Tyrolean Musical Treasures 21

Tyrolean Passion Music and Easter Concert 2001
These concerts at the Hall Jesuit Church were premiere presentations of sacred music dating from Archduke Ferdinand’s famous court ensemble of singers and musicians in Innsbruck. Outstanding musicians and composers from all different countries were active in the city at the time. Numerous important works written by them have survived in published form. Collecting printed editions of these works systematically in European archives and libraries, we have acquired copies and transcribed them into modern musical notation in order that these magnificent compositions can be performed again in concerts today. The program of this concert, which was memorable in many respects, was in two parts. The first was the moving Summa passionis (eight-part Passion music, possibly composed in Innsbruck around 1583) by Jakob Regnart, who was the director of Archduke Ferdinand’s court music ensemble in Innsbruck for over a decade. Framing this Passion were motets by the renowned composer Blasius Amon, a native of Hall who proudly called himself Tyrolensis. The main focus of the second part was another work by Jakob Regnart, his Easter Mass from the Corollarium missarium sacrarum collection published in Frankfurt in 1603, four years after his death. As the model for his composition, Regnart had chosen the well-known Easter hymn Christ ist erstanden (Christ is risen), namely in the rendition issued in the Catholic hymn book, Catholisch Gesangbüchlein, Innsbruck 1588. Two motets by Franz Sales (about 1545-1599) from the Sacrarum cantionum collection (Prague 1593) were also presented for the first time at this concert. Sales, who came from Belgium, was originally a member of the Innsbruck court music ensemble but was appointed by Archduchess Magdalena, the sister of the Tyrolean ruler and the founder of the religious institution for ladies of rank in Hall, to be the director of the ensemble there. It was in this position in Hall that Sales produced his most important compositions. They were printed somewhat later in Prague, as Innsbruck still lacked an adequate printer.

Track 16, 2:42
Resurrexi et adhuc
Franz Sales (um 1545-1599)