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On
Remington R-199-121 excerpts from "The Seven Last Words of Jesus
Christ" (Haydn) and from "Stabat Mater" (Rossini) conducted
by Joseph Messner were coupled with "Libera me" from Verdi's
Requiem, conducted by Gustav Koslik.
Picture
taken from the book of an old DECCA recording.
Picture
taken from an old Dutch encyclopedia.
Excerpts
from the Messner recordings and of Verdi's Requiem were released on Plymouth
P-12-90.
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Joseph
Messner was a deep religious man. He was ordained a priest in 1918,
studied composition and organ at the Munich Academy of Music (Münchener
Akademie für Tonkunst) to become an organist, a composer and eventually
a famous conductor of mostly religious works.
Joseph
Messner (Josef, as printed on the Remington boxes with Mozart's Requiem
and Haydn's Seven Last Words respectively) was one of the great conductors
to lead the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra and the Salzburg
Dome Choir (Salzburger Domchor) in several series of religious concerts,
and this for more than twenty years, starting in 1945. Several of Messner's
early performances appeared on Remington Records of which Marcel
Prawy was the producer in Vienna. However, Prawy never mentions
the name of Joseph Messner in his book "Marcel
Prawy talks about his life" (Marcel Prawy erzählt aus seinem
Leben). When in a letter dated September 25, 1950, Prawy asks conductor
Paul Sacher to make recordings for the Remington label, Prawy writes
that "we have an exclusive contract with the Mozarteum Orchestra
and the Viennese Tonkünstler Orchestra".
It is however probable that the actual recordings of the great works
by Mozart, Haydn, Handel and Rossini conducted by Joseph Messner were
not supervised by Prawy himself, and that he bought the ready recordings
from the organization of the Salzburg Mozarteum Festival, or even directly
from the OR, Österreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian Public Broadcasting
Service, later to be named ORF).
Sacher never made a Remington record.
After the Anschluss
on March 12, 1938, Joseph Messner had been degraded by the Nazis and
was not allowed to perform any longer.
However, there is mention of a concert with Joseph Messner conducting
the Mozarteum Orchestra during World War Two. It is a concert under
the auspices of the NSDAP held on on August 24, 1942, when Messner's
"Scherzo and Three Songs for Baritone and Orchestra" with
the title: "Schicksal der Deutschen" (Fate of the Germans),
on poems by Heinrich Lersch, were performed. Soloist in the songs
entitled "Fahneneid", "Grabschrift" and "Bekenntnis"
(Oath to the Flag, Epitaph, Confession) was Hans Herbert Fiedler (Baritone).
The other conductor of the program was Willem Van Hoogstraten
(husband of pianist Elly Ney). That was about the time when Willem
Mengelberg conducted two concerts at the Salzburg Festival, one
was with pianist Cor de Groot in Beethoven's Emperor Concerto
Op. 73.
The fact that Messner conducted then and there when the Nazis were in
charge, gave many a critic the idea that Messner would have been on
the wrong side, which, apparently, was a false accusation. The poems
could be interpreted in more than one way. When in 1945 the Austrian
cultural life and also the Salzburg community should make a fresh start,
the Americans choose Joseph Messner to conduct the first concert
of the Salzburg Festival (Salzburger Festspiele).
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Joseph
Messner in the nineteen fifties in a characteristic pose with score
and baton.
Picture courtesy Verband der Südtiroler Musikkapellen (http://www.vsm-bozen.it)
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According
to the excellent web site of the Salzburger Festspiele, Joseph
Messner's repertory was extensive and did not just include Giovanni
Battista Pergolesi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van
Beethoven, Giacomo Rossini, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, and Anton
Bruckner. On July 7, 1945, he led the first concert of the Mozarteum
Orchestra after the war, performing compositions by Bizet, Bruch and
Tschaikowsky.
On August 31 of that same year he conducted for the first time the performance
of Mozart's Requiem K 626, in the Large Hall of the Salzburg
Mozarteum. Singers were Gertrude Erhardt (Soprano), Erna Kreuzer (Contralto),
Julius Patzak (Tenor), Ludwig Weber (Bass). The organist was Anton Dawidowicz.
