Great music and new insights

Created: 12/28/2022, 12:54 p.m

The Musica di Baviera conducted by Sixtus Lampl performed Franz Xaver Brixi's Missa solemnis in the Zollingerhalle on Monday.

© Max Kalup

A year later, Franz Xaver Brixi's Missa solemnis has now been performed again in Valley.

It wasn't just the magnificent work that made people sit up and take notice at the Christmas concert at the organ center.

Valley

- Magnificent music for the festival was heard on Boxing Day in the Zollingerhalle of the Valley Organ Center.

Not only the re-performance of the Missa solemnis by Franz Xaver Brixi, former conductor of the cathedral in Prague, made people sit up and take notice.

One knows Sixtus Lampl full of vigor and enthusiasm when he invites to concerts.

This time he beamed even more than usual and was delighted to be able to announce something new after the Missa solemnis in C Brixis performed under his direction with soloists, choir and orchestra of the Musica di Baviera.

"Now you can find out something that no one knows yet, not even the ensemble," beamed Lampl and said at the end of a moving concert afternoon in the sold-out Zollingerhalle: "Yesterday evening at 9.30 p.m. I discovered in the directory of the Weyarn Monastery that Exactly this mass is included.” Not only that. It was also performed there at the time.

Contained in the music of the Weyarn monastery

This is all the more astonishing since these solemn masses were radically destroyed during the period of secularization.

Because the demolition of large monasteries such as Weyarn or Tegernsee would have been technically too complex without heavy equipment, the spiritual and cultural heritage was symbolically destroyed as much as possible in 1803, Lampl explained.

The fact that this was not done with the thoroughness demanded by state reformer Maximilian von Montgelas in Weyarn may have been due to the freezing cold weather, which prevented the inspectors from going into the icy storage facility at the time.

So they overlooked the cupboard in which this Missa solemnis was also kept.

Before Brixi's work was performed again for the first time after 1756, Lampl sent "a few figures" ahead.

The work, which he had laid out before him in impressively large sheets of music, comprised 1134 bars.

With eleven staves of singers and instruments, that amounts to a total of 12,474 and 187,110 individual notes.

The master of the house had prepared such statistics because this missa solemnis was particularly detailed.

At 70 minutes, the piece, which was probably composed for the inauguration of the Nicolai Church in Prague, lasts half an hour longer than that of Joseph Haydn.

70 minutes of pure playing time until Barbara Öttl, hidden behind an organ, started the final drum roll with "Dona nobis pacem" and sustained applause began.

70 minutes that challenged the musicians but captivated the audience to the end,

without it ever getting long.

And that, where only the "Gloria" started a brilliant praise of glory and peace for more than 30 minutes.

Another performance of Brixi's "Missa solemnis" planned for Easter

Lampl shouldn't have emphasized that you had to practice a lot.

The fact that Corona additionally delayed the re-performance originally planned for 2021 for the 250th anniversary of Brixis' death did not make it any easier, nor did the spontaneous cast changes, because some actors were also sick.

For example, Hannes Düker, who was responsible for preparing the sheet music, unexpectedly found himself playing the bass soloist, singing the “Qui tollis peccata mundi” with the choir.

On the way out, a look at the license plates of the parked cars showed that some of the guests had come from far away.

Opposite, the stage lights shone from the high windows of the Schlossbräu, where the Dramadama theater group once again played Michael Ende.

Two top-class cultural artists in a small space on this Christmas Eve in the small valley.

There will be a second opportunity to hear Brixi's Missa solemnis in C on Easter Monday, April 10, at 3 p.m., also in the Zollingerhalle.

Tickets for 20 euros (children and young people up to 16 years free) can be reserved on 0 80 24 / 41 44 and via the website of the culture and organ center.