I mean c'mon there is not even a portrait of this guy. Forgotten for about 200 years, until his music was gradually being rediscovered and revived from 1950's onwards. Zelenka, just like J.S. Bach, wrote in a very orginal dense polyphonic style. Here are some of my favourite bits from his scarce instrumental works. Baroque lovers will know him, for sure. However, I thought why not make a short introduction video for those who don't know him yet. The main focus of his oeuvre is liturgical music, you can find almost everything on this awesome channel: www.youtube.com/@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru Timestamps: 00:00 Trio sonata no. 3 mov. 4 (ZWV 181) 00:58 Fugue from Capriccio in D major ZWV 182 02:25 Trio sonata no. 2 mov. 2 03:38 Synfonia à 8 concertanti, 4. ARIA (ZWV 189) 05:01 Trio sonata no. 5 intro 06:01 9 Canons (ZWV 191)
There is a whole world of Zelenka analysis out there - and no one has touched it until now, thank you - personally I am way too busy to get into it, have 2 full time score-video channels, however I just retired TheOneAndOnlyZeno, so will focus exclusively on Zelenka now.
Ive been listening to Zelenka for about 5 or 6 years now, and I never tire of it like I sometimes do with the Big 3 of the Baroque (Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach) not that they arent completely brilliant and deserve their posthumous stature, but there should always be more room at the table for other composers, like Zelenka, who were unique and had something to say or express...and I think it does his legacy a great service to be promoted by your efforts with this channel...please keep up the good work!!!
Which one :)? The requiem in C Minor which is dubious - ZWV 45 The "happy D Major" requiem ZWV 46, which is a very rare occurrence of a major setting, or the solemn D Minor setting, ZWV 48? Personally I listen to which I feel in the mood for, no particular favorite.
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru Actually it was my experience I'm talking about. There is a different level of emotions if you get what I mean unlike Romantic works the emotion is contained in the music itself. That's the best description i find. There are long unresolving tones.
I discovered Zelenka with his Miserere, during a festival in Geneva. It was played in a church and I had goosebump. He's definitely one of the best of its time.
Saw thumbnail, Zelenka as expected 😂 Want to add Graupner as well, since both him and Zelenka has very original style that's vastly different and distinct from Vivaldi, Handel, Bach. Both forgotten and revived only recently.
Spot on about Graupner. His neglect is even more shameful because almost his entire music (hundreds of hours if you performed it back to back) survived but under 10% has been touched. But his time is coming...
@@graupner1345 yeah, c'mon he has much more works than Vivaldi and Bach (excluding arranged works/works that reuses other works in different instrumentation)
Jan Dismas Zelenka is a fascinating and often overlooked composer whose works are profound, challenging, and deeply emotional. I was fortunate to record some of his pieces in the 1990s as a member of the Kammerchor Stuttgart under Frieder Bernius, including the Missa Omnium Sanctorum. The Kyrie with its almost twelve-tone fugue theme, the brilliant Gloria, and the moving Benedictus showcase Zelenka's unique style. His music is a true discovery - complex and full of passion. For anyone who hasn’t experienced it yet: many recordings can be found here on RUclips. Simply amazing music!
The Missa Omnium Sanctorum (ZWV 21) also has a incredible live performance, with a surprisingly high number of views by Collegium 1704 - highly recommend to check out
His music is marvellous, especially because of its emotional qualities and its depth. For me Zelenka is a deep well, a profound mystery full of spirit.
Zelenka Guru is awesome. He is really championing Mr. Z. When I first stumbled upon Zelenka there wasn't much out there but I was instantly hooked. It's a pleasure to hear so much by him now, my favorite bit being the Cum Sancto Spiritu from his Missa Dei Filii, and also anything Z done by the group Collegium 1704 directed by Václav Luks
I also want to second this - the CUM SANCTO SPIRITU from the MISSA DEI FILII (ZWV 20) is absolutely insane, with Vivaldi like vocal scales in almost all instruments and voices near the end - with rapid quadruple stops galore... no one to this today ever composed anything like it... oh, and it's a fugue with a counter-subject from a previous movement (the opening Gloria)... the greatest fugue I have ever heard (J.S Bach included)...
