Tag: Choral music

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Telemann: Französischer Jahrgang 1714/15 Vol. 1

CD cover of Telemann Französischer Jahrgang vol. 1

Elisabeth Scholl, Julia Grutzka, Larissa Botos, Rebekka Stolz, Fabian Kelly, Julian Clement, Hans Christoph Begemann SSAATBB (only the tenor is common to both discs), Gutenberg Soloists, Neumeyer Consort, Felix Koch
133:43 (2 CDs in a box)
cpo 555 436-2

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From the long-held, slumbering details of illuminating musicology, along with the impetus of Canberra Baroque’s editions, we find a most noble project underway; to record the first ever full cycle of cantatas from a composer known to have written about 20 or so. Some may have had knowledge of just a few “glinting stars” from this major constellation, but gradually we shall be able to experience the whole year’s worth of 72 works. Here alone we have about nine premieres! It opens with the resplendent Jesu meine Freude TVWV1:966 with an eight-part choir (the rest more modest!), sporting some very finely crafted arias – the soprano one has four recorders, while the final bass one mirroring the words with a bell-effect motif in Schlage bald… This is an excellent opening to these versatile and delightfully prismatic cantatas upon which a spotlight is finally being held!

These ten works (mostly from the Lenten period) offer special glimpses into the musical application of a master fusionist, and melodic interpreter. As the cycle’s modern nickname implies, elements of French music have been cleverly imported and interwoven. TVWV1:32 Ach sollte doch die ganze Welt opens with a fine fleeting Overture! There are rondeau-forms and other movements with Gallic flavour and modes. Mostly scored for four vocalists, with another four ripienists and strings, Telemann also applies modest sprinkling of  extra woodwinds, such as in the third aria of TVWV1:678 with no fewer than three bassoons! The Palm Sunday piece (TVWV1:1585, with two oboes) is a most welcome premiere, though some of our readers might recognise the opening and one of the chorales, which Bach lifted for his (pasticcio) Passion Oratorio with a backbone of mostly C. H. Graun’s music, on a previous CPO CD.

This cycle – written a few years after moving from Eisenach to Frankfurt – displays a dazzling array of musical invention and inspiration guided by the famous theologian poet Erdmann Neumeister’s texts. Judging by how many times he undertook the task of setting cycles by this poet with great diligence, this proved a most fruitful collaboration for Telemann .

Right from the start, you feel Felix Koch has mustered an extremely fine team to do justice to these neglected gems of spiritual music with often special twists redolent of France. The Neumeyer Consort is responsive and vibrant with a crisp, alert sound. The Gutenberg Soloists provide really balanced, radiant support to the main soloists! Elizabeth Scholl (who has already shown her mettle as Agrippina in Telemann’s opera, Germanicus), comes to the fore and often gives a striking performance above her peers… with just the occasional tonal sharpness delivered in all earnestness!

All in all, there is an astounding display of a masterful and engaged musical mind at work within these spiritual cantatas. Felix Koch et al are about to place this full “constellation” into the heavens, and it will shine with some intensity, gradually informing all of the inexhaustible musical abilities of one of the baroque’s finest. The 67-page booklet will equally inform all about this most noble and worthy undertaking. Roll on Easter!

David Bellinger

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de Lalande: Grands Motets

CD cover de Lalande Grands Motets Ensemble Correspondances

Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastien Daucé
80:20
harmonia mundi HMM 902625

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Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657-1726) is a rare example of a composer who knew nothing other than success and renown, a favourite of two French kings who served at Versailles for over forty years. Already in his twenties proficient enough to hold the position of organist at no fewer than four Paris churches, he first joined the court in 1683 as one of the sous-maîtres of the chapelle du roi. From there he went on to hold a number of posts culminating not only in leading the royal chapel, but in 1709 his appointment as maître da la musique de la chambre. He therefore became responsible for not only providing and directing the music for the king’s chapel but also providing secular music.

