Jan Dismas Zelenka

Verk

Zelenka’s entire œuvre only runs to some 150 compositions, of which up to now the few instrumental works (six trio sonatas, ZWV 181, and nine works for concertante chamber orchestra, ZWV 182–190) have been the only ones to become reasonably well-known. The remainder of Zelenkas œuvre consists of liturgical and sacred compositions (masses and requiems, psalms, magnificats, hymns and antiphons for vespers and compline, lamentations, responsories, settings of the Miserere, cantatas and oratorios for Easter week, litanies, motets, settings of the Te Deum, etc.) and also a few secular vocal works. Most of the church music was written between 1721 and 1733, when a comprehensive repertoire of sacred music had to be compiled for the Roman Catholic Dresden court church, which had only been established in 1708. Zelenka made a major contribution to this repertoire, of both his own compositions and those of others. This is evident from his extensive “Inventarium rerum musicarum”, a record which he kept between 1726 and 1739. (Cf., on Zelenka’s life and work, “Zelenka-Dokumentation”, 2 vols., Wiesbaden 1989.)

Thomas Kohlhase