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru Aaaannndd it comes at the end of an exhausting demanding mass to boot, Zelenka takes the cake for stamina needed for his vocalists. Simply astonishing.
@@BohemianBaroque Zelenka is a good example of creativity over boring conventions and do this, don't do that... his creepy chromatic amen fugues are a particular highlight of his opus I always come back to.
So nice! Immediately when I saw the triplets, I only thought it had to be Zelenka. His instrumental music is great, but don't forget his amazing masses... just to mention 2: The crazy fugue in the Kyrie of the Missa Ominum Sanctorum (especially combined with the countersubject) and the harmony in the Kyrie groovy rhythm of the beginning of the Gloria, Missa Purificationis Beatae Viriginis.
Yes I mention this in the pinned comment, the focus of his oeuvre is mainly liturgical work. But as an introduction I thought it would be fitting to present just some of his best instrumental compositions.
@@requieem2802 That is my funeral music.. unless I change my mind, did a animated .Gerubach' style score-video on it, though RUclips doesn't like links.
Thanks for recognizing Bach's equal in counterpoint - and then some. I have nothing to add here otherwise I will rant literally all day and I have many score-videos of Zelenka to be making right now... feel free to ask any questions, I don't know everything about his life and compositions, but I have a decent knowledge to share.
Zelenka is known and highly rated by all baroque lovers, not less not more than Biber, Schein, Scheidt, Erlebach, Westhoff, Weiss, Bodin de Boismortier, Dumont, Gilles, Henri and John Eccles, William Croft, Castaldi, Leonarda and hundreds of other magnificent composers.
Yay, Zelenka. The best czech composer before Dvořák, for sure. Though I would personaly choose Nikolai Medtner as the most underrated composer, Rachmaninoff (and many others) said about him that he is greatest compiser of 20th century!
His later setting (ZWV 50 / 97) was dedicated to the passing of his father Jiří Zelenka in 1724, and with the permission of Baron von Mordaxt, Directeur des plaisirs of the Dresden court, arranged to have the music performed in memoriam of him, on March the 1st, in that same year. A very sensitive and (no pun intended)... oh who am I kidding - profound setting of the text.
Magnífico que por fin alguien hable sobre Zelenka, lo considero un compositor muy infravalorado y que realmente merece un reconocimiento mucho mayor. Tiene un sonido propio. Su trabajo es de gran calidad, no cabe duda, era un genio de tomo y lomo. Tiene composiciones para música de cámara sumamente increíbles y exquisitas, aunque yo considero que lo mejor es su gran catálogo de misas y música sacra en general, ahí dejo registro de su densa maestría en armonía y obviamente en el contrapunto.
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru muchas gracias a vuestras Mercedes, porque qué prestos y solícitos han tenido la atención de solucionar mi duda, Dios os bendiga mucho en las presentes natividades con Salud, Paz y Prosperidad 🙌🏻 !
Zelenka is cool and all, but still to me personally, not too exciting. In my opinion, as a big sacred choral music fan, de Lalande and de Mondonville are THE most underrated composers ever
Why underrated? He was revered in his own time and even now. Conti Is underrated, Ristori Is underrated, Butz Is underrated. Even Fux Is seen as a pedantic theorist and not as a magnificent composer in his own right. You can't even find his Missa Canonica di San Carlo here in RUclips. But Zelenka Is loved by everybody and it's not true that he was completely forgotten for 200 years. You only have to read the beautiful book "a bohemian musician at the court of Dresden" by Janice Stockigt
Not so true - he was revered in his time, we only know by Telemann and Pisendel, who tried to get access to the manuscript of his Responsoria pro Hebdomada Sancta, ZWV 55. Besides that, he was quickly shelved after his death - his music not to be performed publicly until 1863 at the New Town Theatre festivals in Prague, courtesy of Bedřich Smetana, and then not for another 200 or so years with the earliest recordings in the early 1980's, with the landmark recording of the 6 trio sonata's by Heinz Holliger and friends. So while Zelenka, like Bach did have a very minor interest by some individuals throughout the history after their death - they were "forgotten" by the public majority, until Mendelssohn and the aforementioned Heinz Holliger recording. As far as being underrated - there is no doubt about that. The only people who rate him are people very dedicated to Baroque music - and even among such people some still haven't even heard of him...