The main vehicle for the music of the royal chapel was the grand motet, a genre developed through composers such Henri Du Mont and Lully, but brought to a glorious fruition by Lalande, who wrote some 75 authenticated examples. Multi-sectional works scored for a substantial chorus and orchestra, the grand motet achieved a richly variegated texture by means of the introduction of solos and contrapuntal ensembles that contrast with the imposing grandeur of the largely homophonic choruses. The three included on this recording are the setting of the hymn Veni creator, composed in 1684, and a text that at Versailles had wider application than its usual Whitsun context, a large-scale and immensely imposing Miserere (Psalm 50) and an equally impressive Dies irae. This last departs from the norm in having been composed not for Versailles but the funeral of the Dauphine Marie-Anne-Christine of Bavaria at Saint-Denis, the historic location of princely funerals, in 1690. It became something of a fixture at state funerals and is believed to have been performed at the funeral of Louis XIV. In addition to the motets the recording sensibly separates the Dies irae and Miserere with a brief sample of Lalande’s secular orchestral music in the form of an extract from one of his Symphonies pour les Soupers du roi.

Over the past few years Sébastien Dauce’s Ensemble Correspondances has established a reputation enviable even in a country at present endowed with more than its fair share of outstanding early music ensembles and performers. The present CD will only enhance that reputation further. Given that the excellence of Daucé’s performers can by now be more or less taken for granted, perhaps the most notable aspect of these performances is the quite extraordinary depth and breadth he brings to the music where appropriate, particularly striking in the slower moving music of the Dies irae where Daucé creates a sublime spaciousness. The listener senses this right at the outset, where the period strings probe profoundly to bite into the rich orchestral texture, an impression only compounded when the profound strength of the opening chorus is added. Yet there is a wonderfully contrasted lightness and luminescence, too, in passages like ‘Quaerens me’ for two sopranos (the outstanding Caroline Weynants and Perrine Devillers). There is also a robust, uplifting vigour where appropriate. This applies especially to the later exuberant verses of Veni creator, brought to a resplendent peroration by the urgent vitality of the final doxology.

There are many, many more examples of the outstanding qualities of the performances that could be brought to notice, but I’ll restrict myself to a couple, the first of which provides a splendid illustration of not only the sheer variety of effect and texture, but also an acute textual awareness on the part of the composer that is one of the great qualities of Lalande’s compositions. In the Miserere the verse ‘Cor mundum’ (Create in me a clean heart, O God) starts with an exquisitely tender solo quartet, madrigalian in its weaving of imitative contrapuntal lines. The second part of the verse brings a greater urgency (‘renew a right spirit within me’) that Lalande responds to with lightfooted, dance-like verve, beautifully caught by Daucé. My other example takes us back to the Dies irae and the longest solo passage of récit and air in any of these works, the four verses commencing at ‘Liber scriptus’ and superbly sung and projected by alto Lucile Richardot, the possessor of a voice with the rare qualities of a genuine contralto.

I’m writing this in mid-January, which might seem a little early to start talking of ‘records of the year’. Notwithstanding I will be more than surprised if this superlative achievement is not way up there in the forefront of candidates.

Brian Robins

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Haydn: Die Schöpfung

CD cover Haydn Creation Jordi Savall

Yeree Suh, Tilman Lichdi, Matthias Winckhler, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savallq
103:18 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Alia Vox AVSA9945


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Is there a more uplifting work in all music than The Creation? Even in a half-decent performance and for all the perceived naivety (by some) of parts of its text and the mimetic response they drew from Haydn, it juxtaposes glorious, iridescent power with reassuring companionability to a degree that is surely unique. Jordi Savall’s new recording, made shortly before his 80 birthday in May 2021, is, as one would expect, a great deal more than half-decent. The ethos of the performance is established at the very outset. Aided by the generous acoustic of the Romanesque church at Cardona in Catalonia, the portentous opening chord of the introductory ‘Representation of Chaos’ seems to last an eternity before finally dying. Again as one might expect, tempos are in general on the slow side, but only in Part 3 is there any feeling that there might have been more forward movement. In the opening duet with chorus for Adam and Eve that is more than mitigated by the manner in which Savall builds the movement to a magnificently controlled climax in the overwhelming outburst of praise to God, ‘Heil, dir’. Less convincing is the equally slow tempo for the more worldly duet that follows, ‘Holde Gattin!’, a wonderful example of the way in which Haydn throughout constantly alternates the godly with the world He has created.

