Josef Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) was an Austrian
composer, organist, and music theorist best known for
his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first
are considered emblematic of the final stage of
Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich
harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and
considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to
define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their
dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving
harmonies.
Virga Jesse...(+)
Josef Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) was an Austrian
composer, organist, and music theorist best known for
his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first
are considered emblematic of the final stage of
Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich
harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and
considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to
define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their
dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving
harmonies.
Virga Jesse (The branch from Jesse), WAB 52, is a motet
by the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. It sets the
gradual Virga Jesse floruit for unaccompanied mixed
choir. The work was completed on 3 September 1885 and
may have been intended for the celebration of the
one-hundredth anniversary of the Linz diocese; however,
like the Ecce sacerdos magnus that Bruckner composed
A.M.D.G. for that event, it was not performed there. It
was performed on 8 December 1885 in the Wiener
Hofmusikkapelle for the Feast of the Immaculate
Conception.
The original manuscript is archived at the
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, and transcriptions
of it at the Hofmusikkapelle and the Abbey of
Kremsmünster. The motet was edited together with three
other graduals (Locus iste WAB 23, Christus factus est
WAB 11, and Os justi WAB 30), by Theodor Rättig,
Vienna in 1886. The motet is put in Band XXI/34 of the
Gesamtausgabe.
This 91-bar gradual in E minor is for mixed choir a
cappella. In the first part on the verse Virga jesse
floruit (bars 1-20) Bruckner used twice the Dresdner
Amen on the word floruit (bars 7-9 and 17-19). The last
part (bars 63-91) consists, as in the earlier Inveni
David WAB 19, of an Alleluja, for which Bruckner drew
his inspiration from the Hallelujah of Händel's
Messiah, on which he often improvised on organ. The
motet ends in pianissimo by the tenor voice on a pedal
point.
Max Auer regards it as the most accomplished and
magnificent a cappella motet of the composer. The
Bruckner biographer Howie also calls this work "one of
Bruckner's finest motets".
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virga_Jesse_(Bruckner))<
br>
Although originally composed for Chorus (SATB), I
created this arrangement of the Virga Jesse (WAB 52)
for Winds (Flute, Oboe, French Horn & Bassoon) and
Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).