Anton Bruckner: Mass No. 3 in F minor

“A work of visionary beauty, a unique psychogram of Bruckner: a hymn to creation, quiet and tender, full of humility, but also of overwhelming force.”

Bruckner’s last mass is a masterpiece: it is firmly anchored in the traditional Austrian mass, in the genealogy of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, but has symphonic traits that are otherwise to be found only in Beethoven’s “Missa solemnis”, but which already reveal Mahler on the horizon. The work, first performed with overwhelming success in 1872 in the Augustinerkirche in Vienna, is not only heard today in the liturgy, but is also part of the repertoire in the concert halls. In contrast to the monumental symphonies, in this mass one encounters a very special world of sound, which ranges from soft ethereal sounds to jubilant upsweeps.