@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru for sure you forgot Mizler, that in 1747 wrote: “Here, the superb church composer Johann Dismas Zelenka is greatly mourned. His splendid tuttis, beautiful fugues, and above all the special skill in the church style, are sufficiently known to true lovers of music.”
@graupner1345 To be clear, I meant that Graupner was more underrated, i.e. that the title in the video should go to Graupner. But yes, I do love both of their styles.
I am a lecturer of history of music in Vienna. I find interesting to know the reasons why you find him the most underrated composer of all time and tell this new discovery to my students. I listened a lot to his trios. The majority of his music is nothing more than tonsatz. People like it because they don’t understand the techniques he uses ad nauseum You point out half-cadence, prolongation on dominant, and all of these things are elementary. Interesting is the use of unison, but nothing that Vivaldi didn’t figure out
There's something off with his themes though. That fugue subject has some odd intervals. No wonder he didn't achieve recognition, as opposed to Bach, Haendel, Scarlatti, Weiss and other key figures from the baroque. Maybe he wasn't that gifted after all
@graupner1345 so be it, I still find his compositions incomprehensible. Some might say exploratory, for me they sound like bad exercises from a student who missed half the semester of music theory, or someone who hasn't been graced with a sense of proportion.
@@georgie5700 Clearly you have either not yet listened to much of his music (certainly the 6 excerpts in this video are no way near enough) or if you have, you have not yet "tuned in" (that's understandable, as Zelenka's style is extremely sophisticated, very much like Bach's, and casual listening of this or that Zelenka work can easily lead to the impression that he is a bit chaotic). I recommend to keep listening and one day you will see, as many have before, that his works are neither like those of a bad student, nor are they lacking a sense of proportion. Instead, they (and here I quote from a poem from the 1730s which refers to Zelenka) "stir the heart so deeply as to grant a foretaste of heaven's sweet air".
I mean c'mon there is not even a portrait of this guy. Forgotten for about 200 years, until his music was gradually being rediscovered and revived from 1950's onwards. Zelenka, just like J.S. Bach, wrote in a very orginal dense polyphonic style. Here are some of my favourite bits from his scarce instrumental works. Baroque lovers will know him, for sure. However, I thought why not make a short introduction video for those who don't know him yet. The main focus of his oeuvre is liturgical music, you can find almost everything on this awesome channel: www.youtube.com/@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru
Timestamps:
00:00 Trio sonata no. 3 mov. 4 (ZWV 181)
00:58 Fugue from Capriccio in D major ZWV 182
02:25 Trio sonata no. 2 mov. 2
03:38 Synfonia à 8 concertanti, 4. ARIA (ZWV 189)
05:01 Trio sonata no. 5 intro
06:01 9 Canons (ZWV 191)
There is a whole world of Zelenka analysis out there - and no one has touched it until now, thank you - personally I am way too busy to get into it, have 2 full time score-video channels, however I just retired TheOneAndOnlyZeno, so will focus exclusively on Zelenka now.
Ive been listening to Zelenka for about 5 or 6 years now, and I never tire of it like I sometimes do with the Big 3 of the Baroque (Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach) not that they arent completely brilliant and deserve their posthumous stature, but there should always be more room at the table for other composers, like Zelenka, who were unique and had something to say or express...and I think it does his legacy a great service to be promoted by your efforts with this channel...please keep up the good work!!!
