Anton Bruckner's Motets

Lately, for my choir practice purpose, I have been listening and singing to Bruckner motets. Prior to the introduction of these motets by the choir conductor, I am unaware of their existence. The only Bruckner music that I know (and love) is his Seventh Symphony which consists of one of the most beautiful mournful Adagio and the incredibly "nervous" Scherzo. What I know is that Bruckner wrote awesome music and I love how he used the brass sections in those two movements.

Back to his motets. His motets are sacred choral music, written mainly for SATB choir, and sometimes would include a soloist, an organ or even trombones. I don't know all of them, but my choir has been working with 5 of them: Locus iste, Os Justi, Tota pulchra es Maria, Ecce sacerdos magnus, and Afferentur Regi.

Locus iste is perhaps the simplest out of those 5 motets. It's a short 4-part voices piece that is usually used for a congregation of a church. Tota pulchra es Maria is written for a tenor soloist, an organ, and believe it or not, 9-part voices during one fff choir phrase. Afferentur Regi is perhaps my least favourite out of the five motets listed, maybe because the tenor part is more challenging :), and the main tune is not incredibly beautiful compare to the others.

Ecce sacerdos magnus is a killer piece for a choir. You either do it big (sing on top of your lung), or don't even bother doing it. It's a piece that guarantees a rousing reception if done extremely well. To do this, you must overcome a fff passage that is repeated three times in the piece. The tenors are basically requires to hit 14 consecutive 'tenor A' notes, and 3 more after that. In total, they are required to sing more than 50 notes of their highest range. Compare that to say Haydn's Nelson Mass which if memory serves me right, only require the tenors to sing the top A for only 3 times. You might think of doing falsetto for all of them, but remember that those notes are marked either 'ff' or 'fff' by Bruckner, and therefore you'll be pretty much inaudible if other sections sing using their chest voice. This would pretty much be a complete let down during a performance.

I have been holding back from discussing 'Os Justi' - because simply I love this piece the most. It's written for 8-part voices and it is so incredibly beautiful, heavenly, and heartfelt. This 5 minutes of music is definitely something that I won't think twice to include in my desert island disc. What makes it more interesting is that Bruckner wrote this motet in Lydian mode which basically means that he did not use a single sharp or flat note. (Thanks to this website in bringing my attention to this).

Since I have pretty much obsessed with 'Os Justi', I have been trying to find videos of choir performing this piece in youtube. Basically, the performance can be categorised as either using a small choir or big choir. This size factor can dramatically change the interpretation of this piece. The difference can be seen in these two videos big choir and very small choir. Granted the very small choir is of very high standard and the big choir is probably amateur and a fair comparison probably cannot be made here. What I want to point is that, with the small choir, the main things that strikes you are the phrasing, the tone quality and the clarity of each voice. With the big choir, you have enough voices to make the big moment really big (e.g. the end of the 'et lingua' fugue). So, depending on your preference, you might find more pleasure in one version than the other.

To sum up, Bruckner motets are heavenly. If you enjoy listening to choral music, you won't be disappointed with any of them that I listed here. Also, in the short future - after I finish my conquest of Mahler 10 - I will start listening to Bruckner's symphonies. Hopefully I have time to write about them as I discover them one by one.