Champions League choral symphony

As team players, many choir directors are of course also familiar with the Champions League opening music, which Zadok the Priest (HWV 258) from the Coronation Anthems by George Frideric Handel as the official anthem. In addition to this intense, 6-minute work, Bärenreiter Verlag has now also published The King shall rejoice (HWV 260, duration approx. 12 minutes) in the Urtext of the Halle Handel Edition. Handel wrote the festive, richly orchestrated and magnificent four Coronation Anthems (total duration approx. 40 minutes) on the occasion of George the Second's coronation in London in 1727. The English musicologist and contemporary Charles Burney once described its overwhelming splendor of sound both aptly and flippantly as the "great woof-woof style". It is to be hoped that the other two, less well-known Anthems will also soon be published in such a fantastic new edition (orchestral material, piano reduction and score) to provide oratorio choirs with further alternatives to the well-known Messiah to give.

With the Missa votiva by Bach's contemporary Jan Dismas Zelenka, which is unfortunately performed far too little, has been published by Breitkopf & Härtel in another highly recommended Urtext edition. The performance material is based on the scholarly-critical editions of the series The heritage of German music, from which the informative preface and critical report are also taken. Zelenka's masses are spectacular masterpieces of Baroque choral literature, which in their colorful variety are in no way inferior to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. This 70-minute mass with its slim orchestration (2 oboes, strings and basso continuo) is the ideal find for ambitious chamber choirs looking for something special oratorically.

The famous Great Mass in C minor (KV 427) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart undoubtedly fits into a musical-historical line between Bach's Mass in B minor and Beethoven's Missa solemnis. It was published this year by Carus-Verlag in an exemplary new edition. Unfortunately, as Mozart's most personal and largest-scale mass, the opus remained unfinished and, as a torso, has posed many puzzles ever since. For this reason, there have been numerous attempts to complete, edit and even recompose the fragment in the course of its reception history.

Now the musicologist Uwe Wolf from Carus-Verlag and the well-known conductor Frieder Bernius have joined forces and created a version that sets new standards in a congenial collaboration between scholarship and practice - something that is unfortunately practiced far too rarely. With great respect for the existing sources, this new edition continues the tradition of the versions by Eder, Beyer and Maunder of not adding any new movements to the torso, be it through the so-called parody method or original compositions, as in the versions by Wilby, Levin or Koopman. Particularly refreshing are the newly added trumpets and timpani in the Credo and the reorganization and careful correction of the counterpoint in the Osanna. In addition to the complete performance material, there is also an elegant facsimile booklet for better allocation of the additions/arrangements and an excellent CD recording with the Kammerchor Stuttgart under Bernius (Carus CD 83.284).

George Frideric Handel: Zadok the priest. Coronation Anthem HWV 258, edited by Stephan Blaut; score BA 10258, € 14.95; piano reduction BA 10258-90, € 4.95; Bärenreiter, Kassel 2016

id.: The King shall rejoice; score BA 10259, € 24.95; piano reduction BA 10259-90, € 10.95

Jan Dismas Zelenka: Missa votiva ZWV 18, edited by Reinhold Kubik; score PB 5577, € 89.00; piano reduction EB 8053, € 19.90; Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2016

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Missa in c KV 427, completed and edited by Frieder Bernius and Uwe Wolf, score CV 51.651/00, € 85.00; piano reduction CV 51.651/03, € 16.00; facsimile booklet CV 51.651/02, € 29.80; Carus, Stuttgart 2017