Miserere

The composer Joseph Martin Kraus was born in the same year as Mozart, and like Salzburg’s famous son, he was highly gifted and died too young. But in recent years he has received more attention. And rightly so!

The Miserere was composed in 1773 during his student years in Erfurt and is evidence of his technical abilities at the age of just seventeen. Even in this early work Kraus showed himself to be a true exponent of the musical “Sturm und Drang” movement. For all its youthful carefreeness and originality in terms of compositional technique, the music is characterised by great seriousness and depth of expression, abruptness, and at times also brusqueness.

Scoring: Soli SATB, Coro SATB, 2Fl, 2 Ob, 2 Clt, Fg, 2 Cor, 2 Vl, Va, Bc