MOZART

Vol. 17 Sacred Music: Coronation Mass
Kiri Te Kanawa · Wiener Sängerknaben · Sir Colin Davis

CD 446 239-2
PHILIPS

This CD brings together the loveliest and best-known sacred works from Mozart's pen, which all date from his Salzburg days, with the exception of the motet "Exsultate, jubilate," the bravura piece sung so often by sopranos with an assured coloratura, which was written in Milan in 1773. In his early travels Mozart had got to know the various directions of Catholic church music, both the stile antico with its contrapuntal style and the stile moderno with its rather operatic elements. But the works he wrote in Salzburg remain firmly tied to the Salzburg tradition. The "Coronation" Mass, K. 317, written in 1779 is Mozart's most popular Missa brevis. The synthesis of striking melodic writing and symphonic structure realised in this work points ahead to the late Masses of Joseph Haydn. The Missa solemnis K. 337 is also in fact a Missa brevis of economic dimensions, which like K. 317 is scored for a large orchestra, with trumpets and trombones. Extreme formal economy is united with a great abundance of detail in this masterpiece. Mozart wrote two sets of Vespers (K. 321 and 339) in 1779 and 1780 in Salzburg; both of these "Laudate dominum" movements take the form of expressive soprano arias. - The focus of this CD is Mozart prima donna Dame Kiri te Kanawa, who lays her extraordinary voice entirely at the service of these Mozart works.

The Best of the Complete Mozart Edition