. The choral part is not overly complex, and so is the orchestral one. To me the beauty of these works is in the interaction between choral, solos and orchestral sections. Sometimes a simple work can be magnificent.

I'm not a regular churchgoer, but just like another reviewer here at Amazon.com, I happened to attend a few masses in Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg, Germany, more than a decade ago. Masses in german and english, the softly spoken magic spell accompanied by Schubert's masses. What a blissful atmosphere! When I think about it, it's very difficult to describe that feeling now, but I guess "intimate" would be the word that comes closest to it.