Richard Heuberger asked Bruckner for a festive hymn to celebrate the opening of the exposition Internationale Ausstellung für Musik und Theatherwesen on 7 May 1892, but Bruckner did not deliver the piece in time for Heuberger's purpose.
The work was premiered in the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna on 13 November 1892, with the Wiener Singverein and the soprano soloist Henriette Standthartner and Wilhelm Gericke conducting.[1] The concert also included a Schubert overture and Liszt's Piano Concerto in E-flat major, followed by Richard Strauss' Wandrers Sturmlied and Mendelssohn's Loreley.[2]
Unlike the other psalm settings composed some 40 years earlier, for which he used a German-language Bible approved by the Catholic Church,[5] Bruckner used this time the German-language Luther Bible for the text.
The 247-bar long piece starts out in C major, alla breve, with a tempo marking of Mehr langsam! Feierlich, kräftig (More slowly! Festive, strong) as the choir sings "Hallelujah" several times before moving on to the second line of the psalm. At rehearsal letterE, marked Bewegter (more moving), begins the listing of instruments with which to praise God. At J, Langsamer (More slowly) follows "Alles, Alles lobe den Herrn" At K, with a return to the initial tempo, Bruckner repeats the opening "Hallelujahs", but at L (bar 165) follows with "a complex fugue"[6] starting with the words "Alles, was Odem hat" once again Langsam (Slowly). Another return to the initial tempo at R marks the beginning of the coda with the words "Alles, alles lobe den Herrn". The theme of the fugue is related to that of the fugue of Bruckner's fifth symphony[1][2] and that of the Adagio of his ninth symphony.
The last time Bruckner improvised at the organ, he used melodies from this psalm setting.[7] Psalm 150 "shares both the key and the triumphant mood of rapturous exaltation of the Te Deum."[6]
Among the ten other recordings, Hans Roelofs selects the following four recordings:
Eugen Jochum, Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin and Berliner Philharmoniker, 1965, LP: DG SLPM 139137/8 (with Symphony No. 7). This recording, which has been transferred to CD as part of the 4-CD box set DG 423 127-2, remains according to Hans Roelofs the reference.
^Die Bibel, oder die ganze Heilige Schrift des alten und neuen Testaments, nach der deutsche Übersetzung D. Martin Luthers, abgedruckt nach der Hallischen Ausgabe, 1839, p. 683
^Joseph Franz von Allioli, Die Heilige Schrift des alten und neuen Testamentes, Dritter Band (mit Approbation des apostolischen Stuhles), 4. Auflage, Landshut, 1839
Max Auer [de], Anton Bruckner als Kirchenmusiker, Gustav Bosse Verlag, Regensburg, 1927, pp. 187–200
Anton Bruckner – Sämtliche Werke, Band XX/6: Psalm 150 (1892), Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag der Internationalen Bruckner-Gesellschaft, Franz Grasberger [de] (editor), Vienna, 1964
Elisabeth Meier, "An 'inner' biography of Bruckner", Bruckner Studies edited by Timothy L. Jackson and Paul Hawkshaw, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997
Nicholas Rast, "A checklist of Essays and Reviews by Heinrich Schenker", Music Analysis, 7 no. 2, Blackwell Publishing, 1988
Derek Watson, Bruckner, J. M. Dent & Sons, London, 1975