Adam Viktora - Zelenka Missa Sanctae Caeciliae (Prague Baroque Soloists) (2020)

With this recording of Missa Sanctae Caeciliae (ZWV 1) and the motet Currite ad Aras (ZWV 166) two ‘firsts’ of Zelenka are presented: Missa Sanctae Caeciliae is his earliest mass composition, and Currite ad Aras is the first-known work written after Zelenka was sent to Vienna in 1716. As far as it is known, the premiere of Missa Sanctae Caeciliae was given in Dresden’s recently established Catholic court church on 22 November 1711. On 31 January 1712, the mass again was heard, this time in the presence of August II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. On that occasion Zelenka presented a petition requesting to be sent to Italy and France ‘in order to perfect myself in the solid liturgical style of the former and in the good taste of the latter’.[1] Zelenka, however, was sent neither to France nor to Italy, but to the Habsburg capital where he was to study with the Imperial Kapellmeister, composer, theorist and teacher, Johann Joseph Fux (circa 1660–1741). Currite ad Aras was composed soon after his arrival there.