They performed together with the Salzburger Domchor and Mozarteum Orchestra.
Note: From
1933 on up to and including World War Two, the Nazi influence in the
arts was not only restricted to Richard Wagner and Bayreuth, and in
the condemnation and prohibition of modernistic, so called degenerated
art ("Entartete Kunst"). Also parts of books and manuscripts
were rewritten, and entries in encyclopedia were omitted or changed.
Also the text of Mozart's Requiem Mass had to suffer. It was Polydor,
the pre-1946 Deutsche Grammophon label, which had recorded Mozart's
Requiem Mass KV 626 in 1941 with singers Tilla Briem (Soprano), Gertrude
Freimuth (Contralto), Walter Ludwig (Tenor), and Fred Drissen (Bass)
using an alternate Nazi-text (according to The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia
of Recorded Music). The New York Times: "All references
to the Jewish roots of Christianity are purged. ''Quam olim Abrahae
promisisti'' (''As was promised to Abraham'') becomes ''Quam olim homini
promisisti'' (''As was promised to man''). ''Deus in Sion'' (''God in
Zion'') becomes ''Deus in coelis'' (''God in heaven'').
The performance was of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bruno
Kittel Choir, all conducted by Bruno Kittel. Polydor PD-67731/9
(9 x 12" shellac records).
The
later performance of Mozart's Requiem Mass with Hilde Gueden,
Soprano; Julius Patzak, Tenor; Rosette Anday, Contralto; Josef Greindl,
Bass; conducted by Joseph Messner on August 27, 1950 was issued
on Remington Records. Warren
DeMotte said about the recording: "Messner's performance is
impressively lofty, but on two 12" disks.
Mozart
did not finish his Requiem and after he had died, the work was completed
by his aledged pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayer. That was the
version Joseph Messner conducted according to the liner notes of the
Remington box edition, which may have been written by critic John
W. Freeman:
REQUIEM - MOZART (1756-1791)
The generally accepted version of the story of the Mozart D Minor
Mass has it that in July 1791 Mozart received an unkinown visitor
clothed completely in black. This visitor refudsed to identify
himself and said that the person whom he represented wished Mozart
to write a Requiem Mass. He aaked Mozart to name his fee and to
tell him approximately how long it would take him to complete
the work. A few days later the mysterious messenger returned with
the advance requested by Mozart. He insinuated that his master
thought Mozart's price exceedingly low and that if the Requiem
were finished on time there would undoubtedly be a large bonus
forthcoming.
Mozart, who unknowingly had six months of life remaining, felt
a strong premonition about this work. He was suffering physically
and the composition added strange mental tortures. He had the
delusion that the strange messenger clothed in black was a messenger
of death and that he was writing a Requiem for himself. Nevertheless
Mozart started the composition immediately. During the next few
months work was halted by prior commitments on "The Magic
Flute" production. Mozart, who normally wrote very rapidly,
found it increasingly difficult to get the Mass under way. Undoubtedly
this was caused by the strange halucinations he had about his
work. Each time he worked steadily on the compoisition there was
a noticeable decline in his health, and whenever he put the work
aside and turned to other matters his physical condition improved.
Almost before Mozart was aware of it he had passed the deadline
he had promised the strange messenger. Finally in a last burst
of effort to complete the piece, his powers ebbed until in December
1791 the master passed away leaving the manuscript unfinished.
After his
death his wife Constanze approached a number of his friends and
asked them to complete the work using Mozart's notes. After several
people had refused she turned to Süssmayer, Mozart's beloved
pupil, to complete the work. Süssmayer, who had been a very
close friend and confidant of the master, had heard Mozart play
parts of the composition many times during the last six months
of his life. The story is even told that as he was dying, Mozart
gave his beloved pupil instructions as to how the mass should
be finished.
