Christus factus est, WAB 11


Christus factus est, WAB 11, is a sacred motet by Anton Bruckner, his third setting of the Latin gradual Christus factus est, composed in 1884. Before, Bruckner composed in 1844 a first piece on the same text as gradual of the Messe für den Gründonnerstag, and in 1873 a motet for eight-part mixed choir, three trombones, and string instruments ad libitum. The motet is an expressive setting of the gradual, influenced by Wagner's music.

History

Bruckner composed this motet, which uses the gradual of Maundy Thursday, on 25 May 1884. The piece was performed six months later, on 9 November, in the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle. Bruckner dedicated the work to Oddo Loidol, one of his students.
The original manuscript is in a private collection, but transcriptions of it are found in the archives of the Abbey of Kremsmünster and the Austrian National Library. The piece was published together with three other graduals , WAB 23, Os justi , WAB 30, and Virga Jesse by Theodor Rättig, Vienna in 1886. The motet was published in volume XXI/30 of the Gesamtausgabe.

Music

The work in 79 bars in D minor is set for mixed choir a cappella. It takes about five minutes to perform.
In the first part, till "mortem autem crucis", the choir is singing in homophony. It expresses in sombre lines how inhuman is God's demand to implacable obedience to the death, even the death on the cross. After a one-bar rest, the motet evolves in waves of intensification, with twice the Dresden amen, on "exaltavit illum" and "super omne nomen", respectively. After a second one-bar rest it reaches a dramatic climax. Thereafter the motet is evolving diminuendo and a gradual sorrowful rest returns with the 8-bar coda in pianissimo, which is harmonically similar to that of the previous setting of 1873. Publisher Carus-Verlag summarizes that by means of modulation and chromatic, Bruckner achieves heightened expressiveness for the Passion text.
Bruckner composed the piece when he was in preparation to have his Symphony No. 7 performed and revised his Te Deum. The second part of the Grail motif from Wagner's Parsifal which the composer had heard in Bayreuth in 1882 is also the Dresdner Amen.

Selected discography

The first recording of Bruckner's Christus factus est, WAB 11 occurred in 1928:
A selection among the about 100 recordings: