COMPOSERS: Schátz
LABELS: Naxos
WORKS: Musicalische Exequien dess Herrn Heinrichen dess Jüngern und Eltisten Reussen; Die sieben Worte unsers lieben Erlösers und Seeligmachers Jesu Christi
PERFORMER: Alsfeld Vocal Ensemble, Himlische Cantorey, I Febiarmonici/Wolfgang Helbich
CATALOGUE NO: 8.555705
This 17th-century German funeral service is far from being unrelieved mourning. Count Heinrich of Russ pre-selected his own funeral text emphasising the glory of everlasting life, an invitation for his long-time friend Schütz to revel in expansive and colourfully varied forces. He duly included old-fashioned plainchant intonations, complex motet textures and, in striking contrast, modern Italianate ‘concerto-style’ solo voices with continuo, as well as spatially separated double chorus. The Lutheran contributions are chorales, relatively complex music not yet distilled into simple melodies for congregational singing. Wolfgang Helbich’s array of singers is impressive, fresh-voiced, and responsive to every textual nuance: tenors reassuringly lighten the weight of sin; basses stride out across an 80-year life-span; a solo ensemble is bound indivisibly by a chromatic chain of sequences at ‘I leave you not’. The choir sounds large, but remarkably focused in an arresting acoustic; St Petri’s Cathedral in Bremen has six seconds of reverberation, an evocative sound splendidly managed by producer and sound engineer. Schütz set The Seven Last Words of Christ in up-to-date Italian dramatic style. Jesus is sung by a tenor (with a halo of strings, 100 years before Bach’s St Matthew Passion), while events are described by an ‘Evangelist’ consisting of various vocal soloists and small ensembles. Helbich’s constant pulse effectively holds together the stream of new text, I Febiarmonici framing the action with two chillingly bleak string symphonies. A splendid disc. George Pratt
Schátz: Musicalische Exequien dess Herrn Heinrichen dess Jüngern und Eltisten Reussen; Die sieben Worte unsers lieben Erlösers und Seeligmachers Jesu Christi
This 17th-century German funeral service is far from being unrelieved mourning. Count Heinrich of Russ pre-selected his own funeral text emphasising the glory of everlasting life, an invitation for his long-time friend Schütz to revel in expansive and colourfully varied forces. He duly included old-fashioned plainchant intonations, complex motet textures and, in striking contrast, modern Italianate ‘concerto-style’ solo voices with continuo, as well as spatially separated double chorus.
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:53 pm