Virga Jesse (Bruckner)

Virga Jesse
Motet by Anton Bruckner

Immaculate Conception (Wintershouse)
Key E minor
Catalogue WAB 52
Form Gradual
Text Virga Jesse floruit
Language Latin
Dedication 100th anniversary of the Linz diocese
Performed 8 December 1885 (1885-12-08): Vienna
Published 1896 (1896): Vienna
Vocal SATB choir

Virga Jesse (The branch from Jesse), WAB 52, is a motet by the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. It sets the gradual Virga Jesse floruit for unaccompanied mixed choir.

History

The work was completed on 3 September 1885 and may have been intended for the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the Linz diocese; however, like the Ecce sacerdos magnus that Bruckner composed A.M.D.G. for that event, it was not performed there.[1][2] It was performed on 8 December 1885 in the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.[1]

The motet was edited together with three other graduals (Locus iste WAB 23, Christus factus est WAB 11, and Os justi WAB 30), by Theodor Rättig, Vienna in 1886.[1] The motet is put in Band XXI/34 of the Gesamtausgabe.[3]

Setting

This 91-bar gradual in E minor is for mixed choir a cappella. In the first part on the verse Virga jesse floruit (bars 1-20) Bruckner used twice the Dresdner Amen on the word floruit (bars 7-9 and 17-19).[1] The last part (bars 63-91) consists, as in the earlier Inveni David WAB 19, of an Alleluja, for which Bruckner drew his inspiration from the Hallelujah of Händel's Messiah, on which he often improvised on organ.[4] The motet ends in pianissimo by the tenor voice on a pedal point.[5]

Max Auer regards it as the most accomplished and magnificent a cappella motet of the composer.[5] The Bruckner biographer Howie also calls this work "one of Bruckner's finest motets".[2]

Selected discography

The first recording of Bruckner's Vexilla regis occurred in 1931:

A selection among the about 80 recordings:

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 van Zwol, Cornelis (2012). Anton Bruckner – Leven en Werken. Thot. p. 708. ISBN 90-686-8590-2.
  2. 1 2 Howie, A. Crawford (2004). "Bruckner and the Motet". In Williamson, John. The Cambridge companion to Bruckner. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-521-00878-5.
  3. ↑ Gesamtausgabe – Kleine Kirchenmusikwerke
  4. ↑ van Zwol, Cornelis (2012). Anton Bruckner – Leven en Werken. Thot. p. 705. ISBN 90-686-8590-2.
  5. 1 2 M. Auer, pp. 73-77

Sources

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