This combination of the elevated, the spiritual with the everyday, the mundane world of cattle and worms, is to my mind at the heart of the humanity Savall finds in the oratorio. And time and again it is through the superb playing of his orchestra that he achieves that goal. Listen, for example, to the exquisite tenderness of the orchestral opening of the terzetto ‘In holder Anmut’ (In fairest raiment), so touching in its evocation of the beauties of nature and yet another number that will build inexorably, in this case from the pastoral to a glorious climactic point in the chorus ‘Der Herr ist gross’ (The Lord is great).

So where does that leave the soloists? Well, although all three sing well enough, particularly in ensemble work, I have to confess a certain disappointment. There is to my mind in common a shortage of strong personality, a lack of communicative skill that results in an inability to make the text tell in the way it can and must in this work. Most satisfying is the Korean soprano, Yeree Suh. Hers is a truly delightful soprano, fresh, youthful and supple enough to essay passaggi with fluent ease and turn ornaments with elegance. At her best, as in ‘Nun heut die Flur’ (With verdure clad), she is beguiling and charming, but overall she needed to pay more attention to enunciation. Tenor Tilman Lichdi’s Uriel is fine without ever challenging some of the outstanding singers of the role. The timbre is agreeable and he brings a pleasingly youthful lightness of touch to his opening aria, ‘Nun schwanden’ (Now vanish’), but in the magnificent accompagnato celebrating the division of night and day, the sun and the moon, the ear is constantly caught not by the singing but the orchestra’s magnificent evocation of sunrise and the mystery of moonlight. And so it is too with Matthias Winckhler, whose baritone is rather lightweight for Raphael’s music and is at times pushed to maintain a steady tone at Savall’s deliberate tempos.  But I would not wish to over-exaggerate any deficiencies the soloists might have; by any standard their contribution is at the very least thoroughly acceptable.

I’ve not so far mentioned Savall’s splendid hand-picked chorus, here just 20-strong (considerably fewer than Haydn had at his disposal in 1808) but sounding more numerous with the aid of the acoustic. The catalogue is graced by a number of outstanding recordings of The Creation. This one, for the reasons suggested, is rather special, and joins them as the product of the cumulative experience of one of the great musicians of our day.

Brian Robins

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Purcell: Birthday Odes of Queen Mary

CD cover Purcell Birthday Odes of Queen Mary Robert King

The King’s Consort, Robert King
77:10
VIVAT 122

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There are few ensembles more familiar with the music of Henry Purcell than the King’s Consort under the direction of Robert King. After establishing the link back to pioneering performances by David Munrow, featuring James Bowman, in which King sang as a boy, he alludes to how musicology has provided us with an ever clearer picture of just how this music would have been performed in Purcell’s own day. The smaller instrumental and vocal forces are evident on this beautiful recording – two each of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses cover the solos, duets and the chorus parts, while two each of violins, violas and bass violins along with two oboes, recorders and trumpets with a continuo group of harpsichord/organ and theorbo make up the orchestral component. The Odes featured are Arise, my Muse (1690), Love’s Goddess sure was blind (1692) and Celebrate this Festival (1693) – in fact, the numbering of the items in which the trumpets participate is wrong in the programme list – for 2 read 3 and for 3 read 1.) However, in all honesty, this is the only tiny flaw in an otherwise exemplary package. As usual, King has assembled a first-rate line-up of specialist singers, and the singing of all eight is an utter delight. Exquisite phrasing is complemented with deft and utterly idiomatic ornamentation in every case, while the choruses are given equally detailed treatment, and the instruments in turn complement this with their own superlative level of musicianship. As a result, the often frankly silly libretti can be overlooked in the light of such stunning music-making. We even have time for an ‘in joke’ in the mock rage with which the ground bass of May her blest example in Love’s Goddess sure was blind is presented here, alluding to the story of a piqued Purcell using the tune Cold and Raw after the Queen had previously preferred it to his own music. The choice of a pair of recorders for Sweetness of Nature in Love’s Goddess sure was blind for which the instrumentation in the imperfect source is ambiguous, is inspired, but then when I went back to Munrow’s 1976 recording, this was his solution too. The many vocal and instrumental highlights in this recording are too many to enumerate – suffice it to say, I loved this CD, and can hardly imagine more convincing performances of these three lovely pieces.

