It’s not often that works by Bruckner and Stravinsky are paired together, but the two Masses on this release make an interesting and appropriate coupling given their shared scoring for mixed choir and wind ensemble. Bruckner’s Mass was commissioned by the Bishop of Linz in 1866 to celebrate the completion of the Votive Chapel of the New Cathedral, the incomplete nature of the building requiring a work suitable for an open-air performance. The technical challenges of Bruckner’s frequent a cappella writing is most effectively met by the Berlin Radio Choir under Gijs Leenaars, their principal conductor since 2015, who sing with an attractive freshness and clarity. The performance of the winds, especially bassoons, is similarly fine, and both pacing and balance are ideal. However, I rather miss the additional reverence and expressive intensity that Helmuth Rilling brings to his 1996 recording of the work with the Bach Collegium Stuttgart (Hänssler Classic).

In terms of the version being performed, the booklet note somewhat confusingly refers to ‘1882 edition, revised 1885/1896’. As Bruckner made no significant changes to the score after 1882, this would seem to suggest that the version recorded here is the one prepared by Franz and Josef Schalk when the work was first published in 1896, which includes a number of conspicuous and somewhat arbitrary changes to the orchestration. However, the performance is actually that of the version Bruckner left in 1882, published in the editions by both Haas and Nowak.

The choir’s focused singing and Pentatone’s clear recording are especially well suited to the neoclassical sonorities of Stravinsky’s Mass. Leenaars’s interpretation does not offer the pungency (and the children’s voices) of Stravinsky’s own recording, but offers a compensatory feeling of concentration and of antiquarian ritual. With only 53 minutes of music here in total, however, another work from either composer would have made for a more attractive release.