Fux (1660-1741) - Requiem for Emperor : R.Wilson / Musica Fiata, La Capella Ducale - Import CD

Credits:

GARRETT, DAVID

Description:

Musica Fiata's "Imperial Requiem" by Johann Joseph Fuchs, the chief musician of the St. Stephen's Cathedral & Court Chapel in Vienna, is a beautiful and indescribable work by Fuchs. In 1715, he was appointed Chief Court Chapel Musician by the next emperor, Karl VI, a post he held for the rest of his life, and left behind a wide variety of vocal and instrumental works from the Baroque period. He was especially well known for his "Gradus asso Parnassum," a treatise on counterpoint, and is perhaps one of the most recently reappraised composers of the period. The "Requiem" (Mass for the Dead) recorded here, also known as the "Imperial Requiem," was written for the funeral of Empress Eonora (widow of Emperor Leopold I) and later performed for the funerals of Emperor Franz I's father, Duke Eugene, and Emperor Carl VI.The unparalleled beauty of this work stands out among the many masterpieces of requiem, with its sorrowful style and melody that eschews the celebratory sounds and concerto treatment of instrumental music of earlier Baroque period requiem. Roland Wilson is a veteran of many German and Venetian early baroque religious works recorded since the 1980s. This is a small instrumental ensemble, with one player in each part. La Chapelle Ducale, a choir formed by Roland Wilson, whose members are all soloists, also uses a small ensemble to highlight the colors of the instrumental, solo and choral parts. The performance of the piece is interspersed with a lengthy "Miserere" (24 minutes), which was not included in the René Clemencic disc (BVCE38107), a work that would have been performed at the same time as the Requiem and which attracted considerable attention at the time, and succeeds in bringing out the full character and beauty of the Requiem. Sony Music