Locus Iste - Bruckner 1869

Allegro moderato

Moderately lively

Lyric Translation

Latin

Locus iste is the Latin gradual for the anniversary of the dedication of a church.

Bruckner completed the motet for unaccompanied SATB choir in 1869 for the dedication of a votive chapel at the New Cathedral in Linz where Bruckner had been a cathedral organist.

Deeper information on the music, especially for Music Comm

The motet is scored for a unaccompanied mixed choir. It is in the key of C major and in common time, has 48 bars and takes about three minutes to perform. The text concentrates on the concept of the sacred place, based on the Biblical story of Jacob's Ladder, Jacob's saying "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not" (Genesis 28:16), and the story of the burning bush where Moses is told "put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5).

Bruckner structured the three lines of the text in an ABA da capo form, closed by a coda, with A containing the first line, framing the second and third. Peter Strasser suggests that the work reflects elements of architecture, such as in the symmetry of the da capo form and the use of motifs like building blocks.

The motet is marked Allegro moderato and begins calmly in homophony. Max Auer notes that the beautiful work has touches with Mozart's Ave verum. A. Crawford Howie notes further that the work "begins with Mozartian phrases, but soon introduces characteristic Brucknerian progressions".

The repeat of the first line, beginning one step higher, is marked mf, confirming "a Deo factus est" higher and stronger, then repeating it softly. The bass begins each "a Deo factus est". Musicologist Anthony Carver notes here as in many of Bruckner's motets the "isolation of the bass part at structurally important points".The bass also begins the second line with a new rising motif, marked f; the upper voices follow in homophony. The line is repeated as a sequence a step higher, marked ff. After a pause of half a bar, the tenor alone begins in sudden pp the middle section on a repeated note, imitated by soprano and alto. Throughout the section, only the upper voices, without a bass foundation, sing in chromaticism, beginning in undefined tonality. In a gradual crescendo, the intensity is heightened, but only to mf.

Iso Camartin notes in an article dedicated to the work: the irreproachable mystery appears as incomprehensible and disturbing, described by Ryan Turner as "transparently chromatic".

After another rest of half a bar, the first line is repeated. Instead of the last "factus est", the word "Deo" is extended to the only melisma of the otherwise austere, strictly syllabic composition. The author of the program notes for an Oratorio Society of New York CD that includes the motet writes that the melisma "spins an ethereal spell". It leads to a long general pause, achieved "by carefully measuring out five beats", before "a Deo, Deo factus est" is repeated a final time, concluding "peacefully and serenely". The author of the Oratorio Society notes concludes by stating that "Locus iste is a hauntingly beautiful work reminiscent of the quiet chapel it honored". Writing for Gramophone, Malcolm Riley called it "sublime (and deceptively difficult)".