Luogo e data di registrazione		St. Amandas Church, Cologne (Germany) - 7/11 November 1995
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Markus Heiland (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Sony / Vivarte - S2K 68 261 - (2 CD) - durata 76' 58" & 70' 48" - (p) 1997 - DDD
	Cover Art		The Meeting of Abraham and Melchisedec (c.1616/17) by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) - Musée des Beaux Arts, Caen, France
	Note		-

Illustrious, Highest and Most Mighty Prince, Most Gracious Lord: that two years ago - at the time of my most humble personal service in Copenhagen - your Most Princely Highness received and accepted with extraordinary grace my trifling little musical essay, though it was yet quite rough and hand-written; and that, from innate princely inclination toward all praiseworthy arts and noble music especially, you did have this same work taken up and performed many a time; this I remember with ever enduring and most humble memory” So begins Heinrich Schütz's dedicatory pretace to the Symphoniarum sacrarum secunda pars, Opus Decimum, Dresden 1647, addressed to the Danish crown prince Christian (eldest son of King Christian IV). Schütz`s convoluted, “most humble” l7th century courtly style could perhaps mislead present-day musicians and music-lovers into confining their interest to, at best, the curious appearance of this work, which was printed in Dresden one year before the end of the Thirty Years' War. But every era has its own peculiar conventions of social intercourse; the highly stylized forms of the 17th and 18th centuries were no obstacle to natural, normal human communication, in language as in music. Schütz was electoral chapel master of Saxony, in the service of Elector Johann Georg I beginning in 1615. As a member of the court, he had accompanied the daughter of the Saxon princely household, Magdalena Sibylla, to herwedding in Denmark, which was celebrated in Copenhagen with colossal extravagance in October 1634. Schütz was named royal Danish chapel master expressly for this occasion. This stay in Denmark (1633-1635) was followed by another (1642-1644), occasioned once again by a marriage at the Copenhagen court. But this time Schütz seems to have spent most of his time at the princely palace of Christian and his Saxon wife in Nykøbing. It was there that he wrote the “German Concertos With 3, 4, 5 Namely one, two, or three Vocal, and two Instrumental Voices - Violins or the like,” the very words published on the title page of 1647. In 1644 Schütz was obliged to return to Germany - quite unhappily, as war had broken out between Denmark and Sweden, and in Saxony the Great War had brought all of the arts to a complete standstill. He must have given the Danish crown prince the autograph copy of these vocal concertos upon his departure from the Copenhagen court; it has not survived. He then revised the works in Dresden before they went to press with the dedication quoted above. Schütz envisioned the second part of the Symphoniae sacrae, the printing of the Geistliche Chormusik (Sacred Choral Music) in 1648, and the publication of the third part of the Symphoniae sacrae in 1650 as the concluding and crowning achievements of his career as court chapel master in Dresden. At 65, it seemed to him that the time had come to retire. He could not have guessed that these grand collections, which he intended as a summation, would be just milestones on the path to further masterworks. As important as Schütz's sojourns in Denmark may have been, two earlier trips he made to Italy are of far greater artistic importance, especially since they allowed him to hear the early Italian Baroque concerto firsthand. During his first trip, to Venice, he pursued intensive study with Giovanni Gabrieli from 1609 to 1612. While in Florence, during his second trip to Italy from 1628 to 1629, he became familiar with the stillyoung genre of opera. In Venice, he encountered monodic compositions in sacred music, that emphatic, speech-like solo singing which had developed through opera and the solo madrigal, and which Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), among others, had been instrumental in carrying over into the realm of sacred music. (It is possible he may have met Monteverdi in Venice, but no record of such a meeting has survived.) Schütz never made the opera genre his own, nor did he adopt secular or sacred monody as a compositional technique of central importance. What he gleaned from the Italian Baroque, more than anything else, was the concerto principle, which he applied to works for both small and large forces. Alessandro Grandi (c.1577-1630), in Venice, was foremost in bringing the vocal concerto to its first flowering between 1620 and 1627. His concerti were for modest forces: a small number of voices and two obbligato (i. e., independent) instruments, usually violins, over a figured bass. Schütz clearly took these as his starting point in the first part of the Symphoniae sacrae, published in Venice in 1629. (“Symphonia” always indicates the presence of instrumental parts.) These are based on Latin texts,with rich and varied instrumentation. As a sequel to this outstanding collection of Latin concertos, Schütz wrote the Deutsche Concerte (German Concertos) of the second collection. Again, these are for one or more voices with the continuous accompaniment of two obbligato instruments, identified as “violins or the like” on the title page. This recording takes Schütz's “or the like” to heart, and uses cornetts and recorders as well as violins. For the most part, the words “or the like” leave open the choice of which