Music for the Feast of St. Michael & All Angels, Sunday September 26, 2021

Missa secunda – Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Sanctus/Benedictus: https://youtu.be/qaULCKsOX_Q

Holy, holy, holy
Lord God of Hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace.

Hans Leo Hassler studied with his father, the organist Isaak Hassler (d. 1591). After mastering the imitative techniques of Orlando di Lasso and the fashionable polychoral style of the Venetians, he traveled to Venice in 1584 to study organ playing and composition with Andrea Gabrieli. The light, elegant secular music of Orazio Vecchi, Baldassare Donato, and Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi and the keyboard works of the Venetian school soon attracted him. In 1585 he returned to Germany as organist to the Fugger banking family of Augsburg. Hassler and his brothers Kaspar and Jakob were granted titles of nobility in 1595 by Emperor Rudolf II. In 1600 he was appointed director of music for the city of Augsburg and in 1601 for Nürnberg. He moved to Dresden in 1608 to become the court organist for Christian II, elector of Saxony.

Hassler’s style is a fusion of German counterpoint and Italian form. His Madrigali (1596), though avoiding the harmonic experiments of such 16th-century madrigalists as Luca Marenzio, are considered to be among the finest of their time. His instrumental compositions and his church music—Protestant and Roman Catholic—were widely imitated. Missa Secunda is one of Hassler’s better-known masses and a brilliant example of his style – a splendid combination of the best elements to be found in both German and Italian art of the day.

Gerald Harder