Here is further evidence that Bruckner was a real composer long before he discovered Wagner. The superb Requiem of 1849 is testimony in itself. Now comes this excellent recording of the Missa solemnis in B flat minor, first performed at St Florian in September 1854 but sketched some years earlier.
What it tells us is that Bruckner was already adventurous, for his time, in his use of harmony and his comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the sacred music of Haydn and Mozart. It is Haydn especially who is brought to mind by the joyful, bounding orchestral commentary which accompanies the choir's excited cries of ''Kyrie eleison''. The Credo and Agnus Dei are the most conventional movements; they might have been written by any of several competent church composers of the day. But there is no mistaking the Brucknerian imprimatur in the trumpets in the Gloria, the springy rhythms of the ''Qui tollis'' and the dramatic ''Crucifixus'', with its lamenting strings, followed by the jubilant Et resurrexit and the short, ecstatic Sanctus. In the fugal writing, too, the hand of a master is at work.
Rickenbacher conducts a lively performance. The Bamberg choir's diction is not all it should be and in any case they are placed rather far back for an ideal recorded balance. The four soloists are young German artists. Christiane Oelze is a birdlike soprano but sometimes tends to a shrill, unpleasing tone. Note the name of the bass, Reinhard Hagen. I heard him as Sarastro in Salzburg last winter and prophesy a big career. It is a fine voice.
The disc is completed with two shorter works. The Psalm 112 of 1863 for double choir and orchestra, sung in German, is nearer to the symphonic Bruckner, though I do not find it all that interesting a piece. Psalm 150, on the other hand, dates from 1892 and is mature Bruckner, dazzling in its technical genius, stupendous in its piling of one choral layer of sound on another. The performance is good, but not the last word.'