Yes, this is true for a lot of Baroque repertoire. Once you start digging, it's remarkable how many unknown composers there are.
His requiem is on another level.
Which one :)?
The requiem in C Minor which is dubious - ZWV 45
The "happy D Major" requiem ZWV 46, which is a very rare occurrence of a major setting,
or the solemn D Minor setting, ZWV 48?
Personally I listen to which I feel in the mood for, no particular favorite.
@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru Hello Thanks a lot for the reply! I will find it out ! The piece I remember almost hears like Wagner ! Probably D minor.
@@Swaroque Never heard that comparison before.. interesting 🧐
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru Actually it was my experience I'm talking about. There is a different level of emotions if you get what I mean unlike Romantic works the emotion is contained in the music itself. That's the best description i find. There are long unresolving tones.
@@Swaroque Zelenka did like his major / minor alterations and extended musical phrases..
I discovered Zelenka with his Miserere, during a festival in Geneva. It was played in a church and I had goosebump. He's definitely one of the best of its time.
Zelenka is a giant, his music is a continent of art that delights the one who explores it.
Zelenkas Masses are my daily thing, his music influences me like nothing other, he is my music god
We are two peas in the same pod then, a Zelenka Mass a day keeps the bad music away, I say
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru yes! Thats it
Saw thumbnail, Zelenka as expected 😂
Want to add Graupner as well, since both him and Zelenka has very original style that's vastly different and distinct from Vivaldi, Handel, Bach. Both forgotten and revived only recently.
I would argue that Zelenka is stylistically somewhat similar to Vivaldi, with the violin figures, seventh chords etc.
Spot on about Graupner. His neglect is even more shameful because almost his entire music (hundreds of hours if you performed it back to back) survived but under 10% has been touched. But his time is coming...
@@graupner1345 yeah, c'mon he has much more works than Vivaldi and Bach (excluding arranged works/works that reuses other works in different instrumentation)
@@SisselOnline yes, he has more works than Bach, Handel and Vivaldi put together! And all scanned and online, just a few clicks away.
Jan Dismas Zelenka is a fascinating and often overlooked composer whose works are profound, challenging, and deeply emotional. I was fortunate to record some of his pieces in the 1990s as a member of the Kammerchor Stuttgart under Frieder Bernius, including the Missa Omnium Sanctorum. The Kyrie with its almost twelve-tone fugue theme, the brilliant Gloria, and the moving Benedictus showcase Zelenka's unique style. His music is a true discovery - complex and full of passion. For anyone who hasn’t experienced it yet: many recordings can be found here on RUclips. Simply amazing music!
Great, thank you for the recommends!
The Missa Omnium Sanctorum (ZWV 21) also has a incredible live performance, with a surprisingly high number of views by Collegium 1704 - highly recommend to check out
His music is marvellous, especially because of its emotional qualities and its depth. For me Zelenka is a deep well, a profound mystery full of spirit.
Zelenka Guru is awesome. He is really championing Mr. Z. When I first stumbled upon Zelenka there wasn't much out there but I was instantly hooked. It's a pleasure to hear so much by him now, my favorite bit being the Cum Sancto Spiritu from his Missa Dei Filii, and also anything Z done by the group Collegium 1704 directed by Václav Luks
😳B😳l😳u😳s😳h😳
I also want to second this - the CUM SANCTO SPIRITU from the MISSA DEI FILII (ZWV 20) is absolutely insane, with Vivaldi like vocal scales in almost all instruments and voices near the end - with rapid quadruple stops galore... no one to this today ever composed anything like it... oh, and it's a fugue with a counter-subject from a previous movement (the opening Gloria)... the greatest fugue I have ever heard (J.S Bach included)...
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru Thou art most modest good sir.
