---
product_id: 56511633
title: "Walter Braunfels: Grosse Messe Op.37"
brand: "braunfels,walter"
price: "₪133"
currency: ILS
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 6
url: https://www.desertcart.co.il/products/56511633-walter-braunfels-grosse-messe-op-37
store_origin: IL
region: Israel
---

# Walter Braunfels: Grosse Messe Op.37

**Brand:** braunfels,walter
**Price:** ₪133
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Walter Braunfels: Grosse Messe Op.37 by braunfels,walter
- **How much does it cost?** ₪133 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.il](https://www.desertcart.co.il/products/56511633-walter-braunfels-grosse-messe-op-37)

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- braunfels,walter enthusiasts

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## Description

German pianist, music educator, and composer Walter Braunfels (1882-1954) wrote his Grosse Messe op 37 between the years of 1923 and 1926. At the time of its completion, Braunfels was at the peak of his career. The piece is not liturgical, yet the mass speaks from a place of deep and sincere spirituality. "He is a high-romantic, solidly anchored in the German composition- culture, and yet he has a very unique language- sensationally well-orchestrated, as it happens-about him, which makes it so fascinating" (Weigle).

## Images

![Walter Braunfels: Grosse Messe Op.37 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T2/images/I/91wqVvodWKL.jpg)
![Walter Braunfels: Grosse Messe Op.37 - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T2/images/I/91yL3WqIUmL.jpg)
![Walter Braunfels: Grosse Messe Op.37 - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T2/images/I/81qQAoimeFL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    What idiot gives a one star because the download doesn't work?
  

*by K***R on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 26, 2017*

Interesting and powerful but too much to grasp at even a few hearings.  Very rich.  Robert Holl is long in the tooth but not the key soloist, and Simone Schneider is far more than commanding, this is remarkable singing that would dominate in any company.Braunfels is an acquired taste.  The Birds has some lovely music and is well worth knowing, but there is a tendency (that I find only on every other listening) to a bit of short-windedness in the melody.  Beautiful colors, beautiful phrases, but a really full melody that I would keep?The harmonic and structural inventiveness of the Mass is very impressive.  So I'm writing before I've really digested it, because it will get many more hearings and deserves to be better known.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Surprised by Beauty with Walter Braunfels
  

*by R***S on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 5, 2016*

A one-star review (below or above) on account of the download having proved troublesome isn't quite doing either the work or the performance justice. I might give a four star review, to suggest excellence without achieving perfection, but to counter the ill-conceived one-star review I indulge in this sort of counter-balancing grade-inflationary behavior.As per the performance: There's another one, with Manfred Honeck, also live, taken considerably broader tempos, on Decca. It's perhaps just a smidgen more cleanly executed (on disc, although not actually in concert, if memory serves), but the main impression with only two versions available is that they are different interpretations rather than 'better' or 'worse'.As per the work, it's one of the great masses of the 20th century, daring, inventive and impressive.I wrote the liner notes, so I should recuse myself when heaping praise on this recordings, but I'm not prevented from quoting MusicWeb's John Quinn:"The performance seems to me to be an excellent one and one delivered with very strong conviction – I only use the word “seems” because the work was new to me when this CD arrived and I have no yardstick against which to judge it. The notes tell us that Jörg-Peter Weigle, who is the chorus master of the Philharmonischer Chor Berlin, was completely gripped by the score when he first read it. That comes across in the way he conducts, obtaining fine, dedicated playing and singing from his orchestra and choirs. It seemed to me that sometimes Robert Holl sounded a bit strained and over-emphatic in his delivery but overall the solo quartet is a strong one and Simone Schneider is a commanding vocal presence.The recorded sound is good and the notes provide a useful and enthusiastic introduction to the work, including its performance history.The more I hear of Walter Braunfels’ music the more impressed I am. The Grosse Messe is an imposing work. Sadly, I suspect that the demands it makes on performers and the conservatism of concert planners mean that opportunities to hear it live will be extremely limited. We must be grateful then for this fine, committed recorded performance which makes it possible for us properly to evaluate this musical statement of faith."

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Fine Second Recording of a Great 20th Century Masterpiece
  

*by D***Y on Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 10, 2016*

Braunfels' amazing Grosse Messe composed in the mid-1920s is, along with his equally astonishing Te Deum, one of the great pinnacles of 20th century choral music, and is music that really needs to be heard. The Great Mass has it all: four operatic soloists, vast choirs including a children's choir, a huge orchestra with a massive battery of percussion; it has tunes that linger in the mind, moments where vistas open in the soul, great thunderous passages and moments of total serenity. This is a worthy second commercially available recording.If you are wondering why you haven't heard of it or its composer, a brief run through the Braunfels story. Walter Braunfels was regarded in the early years of the 20th century as one of Germany's leading composers, up there with Richard Strauss, Hindemith and Zemlinsky, and in his time ahead of Mahler. He composed a series of very popular operas, of which Die Vogel (the Birds) is the most famous. In fact, he was so popular that the Nazi party asked him to compose an anthem for them, but he declined, and very soon they realised that this staunchly Christian composer (brought up a Lutheran, but a convert to Catholicism) was in fact part-Jewish. Braunfels' music was banned, he lost his teaching-post in Cologne, but was allowed to go into internal exile in Southern Germany. After the War, he returned to Cologne, only to discover that now the powers that be felt that his music was somehow tainted by the past, in that brave new world where fashionable music was supposed to sound like the soundtrack from a horror film. His music fell into total obscurity until in recent years his grandson, architect Stephan Braunfels has been instrumental in getting it a second hearing. And once again he is being celebrated in his native Germany with performances and commercial recordings.The Grosse Messe itself follows the traditional contours of the classical German Mass, with more than a hint of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis towards the end of the Credo, although the spirit of romantic yearning that comes across in, for example, the central section of the Kyrie is wholly Braunfels' own. People have compared Braunfels' very late Romanic choral music to Richard Strauss, Petrassi, but George Lloyd and Sven-David Sandstrom in more recent years have produced music that is in a similar vein.This is the second recording of the Mass. The first was released a couple of years ago, conducted by Honeck on the Decca label no less. Both derive from live performances captured by German Radio, and both feature the same women soloists. But they are very different interpretations and recordings, fully justifying their existence. Weigle's recording favours the orchestra, his soloists and the children's choir, in Honeck's the full chorus is much more prominent. Weigle's male soloists are bigger names, but Honeck's sound younger and fresher, and although the women are more confident second time round, there is an edge to the soprano's voice not picked up on the earlier recording. The mezzo's voice, however, is steadier and richer for Weigle. Partly because of the recording, I suspect, Weigle's chorus produces a smooth, homogeneous sound, where Honeck's sounds more dramatic, as you would expect from an opera house chorus. There are other striking differences too: Weigle is consistently faster and makes the music sound more modern and angular, bringing out details of orchestration lost to Honeck, but the latter is consistently slightly slower and more Romantic, capturing the ecstasy of the Benedictus more effectively that Weigle. But Weigle's speed means he takes only one CD for Honeck's two. Knife to throat, I marginally prefer the Honeck, but that's just Romantic old me.Whichever you choose, and I hope you will choose one or indeed both, you are in for a treat!

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*Product available on Desertcart Israel*
*Store origin: IL*
*Last updated: 2026-03-30*