D. James Ross

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Stölzel: Ein Lämmlein geht

Veronika Winter, Franz Vitzthum, Markus Brutscher, Martin Schicketanz SATB, Rheinische Kantorei, Das Kleine Konzert, Hermann Max
110:28 (2 CDs in a box)
cpo 555 311-2

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This recording was made in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig during the 2019 Bachfest, with support from other bodies primarily interested in Bach’s music. Indeed, most of the booklet note (which is shorter in length than the combined biographies of the performers!) is devoted not to Stölzel at all, but to Bach.

Stölzel’s passion oratorio takes a different approach than Bach’s own works for Easter. The story is told mostly in groups of three movements as if in real time, with a recitative featuring the narrator using the present tense and then the soloists reflecting on what they’ve heard first in more recitative, then an aria, followed by a chorale setting sung by everyone. There are 18 arias, one duet and two choruses. Stölzel was essentially a miniaturist; each aria is based on a single idea – most of them earworms, since the man had an unerring gift for getting under one’s musical skin (think “Bist du bei mir” and how difficult that is to shake off!) The one thing missing from this work is counterpoint; with no monumental structural choruses, there is no need for them – anyone who doubt’s Stölzel’s ability in the field need merely look through any of the hundreds of surviving cantatas and masses. If only one of his glorious works for Easter Sunday had been tagged on to the end of this recording – it would have transformed it!

Hermann Max paces the piece well and draws fine performances from his soloists, choir and orchestra alike. That said, György Vashegyi with his Hungarian soloists, Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra put a little more energy into their performance on Glossa.

Brian Clark

 

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Sacred Treasures of Christmas

CD cover Sacred treasures of Christmas

The London Oratory Schola Cantorum, Charles Cole
76:30
Hyperion CDA 68358

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This CD is part of a series recording the liturgical music of the various seasons as presented in the round of services in the London Oratory. St Augustine’s Church Kilburn provides just about the ideal acoustic for recording this lavish Christmas music, providing a pleasing bloom but also allowing us to hear the necessary detail. The choral music comes from throughout Europe and the composers represented include Sweelinck, Giovanni Gabrieli, Hassler, Mouton, Scheidt, Guerrero, Victoria, Palestrina, Lassus, Sheppard, Nanino and Tallis, while the choristers also sing some plainchant with the authority of familiarity. In fact the music covers the celebrations of Christmas, Epiphany and Candlemas, and ranges in mood from the overtly showy to the deeply contemplative. The singers capture the full range of moods in their chosen music, and the director Charles Cole does a superb job in marshalling his large choral forces to produce a sound which can be focussed and intimate, as well as wonderfully opulent. I think there is something profoundly different about a ‘working’ church choir from the small specialist ensembles who also perform this sort of repertoire, not just in their use of boys’ voices and their sheer numbers, but in their approach to the music. This is repertoire they sing every day of their lives as a vital element of church services, and they derive an unparalleled authority as a result. This is a thoroughly enjoyable recording which captures perfectly the joys of the festive season.

D. James Ross

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I Diporti della villa in ogni stagione 1601

CD cover I diporti della villa Venezia 1601

Gruppo vocali Àrsi & Tèsi, Tony Corradini
65:06
Tactus TC 590005

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The madrigal collection ‘The pastimes of the Villa in each season’ published in Venice in 1601 consists of settings by eminent composers of the day, some better remembered than others – Giovanni Croce, Lelio Bertani, Ippolito Baccusi and Filippo de Monte – of verses by the aristocrat Francesco Bozza. Each composer takes a complete season, treated in five parts and interestingly each referred to in the dedication as a single song. The parallels with the almost exactly contemporary ‘Triumphs of Oriana’ are interesting and point at an urge towards the encyclopaedic at the time. The balance of the music on the CD is made up with sundry other madrigals which mention the seasons by the familiar Nanino, Marenzio, de Lasso and Schütz, and the rather more obscure and interesting Rinaldo del Mel and Mogens Pederson. The quality of the madrigals in the collection as well as the added material is high, and they are beautifully sung by the vocal ensemble. This could well have been just an aristocratic vanity project, but the fact that the composers clearly liaised, not to say competed, with one another ensured a consistently high compositional standard. The structure of the publication and its title makes it very clear that it was viewed as a single large four-part work, and was intended to be performed in its entirety, as it is here. The astute choice of complementary material makes this CD thoroughly engaging and entertaining, while the expressive and technically flawless performances ensure that the attention never wanders.