Using Mozart's style which he knew so well, and having complete
access to his notes, Süssmayer completed the work. Years
later he said that he recopied the whole, destroying the original
manuscript so that the patron who had ordered the Requiem would
not notice a difference in the hadwriting. Finally the messenger
called for the completed manuscript which Constanze delivered
with what must have been a sigh of relief.
Sometime later the mystery of the strange patron was disclosed
when the Requiem Mass was performed privately. The work had been
comissioned by a Count von Wallsegg, a well-known patron of music
who had a private orchestra under his permanent employ. The Count
was noted for frequently commissioning work, re-copying them in
his own hand, and having them performed as his own compositions.
This was apparently his idea in commissioning the Requiem which
he planned to have performed in the memory of his wife.
The whole story of the Requiem will never be known unless the
original manuscript, supposedly destroyed by Süssmayer, should
be discovered in some long forgotten archive. The D Minor Requiem
however, still remains one of the world's greatest musical works.
The Requiem received its first performance at Jahn's Hall, Vienna
in 1792.
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Modern
sources mention that the Requiem was first performed not in 1792, but
on December 14, 1793 at Wiener Neustadt.
Constanze first asked Joseph Eybler (1765-1845), who had studied composition
with Mozart, to finish the instrumentation. But when he was asked to
complete sections and add missing parts of his own, he refused to do
so. Enter Franz Xaver Süssmayer (1763-1803). He wrote the instrumentation
and composed the Sanctus, Benedictus an Agnus Dei. Analists write that
there are many weak instances in the score and that the Sanctus really
shows Süssmayer's poor style. Despite all the criticism regarding
the skill of Franz Xaver Süssmayer, it is thanks to him that the
Requiem, Mozart's last composition, was not lost and can be heard today
in full.
Joseph
Messner, was born February 27, 1893 in Schwaz, Austria, not far from
Innsbruck. In 1923 he was appointed organist and in 1926 "Kapellmeister"
at the Dom church in Salzburg. And since 1932 he conducted the so called
Dome Concerts of the Salzburg Festival (Salzburger Festspiele).
Messner was not only a devoted conductor and choir leader. As an organist
he gave concerts in many a European city. Furthermore he composed over
two hundred works of all kinds and forms: church music, secular music,
choral works, songs, concertos, symphonies and chamber music. He wrote
"Missa poëtica" on texts of Ilse von Stach; "Zwei
Marienlegenden" (Two Mary Legends); a Symphony for organ; "Esther",
a so called church opera; he composed the opera "Hadassa";
and violin and piano music. He wrote the stage music for "Jedermann"
(Everyman, Elckerlyc), the play about "The Dying of the Rich Man",
written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Each and every
year he was present at the Festival. He conducted for the last time
in Salzburg on August 13, 1967, and that, again, was the performance
of Mozart's Requiem K 626. But now the singers were Laurence Dutoit
(Soprano), Friederike Baumgartner (Contralto), Lorenz Fehenberger (Tenor),
and Max Pröbstl (Bass). The organist was Gerhard Zukriegel. About
one and a half year later, after a full life and of 45 years of devoted
music making, Joseph Messner passed away, on February 23, 1969, in St.
Jakob am Thurn, a short distance from Salzburg.
The
only recording of Joseph Messner in the era of the 78 RPM shellac records,
is a 12 inch disc: His Master's Voice DB 5054. He conducts an
orchestra accompanying Eidé Noréna singing "Care
Selve" from Atalanta (Georg Friedrich Handel). This recording of
Noréna (=Andre Karoline Hansen) was probably made in 1939
when she sang during the Salzburg Festival. In "The New Guide to
Recorded Music" (1950) Irving kolodin wrote: "All singers
save Noréna use an English version of the Italian text, which
was one more reason for retaining a preference for her version (...).
However, Noréna, whose singing of opera has not often moved me,
is an inspired artist on this disk." Maybe Jospeh Messner's conducting
had an inspiring influence.
 The
transfer to CD by Orfeo of Joseph Messner conducting Mozart's
Requiem on August 9, 1931, is neither listed in "The Gramophone
Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music" of 1942, nor in the 1948 edition.
