After the conversion of the Saxon Elector Augustus the Strong in 1697 for purely political reasons and the inauguration of the Dresden Court Theater, which had been converted into the Catholic Court Church, a new repertoire had to be created and compiled. Zelenka seemed particularly well suited to this task, as he was a Catholic, trained by Prague Jesuits, influenced by Italian taste, trained as a composer by the old Dresden Kapellmeister Johann Christoph Schmidt and, above all, by his stay with the imperial court Kapellmeister and composer Johann Joseph Fux in Vienna from 1716-1719. The repertoire of the Dresden court church music therefore included works by Fux as well as those by his Viennese contemporaries Reinhardt and Caldara.

In addition to Zelenka's church works in the "old style", the majority of the masses, psalms, litanies etc. were composed in the "stile misto" of the modern era. On the one hand, the composers took up the modern achievements of the instrumental concerto and the opera aria with their ritornello forms and their pronounced movement characters and affects, but on the other hand they retained the old, tried and tested compositional techniques of musica sacra: motet-like writing and the fugue. During his studies in Vienna from 1716-1719, Zelenka became acquainted with church music at the court of Charles VI and deepened his compositional skills with J. J. Fux; he familiarized himself with works of the old tradition by Palestrina and others as well as the "current" compositions by Fux, Caldara and Reinhardt in various church services. He copied several scores, which he took with him to Dresden in order to expand his repertoire. The works for Lent and Advent were mostly set in the "old style", while the modern "stilus mixtus" was used in festive masses and vespers.

---

rec. 1993-1995 by Thorofon