D. James Ross

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See, see, the word is incarnate

CD cover See, see, the word is incarnate

Choral and instrumental music by Gibbons, Tomkins and Weelkes
The Chapel of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Newe Vialles, Orpheus Britannicus Vocal Consort, Andrew Arthur
70:51
resonus RES10295

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Despite a long and distinguished history, Trinity Hall, founded as early as 1350, is one of the lesser-known colleges that make up the University of Cambridge. It must be tired of reviewers and others attributing this to the subsequent foundation in 1546 of the bigger and wealthier Trinity College, allegedly given so similar a name deliberately by its founder Henry VIII to spite Trinity Hall’s then Master, Stephen Gardiner, who had opposed the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. I was well aware of Trinity Hall but am mortified to confess that I knew nothing of its chapel, nor of its chapel choir and its several discs released before the one currently under review here. On the basis of this recording, the state of its music is certainly of a piece with the college’s eminent stature. The mixed Chapel Choir has 23 members (7S 6A 5T 5B) and verses are sung by members of Orpheus Britannicus, the Ensemble in Residence which consists of seven singers who are well kent in early music circles. Accompaniments are provided by the organ scholar James Grimwood or the five-strong consort Newe Vialles (named after the new group of six viol players brought from Italy to England by Henry VIII), while the several organ solos are played by the college’s Director of Music, Andrew Arthur, who also conducts.

The contents of this recording (similar in scope to I Heard a Voice by The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and Fretwork, Warner Classics 3944302, 2007) can be viewed from two perspectives. For those who do not routinely sing or hear late Tudor and Jacobean music, it consists of some of the finest music from before the time of Purcell. For those who routinely hear or perform the repertory of Tudor and Jacobean music, the list of contents would seem to consist of disappointingly familiar fare – even the instrumental items by Weelkes, the least populated area of his output, have had their fair sprinkling of recordings. That said, most commercial recordings require the mystical “USP”, the unique selling point that differentiates them from others in the field. Not too many discs can be expected to sell simply on the strength of the performers: probably a CD of Stile Antico gargling would sell by the bucketload, but choirs such as Trinity Hall need that elusive USP. Fortunately it is present on this disc, and it is the tempi at which most of these works are sung: slowly. This might seem unpromising, but works such as Gibbons’ Short Service were not composed to be sung at the dismissively hurried lick which too many conductors take during cathedral or collegiate Choral Evensongs and on commercial recordings: the writing is full of subtleties which are lost at speed. That said, just plain slow performances can be sluggish, but it is entirely possible to sing a piece slowly yet with care and momentum so as to bring out its harmonic, melodic and technical beauties, and this is precisely what Trinity Hall achieve both in the settings for evensong, and in the full and verse anthems. For instance, the ultra-famous This is the record of John normally comes in at just over four minutes, while here it takes a luxurious 5’06; similarly See, see the word is incarnate usually runs for around seven minutes while here it is given 8’14. And nowhere throughout the disc is there a dull moment, half because of the quality of the music and half because of the leisured intensity of the performances.

The booklet is good, being both informative and well illustrated. Unfortunately the author trots out the tired old fiction that viols might have been employed “in the Chapel Royal and other private chapels”. There is not a shred of surviving evidence that any such performances ever took place during the lifetimes of the composers represented here. Where liturgical verse anthems with accompaniments for the organ survive with authentic alternative accompaniments for viols, it is clear from the provenances of the respective sources that the latter were intended for domestic performance; it is, therefore, perhaps all the more authentic for these versions to be sung with female participation.

