Luogo e data di registrazione		Doopsgezinde Kerk, Haarlem (The Netherlands) - 12/16 June 1995
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Andreas Neubronner (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Sony / Vivarte - SK 68 264 - (1 CD) - durata 75' 39" - (p) 1999 - DDD
	Cover Art		Le jeune chanteur by Claude Vignon (1593-1670), oil on canvas - Musée du Louvre, Paris
	Note		-

The sacred concertos heard on this recording demonstrate the influence of the early Baroque on German music, in particular, the influence of the new Italian compositional style which became fashionable north of the Alps following the “invasion” of Italian musicians in the mid-1600s. This Stile moderno, with its cultivation of grand, theatrical gestures, expresses the spirit of the age that gave birth to a new secular art form: opera. In opera, the physical gestures of the singer are mirrored by inner gestures in the music - all these merging into one inseparable aesthetic whole. This Baroque style was also the artistic voice of the Counter-Reformation, which burst on the scene with a vengeance at the beginning of the 17th century. The zealous Counter-Reformation made use of all means at its disposal - including the arts - for its propaganda fidei (propagation of the faith). This was in essence the first great advertising campaign of modern times - a campaign for the true faith - and the source of the word “propaganda” as used today. Interestingly enough, the artistic style of this Baroque movement soon crossed the religious and cultural boundaries of Europe: the exuberant Baroque style quickly took root in the Protestant soil of the North. The seven composers on this recording belong to three successive generations of German musicians, influenced in varying degrees by the new Italian style. The oldest generation is represented here by Heinrich Schütz, Kapellmeister to the Elector of Saxony. Schütz spent some time in Italy, where he became familiar with the music of the early Italian Baroque composers Marco da Gagliano and Claudio Monteverdi - especially during his second stay, in Florence and Venice, from 1628 to 1629. Schütz used certain aspects of the new style to great advantage in his own music. For example, the Kleine geistlíche Cancerte (Short Sacred Concertos) of 1636 and 1639, based on a combination of Latin and German texts, demonstrate Schütz's thorough familiarity with the operatic monody of Northern Italy, especially in the second volume, which includes Ich liege und schlafe (I laid me down and slept). Fili mi, Absalon, from the Symphoniae sacrae of 1629, would be unthinkable without the example of Monteverdi's music. David's powerful lament, in which he mourns the death of his son Absalom, who had rebelled against him, owes much to Monteverdi's artful use of instrumental obbligato and uncanny ability to depict dramatic situations in music. The trombones here play a dual role: as ceremonial instruments of David the Priest and as the tromboni lugubri of a funeral march. For all his Italian influences, though, Schütz remained less affected by the stile nuovo than did the following generation of German musicians. His successors, particularly those born around 1615, appropriated the new style with gusto. Franz Tunder, organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, was influenced (at least indirectly) by Frescobaldi. Salve coelestis pater (Hail, Holy Father) is a perfect example of the Protestant translation of the Catholic Baroque. The text is a Lutheran version of the Marian antiphon Salve Regina, re-addressed to the “God of Heaven and Earth” rather than the “Queen of Heaven.” The prominent sighs and cries of this medieval hymn were an irresistible invitation for Baroque composers to display their art of grand gesture. The solo-violin line is closely bound to the singing voice, “talking” right alongside it rather than complementing it with a more violinistic display. Matthias Weckmann, another composer of Tunder`s generation, started out as a choirboy under Schütz in Dresden. He studied organ with Jacob Praetorius - himself a student of Sweelinck - in Hamburg, embarking on a career as organist, first in Dresden, later in Nykøbing (Denmark), and ending up at St. Jacobi in Hamburg (from 1655 on). An outstanding musical personality, his vocal compositions especially show him to be a master of Northern Germany's High Baroque. Presumably, his vocal works were performed as part of concerts he organized at the “Great Collegium musicum” of the refectory of Hamburg's cathedral. The introductory sinfonia to Kommet her zu mir alle (Come unto me, all), with its opening of dotted rhythms, lively figuration in the central section, and more stately finale, recalls the structure of a French overture. Sweeping rhetorical gestures underline the words “beladen” (burdened) and “kommet” (come), while a soft three-quarter time indicates the “sanftes Joch” (tender yoke) and a de-cidedly cheerful dactylic rhythm characterizes the “leichte Last” (easy burden). The generation`s greatest composing genius, and thus a man of some historical significance, was Johann Rosenmüller, born in Oelsnitz in the Vogtland of Saxony. He did not discover his talent for composition until the 1660s, after he fled to Venice from Leipzig, where he had been the organist at the Nicolaikirche. His Latin Lamentationes Jeremiae prophetae (Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah) certainly date from his Venetian period. They constitute impressive evidence of his complete identification with the Italian High Baroque - a gesture-laden and highly emotional style whose main achievements were in church music and opera. It is quite possible that Rosenmüller created his Lamentationes for performance in the chapel of the Ospedale della Pietà, the girls' orphanage where he was music director - a post that Antonio Vivaldi was to hold a few decades later. Dietrich Buxtehude, organist of the Marienkirche at Lübeck, is a representative of the youngest generation on this collection. For his Psalm-concerto Mein Herz ist bereit (My heart is fixed), he chose a rather extravagant orchestration, with three violins. This virtuoso, coloratura work features strongly emphasized text-painting. Note the ornamentation at “ich singe” (I sing), the signal motif at “Wache auf" (Awake) and the vast melodic arch (from B flat in the bass clef up to D above middle C, and back down to F) at “Erhebe dich, Gott, über den Himmel und deine Ehre über alle Welt” (Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Thy glory be above all the earth). The sense of the text could not be rendered more clearly. A further example of Buxtehude`s work is the concerto Ich bin die Auferstehung (I am the Resurrection). Its brilliant orchestration and jubilant Hallelujah finale mark it as Easter music, though the text was more commonly used at funerals, as the intermezzo following the words “der wird leben, ob er gleich stürbe” (though he were dead, yet shall he live) might suggest. Here the transition between life and death is represented by repeated tempo changes between presto and adagio. In this later period, regional borders no longer constituted stylistic boundaries, as Johann Christoph Bach's lament Wie hist du denn, o Gott (Shall thus Thy wrath, O God) demonstrates. The music is based on a free, rhymed adaptation of Psalm 6,“O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger." The piece was probably written in and for Eisenach, where this uncle of Johann Sebastian - whom the family chronicle calls the "great and expressive composer” - worked as municipal and court musician. Johann Christoph Bach set the regular, rhymed strophes as though they were prose - as a vocal concerto rather than as song-like strophic arias. The virtuoso solo violin here plays “in concert” with the vocal bass, with the Baroque “lamentation” affect dominating the expression. Once again, pictorial figuration abounds: the solo violin's hectic thirty-second-notes at “du aber fleuchst” (but Thou dost curse); sharply dotted figures at “du gibst mir manchen Stoß” (and blow still follows blow); rapid thirty-second-notes at “warum verfolgst du mich” (why dost Thou persecute me); a tremendous viola li gamba quake at “begehrst du Herzensangst” (if Thou wilt mortal fear); and finally the inversion of the vocal figure on “umgewandt” (reversed) by the violin. Such vivid text expression requires similar intensity in performance to come off successfully. Nicolaus Bruhns, municipal organist at Husum, was a short-lived but brilliant student of Buxtehude. His De profundis clamavi is a particularly impressive manifestation of the fiery Baroque style as cultivated by “cool” Northern Germany. (The enthralling Baroque decorations of the brick Gothic churches along the North Sea and the Baltic are another example.) Bruhns employs an alternation of recitative and aria, open and closed passages, adagio and allegro, to illustrate the text of Psalm 130, “Out of the depths I cry to Thee, 0 Lord.” One of the so-called “psalms of repentance,” its text invites vivid text-painting and composition in keeping with the Baroque “doctrine of the Affects.” Where can more plaintive crying out (clamavi) or pleading for forgiveness (in vocem deprecationis meae) be found? Where else can we find a vocal line seeking the ear of God from such depths (low D)? Here, as in all the pieces on this recording, the composer relies on overt text-painting and bold musical effects to bring out the meaning of the words. And as those works prove, Baroque music is not essentially an abstract art form, but an art of direct sensual perception. Wolfram Steude (Translation: David Feurzeig)