Friedrich Schneider

Missa in a op. posthum

Friedrich Schneider's dedication to sacred vocal music dates back into his early years as a schoolboy in Zittau. As of today Schneider is - if at all - only known as the composer of the ground-breaking oratorio The Last Judgement, but his extensive compositional output, which serves nearly all musical genres, is unknown to a great extent. Breitkopf & Härtel will fill this gap in the coming years.

The mass in A minor presented here (No. 8) is his second completed a-cappella mass. It was composed during September 9 to 28, 1815 and thus still falls into the almost overproductive Leipzig years of the composer. It would be no exaggeration to say, that Schneider gained his overwhelming treatment and the finishing touches of the choruses in his oratorios by his year long preoccupation with the genre of the mass. Although the majority of his masses remained unpublished, they enjoyed great popularity, which is evidently by the numerous copies that are preserved in several libraries.