Jan Dismas Zelenka: Psalmi Vespertini II 
Ensemble Inégal, Adam Viktora

Gabriela Eibenová, Lenka Cafourková – soprano; 
Filippo Mineccia – alto; Tobias Hunger – tenor; 
Marián Krejčík, Jiří Miroslav Procházka – bass
Ensemble Inégal, the Prague Baroque Soloists
conducted by Adam Viktora

Dixit Dominus ZWV 68
Beatus vir ZWV 76 
Laetatus sun ZWV 88 *
Nisi Dominus ZWV 92 * 
Lauda Jerusalem ZWV 104 *
Magnificat ZWV 107
Credidi ZWV 85 *
De profundis ZWV 96

World premiere recording of the complete Psalmi vespertini
* World premiere recording at all

Prague Baroque Soloists
soprano – Simona Jindráková, Karolína Janů, Stanislava Mihalcová, Yvetta Fendrichová,
Kamila Zbořilová, Lenka Cafourková
alto – Martin Ptáček, Pavla Štěpničková, Daniela Čermáková, Nadia Ladkany
tenor – Tobias Hunger, Václav Čížek, Ondřej Múčka, Hasan El Dunia, Stanislav Mistr
bass – Jiří Miroslav Procházka, Michael Adair, Martin Vacula, Karel Václav Jeřábek

Ensemble Inégal
violin – Lenka Torgersen, Simona Hurníková, Veronika Manová, Jana Anýžová, Vojtěch Jakl, Jan Hádek, Simona Tydlitátová, Martina Stillerová, Petra Ščevková, Petr Zemanec
viola – Lýdie Cillerová, Ivo Anýž, Elen Machová
cello – Libor Mašek, Hana Fleková
double bass – Ondřej Štajnochr, Ján Prievozník
bassoon – Kryštof Lada
oboe – Markus Müller, Inge Marg
theorbo – Jan Krejča
organ – Lukáš Vendl
timpani – Pavel Rehberger
trumpet – Nicolas Isabelle, Almut Rux

Between mid 1725 and late 1728 the Bohemian-born, Dresden-based court musician Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745) composed three cycles of thirty-three psalms and Magnificat compositions for Vespers. Each cycle begins with a setting of the psalm Dixit Dominus and it then develops to serve one or more sequences of psalms to serve almost every Vespers service of the liturgical year. (Psalms for Saturday Vespers before the four Sundays of
Advent, Saturday Vespers before Septuagesima, and Vespers of Wednesday of Holy Week, were not set by Zelenka.) In 1726 Zelenka began to enter these psalm settings into the Inventarium rerum Musicarum Ecclesiae servientium, his personal inventory of sacred music that began to be kept on 17 January of that year. His entries demonstrate that the thirty-three Vespers works were conceived in three cycles. They were composed over a period
of three years for the Catholic court church of Dresden, a royal chapel dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity.
The unavoidable assumption is that this was a well-considered, deliberate plan. Interestingly, the beginning of these Vespers psalm compositions almost coincides with Zelenka’s return from a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin of Sorrows at Graupen (Krupka) in Northern Bohemia on 12 September 1725. The pilgrimage, which was supported by the Dresden court, began in Graupen with an open air procession to the Marian shrine on 11 September during which Zelenka’s Litanies of the Blessed Virgin (Litaniae de Beatissima Virgine, ZWV 150) were sung by eleven young musicians (the Kapellknaben) from Dresden’s Catholic court church, a royal chapel served by Jesuits from the Province of Bohemia.
Following this project of 1725–1728, Zelenka composed an additional eight additional Vespers psalms.
These were listed in the Inventarium separately under the title ‘Psalmi varii. | J. D. Z. Separatim | Scripti.’ Thus, it does seem from mid-1725 Zelenka became partly responsible for the musical Vespers services held in Dresden’s Catholic court church, which explains his acquisition over the following years of more than eighty psalm compositions, mainly by Italian and Bohemian composers which also were entered into his inventory under the title ‘Psalmi Varioru[m] Authorum.’
Zelenka listed his collection of thirty-three psalm settings into his Inventarium under the heading of psalms for the whole year: ‘Psalmi Vespertini |totius anni. | Joannes Disma: Zelenka. | quae habentur in libros.’ Surprisingly, the listings did not begin with the earliest settings of 1725 (which have been recorded as Jan Dismas Zelenka: Psalmi Vespertini I. Ensemble Inégal, Prague Baroque Soloists cond. Adam Viktora, Nibiru, 2015), but with the settings heard here – the second Vespers cycle that Zelenka began to compose in 1726.

Janice B. Stockigt
The University of Melbourne

Zelenka: Psalmi vespertini I