instruments will carry the melody, according to old Renaissance practice, as long as the instrumental ranges fit the notated music. One concerto in this collection, however, insofar as it gives clear instructions on instrumentation, is an exception to this rule. At the same time, though, it serves as a model when selecting the instruments appropriate to the style and type of those compositions where the composer has supplied no such instructions. This is the concerto Meine Seele erhebt den Herren (My soul doth magnify the Lord), SWV 344 - a German Magnificat. Violins, recorders, cornetts, trumpets, and trombones play in turn. The use of characteristic instruments underscores the sense of the text, which is a Marian hymn of praise. (Such instrumentation is rare in concertos for small forces; it is more common in larger settings, e.g., those of Michael Praetorius and Johann Hermann Schein.) In this recording, Meine Seele erhebt den Herren is taken as a model for Lobet den Herrn (Praise God), SWV 350, and for Der Herr ist mein Licht (The Lord is my light), SWV 359. A cornett joins the violin in Von Aufgang der Sonnen (From the rising of the sun), SWV 362, and Herzlích lieb hab ich dich (I will love Thee), SWV 348. It is not just the use of characteristic instruments that brings such vivid colour to Schütz's concerti: the incredible wealth of characteristic motives plays a part as well. This collection is a picturebook of many figures, but one which goes beyond the depiction of outward actions and images (“figurational composition“) to represent inner states as well. Fear and pain, longing, joy and exultation - the “affects” - are rendered in the music just as vividly as they are by the empty spaces in the double echo of SWV 344, the twinkling of the stars in Herr, unser Herrscher (0 Lord our Lord), the piercing rays of sunlight and the lightning in Herr, neige deine Himmel (Bow Thy heavens, O Lord), or the tinkling bells of the “Cymbalen” (cymbals) in Lobet den Herrn (O praise the Lord). Many more “images” of this sort may be discerned; and voices and instruments contribute equally to the graphic motivic language. Schütz forged an exceptionally close relationship between music and speech in his works. The transformation of the natural melody, rhythm, tempo, and dynamics etc. of spoken language into corresponding musical elements is an all-important means of conveying to the listener the sense of the text. The principle which Monteverdi and other North Italian musicians .irticulated at the beginning of the 17th century finds, in the realm of German, its greatest intensity with Schütz: let speech be lord over music! No trace of elaborate courtly style remains, only immediate, direct communication.Yet all of it is still sonorous and artfully composed, as capable of expressing vehemence as tenderness and restraint. Of especial interest is Es steh Gott auf (Let God arise), SWV 356, a reworking of two pieces by Monteverdi, the solo madrigal Armata il cor and the chaconne Zefiro torna (both from the Scherzi musicali of 1632). Schütz's efforts far surpass the parody techniques of his day. This work is one of but few unmistakable documents of Schütz's cognizance of Monteverdi. In his preface to the Symphoniae sacrae Schütz specifically refers to “Claudio Monteverdi's discerning opinion in the preface to the eighth book of his madrigals” about the “completeness” that music had reached at that point. Later he comments that he had “in some little ways followed” the two Monteverdi works mentioned above. “But let no one, on account of this, harbor unfair suspicions about my other work, that I am so lazy as to decorate my work with others' quills.” What function the concertos of the Symphoniae sacrae collections of 1629 and 1647 served is unclear. The most likely possibility - however surprising to us today - is that they were intended for princely dinner music. It is known that music heard at the electoral court in Dresden included secular and sacred vocal music in addition to purely instrumental works. In the 17th century, dinner music functioned as court concert: people ate, drank, quieted down, and listened to music! The texts of Wie ein Rubin (as a signet of carbuncle), SWV 557, and Iss deín Brod mit Freuden (Eat thy Bread with Joy), SWV 358, clearly identify them as dinner music. Outside of the courts, however, Schütz's concertos were used primarily as church music. There are instances of their appropriate classification in the ecclesiastical calendar, according to each Sunday's gospel. The dialogue between “The Rich Man and Lazarus” (Luke 16:24-31) is not part of the Symphnniae sacrae. The text begins “Vater Abraham, erbarme dich mein” (Father Abraham, have mercy on me), continuing with a gripping conversation between Dives epulo (the rich man sitting in hell), Abraham in Heaven, poor Lazarus in his lap, and two angels. Schütz set only the dialogue to music, leaving out the narrative and moral. This work, too, contains outstandingly vivid imagery, underscored once again by an alternation of instruments (violins and cornetts). The work could not possibly have been written in the 1620s; more likely, Schütz composed it around the time of the third part of the Symphoniae sacrae, i.e., before 1650. The vocal concertos of Heinrich Schütz bear witness to the artistry of the earliest German composer of European significance. Today, with an absolute command of historical instruments, stylistically appropriate vocal technique, and ever deepening intellectual insight, this music has once again become accessible in all its glory. Wolfram Steude (Translation: Annelies McVoy and David Feurzeig)