Mass No. 2 in E Minor

During his early days as a rural schoolmaster’s assistant, Bruckner composed several simple settings of the Latin Mass tailored to suit the limited number and modest abilities of the musicians available to him. The experience of making every word of the sacred text count—something that was paramount to the devoutly religious composer—served Bruckner well following his appointment in 1855 as organist of the old cathedral at Linz. His so-called Mass No. 2 in E minor projects both the profound mystery of Christ’s incarnation and a sense of awe in God’s almighty power through its long spans of a cappella choral writing, bold splashes of instrumental colour and expressive silences. Bruckner, mindful of the sacred polyphony of Palestrina and other Renaissance composers, generates overwhelming grandeur by making a virtue of simplicity. The 40-minute score for eight-part choir and 15 wind and brass instruments was written in 1866 to mark the completion of the neo-Gothic votive chapel in Linz’s new cathedral and first performed three years later in an open-air service of dedication. Wind instruments had played a part in sacred worship in Austria for centuries but never with such telling effect.