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru Aaaannndd it comes at the end of an exhausting demanding mass to boot, Zelenka takes the cake for stamina needed for his vocalists. Simply astonishing.
@@BohemianBaroque Zelenka is a good example of creativity over boring conventions and do this, don't do that... his creepy chromatic amen fugues are a particular highlight of his opus I always come back to.
So nice! Immediately when I saw the triplets, I only thought it had to be Zelenka. His instrumental music is great, but don't forget his amazing masses... just to mention 2: The crazy fugue in the Kyrie of the Missa Ominum Sanctorum (especially combined with the countersubject) and the harmony in the Kyrie groovy rhythm of the beginning of the Gloria, Missa Purificationis Beatae Viriginis.
Yes I mention this in the pinned comment, the focus of his oeuvre is mainly liturgical work. But as an introduction I thought it would be fitting to present just some of his best instrumental compositions.
@@TimondeNood Yes, it is! Do you also know the Capriccio in A major? (ZWV 185), the horn part is really virtuoso.
His Benedictus of the missa omnium sanctorum is the best music I have ever heard, it sounds like another realm, like heaven
Have to re-check that one out! :]
@@requieem2802 That is my funeral music.. unless I change my mind, did a animated .Gerubach' style score-video on it, though RUclips doesn't like links.
"Il Serpente di Bronzo" is a master piece!!!
very interesting, thank you ,Timon.Enjoy Christmas.
Thanks Peter! Enjoy Christmas as well ;)
One of my counterpoint teachers called Zelenka “Vivaldi 2” 😅. I love Zelenka ❤❤❤❤❤
Delicious, thank you
Thanks for recognizing Bach's equal in counterpoint - and then some. I have nothing to add here otherwise I will rant literally all day and I have many score-videos of Zelenka to be making right now... feel free to ask any questions, I don't know everything about his life and compositions, but I have a decent knowledge to share.
nice👍
Nice
Zelenka is known and highly rated by all baroque lovers, not less not more than Biber, Schein, Scheidt, Erlebach, Westhoff, Weiss, Bodin de Boismortier, Dumont, Gilles, Henri and John Eccles, William Croft, Castaldi, Leonarda and hundreds of other magnificent composers.
Yay, Zelenka. The best czech composer before Dvořák, for sure.
Though I would personaly choose Nikolai Medtner as the most underrated composer, Rachmaninoff (and many others) said about him that he is greatest compiser of 20th century!
His De Profundis is also quite something
His later setting (ZWV 50 / 97) was dedicated to the passing of his father Jiří Zelenka in 1724, and with the permission of Baron von Mordaxt, Directeur des plaisirs of the Dresden court, arranged to have the music performed in memoriam of him, on March the 1st, in that same year.
A very sensitive and (no pun intended)... oh who am I kidding - profound setting of the text.
you should listen (& have put) his Miserere
Read the pinned comment
Magnífico que por fin alguien hable sobre Zelenka, lo considero un compositor muy infravalorado y que realmente merece un reconocimiento mucho mayor. Tiene un sonido propio.
Su trabajo es de gran calidad, no cabe duda, era un genio de tomo y lomo.
Tiene composiciones para música de cámara sumamente increíbles y exquisitas, aunque yo considero que lo mejor es su gran catálogo de misas y música sacra en general, ahí dejo registro de su densa maestría en armonía y obviamente en el contrapunto.
Zelenka what was his name ?
Jan Dismas Zelenka!
@unquietthoughts thanks men, happy Christmas 🎄
@@ZoroastroAlihaem Baptized Jan Lukáš Zelenka, for those lore nerds out there :)
@@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru muchas gracias a vuestras Mercedes, porque qué prestos y solícitos han tenido la atención de solucionar mi duda, Dios os bendiga mucho en las presentes natividades con Salud, Paz y Prosperidad 🙌🏻 !
Also underrated: Silvius Leopold Weiss
Apparently he had a improvisation duel with J.S Bach... and held his own, so it is told
@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru He was a friend of Bach.
