Tyrolean Christmas Concert 2025

Joseph Friedrich Hummel: Pastoral Mass in G major and Christmas music from Tyrolean tradition

Choir and orchestra of the St. Blasius Academy, Karlheinz Siessl

Joseph Friedrich Hummel was born in Innsbruck in 1841 to a family of musicians steeped in tradition. He studied with Franz Lachner in Munich and worked as a conductor at theatres in Austria and Germany before being appointed the first director of the Salzburg Mozarteum in 1880. He conducted performances and was regarded as an excellent Mozart conductor; he also led the Salzburger Liedertafel and performed as a cellist. His brother Alexander was a music society teacher in Innsbruck and a renowned clarinettist, his son Walter a respected music researcher and teacher, his nephew Albert Riester a harpist and composer. Joseph Friedrich Hummel’s Pastoral Mass in G major was commissioned by Josef Gasser, the regent of the Wilten Abbey choir at the time, in 1915 and was originally conceived for choir and organ only. On the orders of Salzburg’s Prince Archbishop Balthasar Kaltner, Hummel orchestrated this work for large orchestra in 1916. Pastoral themes are combined with late Romantic harmonies in this ambitious composition.