It is not known which occasion Zelenka composed the large-scale Missa Divi
Xaverii for in 1729 in Vienna. This new discovery by Václav Luks and his ensembles brings a magnificent sacred work to light which displays parallels with Bach’s Mass in B minor.

In recent years works by the Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745) have attracted increasing interest from musicians and audiences. Zelenka’s emotional and individual music continues to exert a fascination more than two centuries after it was written.

Very little is known about his childhood and youth, but it can be assumed that he received his first musical tuition from his father, a village organist. He continued his studies at the Jesuit College in Prague, where his first known work, the school drama Via laureata, was performed in 1704.

From 1710 Zelenka worked as a double bass player in the Dresden court ensemble, where he gradually assumed an increasingly important role and also undertook composing duties. Then his career took him to Vienna, where he studied with the court Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux from 1716 to 1719 and also taught privately. From 1725 onwards, Zelenka increasingly directed church music in the Dresden court church, deputizing for the ailing Kapellmeister Johann David Heinichen. After Heinichen’s death in 1729 Zelenka hoped, with justification, that he might be appointed to the vacant position.

His Missa Divi Xaverii was composed in 1729, the year of Heinichen’s death. It is not known which occasion the work was intended for, but the spectacular setting of the ordinary of the Mass (without Credo), in which Zelenka showed his entire mastery and originality to best advantage, was evidently composed in great haste. His autograph score is not only very damaged, but is also very sketchy, and notated with energetic and difficult-to-read pen strokes. Despite the hurry, Zelenka experimented here, particularly in the scoring of the unusually large orchestral forces. These include the brilliance of four trumpets, and the four vocal parts are frequently in dialogue with concertante transverse flutes, oboes and bassoon. The “Quoniam tu solus” is a true rarity full of musical splendour in which the orchestra joins with the solo quartet in the form of a brilliant concerto.

After Heinichen’s death Zelenka effectively took over the Kapellmeister’s duties. But his application for the position, submitted in autumn 1733, was unsuccessful, because the court had already been in contact with the very promising Johann Adolph Hasse (1699–1783). But in 1733 an even more interesting name emerged in connection with the application for the position of Kapellmeister – Johann Sebastian Bach. The works with which he introduced himself in Dresden were a “Kyrie” and a “Gloria” – which were later added to the High Mass in B minor. When we compare these two sections of the Mass in B minor by Bach (the “Kyrie” and “Gloria” of 1733) with the Missa Divi Xaverii by Zelenka, we find a surprising number of common features, particularly in the treatment of wind instruments.

Bach, too, had no success with his application in Dresden; he, like Zelenka, had to be content with the honorary title of “Kirchen-Compositeur”.           

After many requests, Zelenka was finally successful in obtaining a rise in his salary only after 1735. He then directed church music in the court chapel until his death on 23 December 1745, sharing duties with Johann Adolph Hasse and Giovanni Alberto Ristori.

Václav Luks