Zelenka is cool and all, but still to me personally, not too exciting.
In my opinion, as a big sacred choral music fan, de Lalande and de Mondonville are THE most underrated composers ever
I am in love with his Miserere à voix seule S.87 with Claire Lefilliâtre
Why underrated? He was revered in his own time and even now. Conti Is underrated, Ristori Is underrated, Butz Is underrated. Even Fux Is seen as a pedantic theorist and not as a magnificent composer in his own right. You can't even find his Missa Canonica di San Carlo here in RUclips. But Zelenka Is loved by everybody and it's not true that he was completely forgotten for 200 years. You only have to read the beautiful book "a bohemian musician at the court of Dresden" by Janice Stockigt
Not so true - he was revered in his time, we only know by Telemann and Pisendel, who tried to get access to the manuscript of his Responsoria pro Hebdomada Sancta, ZWV 55. Besides that, he was quickly shelved after his death - his music not to be performed publicly until 1863 at the New Town Theatre festivals in Prague, courtesy of Bedřich Smetana, and then not for another 200 or so years with the earliest recordings in the early 1980's, with the landmark recording of the 6 trio sonata's by Heinz Holliger and friends.
So while Zelenka, like Bach did have a very minor interest by some individuals throughout the history after their death - they were "forgotten" by the public majority, until Mendelssohn and the aforementioned Heinz Holliger recording.
As far as being underrated - there is no doubt about that. The only people who rate him are people very dedicated to Baroque music - and even among such people some still haven't even heard of him...
@TheOneAndOnlyZelenkaGuru for sure you forgot Mizler, that in 1747 wrote:
“Here, the superb church composer Johann Dismas Zelenka is greatly mourned. His splendid tuttis, beautiful fugues, and above all the special skill in the church style, are sufficiently known to true lovers of music.”
@@lucadeieso4815 Seems like "true lovers of music" were lacking till the past 10-15 years.. hopefully that is changing now.
Sure, I love Zelenka, but he's no Graupner
They complement each other very nicely actually. Totally different approaches, but one thing in common: always try something new!
@graupner1345 To be clear, I meant that Graupner was more underrated, i.e. that the title in the video should go to Graupner. But yes, I do love both of their styles.
I am a lecturer of history of music in Vienna. I find interesting to know the reasons why you find him the most underrated composer of all time and tell this new discovery to my students.
I listened a lot to his trios. The majority of his music is nothing more than tonsatz. People like it because they don’t understand the techniques he uses ad nauseum
You point out half-cadence, prolongation on dominant, and all of these things are elementary. Interesting is the use of unison, but nothing that Vivaldi didn’t figure out
Good try but the most underrated composer keeps being JS Bach.
Méhul is even better and more underrated
There's something off with his themes though. That fugue subject has some odd intervals. No wonder he didn't achieve recognition, as opposed to Bach, Haendel, Scarlatti, Weiss and other key figures from the baroque. Maybe he wasn't that gifted after all
He was one of Bach's favourite composers. That's enough "recognition" in my view!
@graupner1345 so be it, I still find his compositions incomprehensible. Some might say exploratory, for me they sound like bad exercises from a student who missed half the semester of music theory, or someone who hasn't been graced with a sense of proportion.
@@georgie5700 Clearly you have either not yet listened to much of his music (certainly the 6 excerpts in this video are no way near enough) or if you have, you have not yet "tuned in" (that's understandable, as Zelenka's style is extremely sophisticated, very much like Bach's, and casual listening of this or that Zelenka work can easily lead to the impression that he is a bit chaotic). I recommend to keep listening and one day you will see, as many have before, that his works are neither like those of a bad student, nor are they lacking a sense of proportion. Instead, they (and here I quote from a poem from the 1730s which refers to Zelenka) "stir the heart so deeply as to grant a foretaste of heaven's sweet air".