It must be a live recording from the Austrian Broadcasting Service.
In that performance the singers were Hanna Seebach-Ziegler (Soprano),
Jella von Braun-Fernwald (Contralto), Hermann Gallos (Tenor), Richard
Mayr (Bass), the Salzburger Domchor and the Orchestra of the Dom-Musik-Verein,
the pre-war Mozarteum Orchestra.
There
is a recording of Orazio Benevoli's "Messe solennelle pour 53 voix
et hymne pour la consécration de la cathédrale de Salzbourg"
(Solemn mass for 53 voices and hymn for the consecration of the Salzburg
Cathedral; Festmesse und Hymnus zur Einweihung des Domes in Salzburg
1628 ) written in 1628, conducted by Joseph Messner, on Philips A
00622/3 L (2 Lp set) from 1954. Issued in the US on
a single disc, Epic LC 3035 in April 1954 (without the hymn); released
in Great Britain in August 1955 on Philips ABR 4015/6. The performers
are the Salzburger Domchoir, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Franz Sauer,
organ.
The
recordings of Joseph Messner on the Remington label:
R-199-66/2
- Josef Haydn - The Seven Last Words of Christ - Hilde Gueden,
Soprano; Clara Ölschläger, Contralto; Julius Patzak, Tenor;
Hans Braun, Baritone; Ernst Reichert, Harpsichord; The Salzburg Mozarteum
Orchestra, The Salzburg Dome Choir. Joseph Messner, Conductor. This
is the recording of the performance on July 30, 1950 in the Aula
Academica. Released in May 1952. In France issued on Concerteum Alb.284.
Warren DeMotte in "The Long Playing Record Guide" said about
this issue: "Messner leads a performance of solid vertues and sensible
pacing, in a surprisingly open recording. However, there is little tension,
and this may be inherent in the oratorio version."
R-199-69/3
- Georg Frederick Handel - The Messiah
(this is the so-called Mozart-Hiller version for which Mozart added
to the instrumentation, made cuts and made a few changes). - Anneliese
Kupper, Soprano; Rosette Anday, Contralto; Lorenz Fehenberger, Tenor;
Josef Greindl, Bass; The Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, The Salzburg
Dome Choir. Joseph Messner, Conductor. Recorded at the Salzburg Festival
Performance in the Aula Academica on August 28, 1949. Released
in May 1952. In France issued on Concerteum Alb.205.
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Excerpts
from Handel's Messiah in Remington's Music Plus Series - MP-100-18
- conducted by Joseph Messner
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R-199-96/2
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem - Hilde Gueden, Soprano; Julius
Patzak, Tenor; Rosette Anday, Contralto; Josef Greindl, Bass; The Salzburg
Mozarteum Orchestra, The Salzburg Dome Choir. Joseph Messner, Conductor.
Recorded at the Salzburg Festival Performance in the Aula Academica
on August 27, 1950. First listed in the Schwann edition of July
1952. In France released on Concerteum CR 221.
R-199-111/2
- Giacomo Rossini - Stabat Mater - Irmgard Seefried, Soprano; Rosette
Anday, Contralto; Lorenz Fehenberger, Tenor; Ferdinand Franz, Bass;
The Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, The Salzburg Dome Choir. Joseph Messner,
Conductor. Recorded at the Salzburg Festival Performance in the Aula
Academica on August 7, 1949. Released in the course of 1953.
In France released on Concerteum CR 291. Critic Warren DeMotte wrote:
"Messner is devotional and tones down the operatic aspect of the
score."
References:
Fritz Hennenberg
"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart", Verlag Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig
1976; the article concerning the purged text of Mozart's Requiem in
The
New York Times; liner
notes by Alfred Beaujean
for the Philips edition of Mozart's Sacred
Music conducted by Colin Davis; the website of The
Salzburger Festspiele.
Rudolf
A. Bruil, text and research. Page first published on the internet on
December 13, 2007.
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