Ecce sacerdos magnus (Bruckner)

Ecce sacerdos magnus (Behold a great priest), WAB 13, is an 1885 sacred motet by the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner.

This work was composed at the request of Johann Burgstaller, to be performed at the Linz Cathedral on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the diocese.

[5] The piece of in total 106 bars is a six-part responsorium in A minor for mixed choir, three trombones and organ:[3] The antiphon, which was intended as processional music for the entrance of the bishop into the cathedral, was thus designed to be "majestic" and "ceremonial" in character.

The ritornello on the words "Ideo jurejurando" is expanded and contrasted with episodes "that seem to trace the evolution of church music" in their varied use of texture.

[4] Bruckner's Ecce sacerdos magnus was recorded at first in 1966 by Eugen Jochum with the choir of the Bayerischen Rundfunk (LP: DG 139134/5).