Hyperion Records

The symphonic Bruckner again finds echo in miniature in Virga Jesse floruit of 1885, especially in the magnificent climax that builds in imitative sequences on the phase ‘pacem Deus reddidit’—another very Brucknerian transformation of the ‘Dresden Amen’ from Parsifal. Harmonically this motet journeys far, until the coda stabilizes in E major, culminating in a surprisingly jaunty sequence of alleluias from the tenors (the last marked ‘falsetto’—possibly a whimsical representation of the reconciliation of ‘high’ and ‘low’ in the text).

from notes by Stephen Johnson © 2007