composer
Johann Wircker was born in Oschatz (Saxony, Germany), a city between Leipzig and Dresden. In 1548 his name occurs in the choir of the electoral Hofkapelle (Court Orchestra) at Dresden.
related works
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK4
Psalm 78 : for mixed choir / Isidora Žebeljan
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Missa Brevis : for mixed choir / Geert Schoonbeek de Vlaming
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK4
Goftam, Goftah : for mixed choir / Reza Nakisa; text by Hafez (1320-1390)
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
composition
Missa Super: Castigans castigavit me Dominus : for 4 voices / Johann Wircker; transcribed and edited by Cees Wagemakers
Other authors:
Wagemakers, Cees
(editor)
Description:
The Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staats Bibliothek in Munich, Germany) has a unique collection of large folio format choirbooks from the Bavarian court music ensemble, predominantly from the time of Orlando di Lasso serving as court music director. Several splendidly illustrated choir books originally belonged to the personal collection of the Bavarian dukes. The most beautiful one is the collection of motets by Cipriano de Rore for Duke Albrecht V, also available at Donemus (D 16092). Choirbooks have all the parts on two facing pages, in contrast to the separate books for each voice that we see mostly in Renaissance editions.
While most of the choirbooks in the Bavarian State Library are written by the same hand, there are some books with a totally different ‘handwriting’. One of them is the choirbook without a title by Johann Wircker (c.1536-c.1572). It contains a mass on the theme Castigans castigavit me Dominus (the title being a verse taken from Psalm 117), and a motet called Viri diligite uxores vestras (Men love your wives). All for 4 voices. Like the motet the mass seems to have been written for a matrimonial occasion, because the original shows sometimes text like ‘Erunt duo in carne una’ (They were two in one flesh). But because we know nothing more about the choirbook, we have no inkling of its dedication. Sources in literature mention Wircker himself as the scribe of this choirbook (Liesbeth Weinhold). In this album however only the mass has been transcribed. The motet had such strange passages with obvious mistakes that I could not reconstruct it to music fitting in the rest of the piece. So I skipped the transcription of the motet.
Cees Wagemakers, 2018