MASONIC WORKS: Cantatas AND FUNERAL MUSIC

John Heuzenroeder (tenor), Mario Borgioni (bass), Alexander Puliaev (piano), Willi Kronenberg (organ) & Die Kölner Akademie Choir and Orchestra, Michael Alexander Willens

Following their 11-disc cycle of Mozart’s piano concertos recorded with Ronald Brautigam, Die Kölner Akademie and Michael Alexander Willens in 2017 released a disc with two of Mozart’s best-loved serenades: the Posthorn Serenade and Eine kleine Nachtmusik. The result was warmly received, for instance in the French magazine Classica where it was described as ‘a truly attractive disc to chase away the gloom’ and on MusicWeb-International.com: ‘Die Kölner Akademie… demonstrate once again that they are amongst the best groups in the world of period performance’.

Joined by the tenor John Heuzenroeder and the male voices of the Kölner Akademie Choir, the team has now recorded the music that Mozart wrote for performance at Masonic gatherings. Mozart was himself a Mason during the last seven years of his life, and composed a number of songs and cantatas for various occasions. Best-known is probably the Masonic Funeral Music, K 477, heard here in a version – ‘Meistermusik’ – devised by the Mozart scholar Philippe Autexier in an attempt to reconstruct the original performance of the piece. Also included are the four orchestral interludes to the play Thamos, Königin Ägypten, fine examples of Mozart’s music in the ‘Sturm und Drang’ tradition. Thamos was written by the poet and Mason Tobias von Gebler, and parallels have frequently been drawn between it and the more overtly Masonic Magic Flute.

Mozart:
 Die ihr des unermeßlichen Weltfalls - Kantate, K619
 Die Maurerfreude, K 471
 Dir Seele des Weltalls, K 429 (468a)
 Eine Kleine Freimaurerkantate 'Laut verkünde unsre Freude', K 623
 Ihr unsre neuen Leiter, K 484
 Lied zur Gesellenreise, K468
 Lobegesang auf die feierliche Johannisloge, K 148 (125h)
 Masonic Funeral Music in C minor, K477
 Thamos, König in Ägypten, KV 345
 Zerfliesset heut', geliebte Brüder, K 483

"The new disc…revels in fine BIS sound and the organ for the songs thus accompanied is more reasonably scaled [than on the older Kertész recording] (and tootles along terrifically). The tenor John Heuzenroeder matches and even surpasses Werner Krenn (for Kertész) in ardency…Quite apart from the pleasure this music gives, one spots premonitions in much of it of later styles…Recommended with a handshake."
Gramophone Magazine - June 2018