The Missa in labore requies is scored for 24 voices, featuring five trumpets with timpani, two cornets and three trombones, two violins and three viols, two four-part vocal choirs, and basso continuo.
Performer Biography
Les Cornets Noirs, an instrumental ensemble specializing in Italian and German Early Baroque music, won a prize at the concours musica antiqua at the Festival van Vlaanderen Brugge in 2000.
Composition History
Muffat's Missa in labore requies, a large-scale mass for 24 voices, was long classified as dubiously ascribed to him until 1991, despite being documented in a biographical lexicon.
Composer Biography
Georg Muffat, the composer of the Missa in labore requies, received his basic musical education in Paris within the circle of Jean-Baptiste Lully, the Surintendant de la musique du roi.
Composition History
The autograph score of Muffat's Missa in labore requies was acquired by Joseph Haydn from the Muffat family estate and is now held at the Széchényi National Library in Budapest.
Instruments
The cornett, or 'black cornett' due to its leather covering, was a prominent instrument from the mid-16th to late 17th century, and is a focus of the ensemble Les Cornets Noirs.
Historical Context
The title of Muffat's mass, 'In labore requies', refers to a line from the Pentecostal sequence 'Veni Sancte Spiritus', which is unusual for the time.
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