Gregor Joseph Werner

​Once again la festa musicale focuses on the music of Gregor Joseph Werner, Kapellmeister and Joseph Haydn's immediate predecessor at the Esterházy court. This album illustrates Werner's creative and artistic treatment of the themes of mourning and penance. In three introductions to Holy Week oratorios, he displays astonishing fugal sophistication, and in the two Holy Week motets he opts for an exciting combination of sixteenth century compositional techniques with bold, progressive harmony. Contrapuntal finesse is also revealed in the dramatic Requiem with soloists, choir and trombones. Finally, the polyphonic Sonatina leads to what is probably his last work, the a cappella setting of the penitential psalm "Miserere mei Deus", written by Gregor Joseph Werner in the style of the famous Miserere by Gregorio Allegri.