CD 18/19
Tyrolean Musical Treasures 16
Josef Strickner, View of Wilten Abbey (detail), 1815
In 1750 Johann Heinrich Hörmann (1694-1763) published his opus 1 in Augsburg. It was a collection of six festive masses. Hörmann was already 56 years old at the time and referred to the style of his newly published masses as being old and out-of-date too. In Hörmann’s day a composer still saw himself not as the creator of enduring works of art but as a proper master of his trade, who supplied works for a large number of purposes. Because the new works constantly expected of a composer also had to conform to the latest trends, they seldom had a long lifetime. Hörmann therefore justifi es the publication of his masses by arguing that, in view of the many great musicians of his day, he was “not taking anything away from the modern spirits..., but would merely like to see the wide variety of expressive possibilities documented because the new style, particularly of Italian church music, was not welcome everywhere, especially not in the monasteries.” Hörmann’s works are still fi rmly based in the Baroque style. To him the only way to make a sacred work of art do justice to the grandeur of the place and its purpose was by applying long-standing and established Baroque stylistic means and atmosphere. The new Neapolitan cantata mass that was increasingly taking over church music in all regions remained fundamentally foreign to him. Instead, he carried on the tradition of the missa concertata shaped and developed not least by the contributions of famous 17th-century directors of the Innsbruck court music ensemble. Tiroler Tage für Kirchenmusik 2000 Stift Wilten
CD 1,Track 13, 2:49
Agnus Dei from Mass Nr. 4
Johann Heinrich Hörmann
(1694-1763)