And finally, what of the performances here? They are consistently good. There is a richness about the tone of the choir which suggests a Baroque sensibility rather than the more austere Anglican approach which is often adopted for the music of these composers. Thanks to the slower tempi, individual parts are easily audible while the voices blend beautifully. This is a most impressive recording. For potential purchasers unfamiliar with the repertory but keen to give it a hearing (or just keen to support Trinity Hall), it is a delightful introduction. For those familiar with this music, and who possess recordings of all these pieces, it is well worth buying this disc for the singularly ripe yet penetrating performances.

Richard Turbet

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Giovanni Gabrieli: Gloria a Venezia!

CD cover Giovanni Gabrieli Gloria a Venezia

La Guilde des Mercenaires, Adrien Mabire
53:47
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS041

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Grand scale pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli and contemporaries are often given a rather ponderous grandeur in performance. This disc offers a different  balance, instead maintaining a sense of energy and forward momentum. The overlapping choirs pass the baton without breaking pace, adding a fervent muscularity to this popular repertoire. Whilst this provides a welcome new light on many familiar pieces, applied relentlessly it can occasionally feel rather breathless, and misses opportunities for the music to put down the occasional foot and make a point. An example might be Angelus ad pastores ait, in which the exchange between the narrative voice represented by one choir passing over to the reported speech of the Angel in the other, without feeling the opening and closing speech marks. The pieces regularly change scale to give contrast. Thus we move from the opening Magnificat by Merulo with its full panoply of voices, cornetts and sackbuts, to Gabrieli’s canzon terza a 4, performed on solo cornett with organ. The contrast between the Merulo, with colla parte instruments, unusually including the top voice with a slightly tiring effect, and the following canzon, was a touch severe particularly as this piece for four instruments is constructed as sets of dialogues and calls out for distinct “voices”. Two other four-part canzoni leaven the programme further on: one with four instruments, and one more with cornett and organ. Ordering the realisations differently would have been easier on my ear (but, admittedly, this is just personal taste). The organ used has a splendid sonority – a noticeable step towards the historic cathedral organs from the smaller organs often used in modern performance – and is very fluently played. The organ ricercar, which makes a later appearance, has a real presence and immediacy. The singers are excellent and carry conviction, blending very well with each other and with the well-shaped instrumental playing. A fine addition to the CD collections of admirers of La Serenissima.

Stephen Cassidy

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Hammerschmidt: Ach Jesus stirbt

CD cover Hammerschmidt Ach Jesus stirbt Vox Luminis Lionel Meunier

Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier
70:27
Ricercar RIC418

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A key figure in the mid-17th-century German world is Andreas Hammerschmidt (1611/2-1675) who was fluent in the emerging cantata style and equally at home in monody or the madrigalesque style of Italy. His sacred works were published over 15 volumes printed between 1639 and 1671 and combine polychoral motets with solo and dialogue pieces, many using thematic material derived from chorales. In some ways overshadowed by his better-known contemporary Schütz, he was among the creators of the sound world of Lutheran church music in which the contributors to the Altbachisches Archiv and ultimately Johann Sebastian Bach himself were formed. A lot of attention has been paid to Schütz and Schein, and to Buxtehude in the north, while Hammerschmidt is unjustly – on the basis of this fine recording – neglected.

Partly to remedy this, Vox Luminis – here using 13 singers – recorded this selection of his works in 2019, using the substantial organ by Dominique Thomas of 2002 in the north transept of the church of Notre-Dame at Gedinne in Belgium, where in 2017 they had recorded motets by Schein and Ahle for inclusion in an interesting CD devised by the remarkable Breton bassoonist, Jérémie Papasergio. The Hammerschmidt programme is structured around texts for Passiontide and Easter, beginning with the elegiac motet Ach Jesus stirbt, which is the title given to the whole CD. They work with the string group CLEMATIS, (2 violins, 2 violas and violone) and brass (2 trumpets, 3 trombones and bassoon), although the majority of pieces have just basso continuo with the voices.

Vox Luminis are at the heart of their comfort zone with this colourful and often surprisingly adventurous music. The balance, clarity and diction for which the group is justly celebrated are all in evidence in these subtle and well-paced performances. This is an important introduction to Hammerschmidt’s unique voice, but it is also a quite excellent performance of gripping music.

I like it a lot, and it offers far more than just filling another gap in the complex jigsaw of 17th-century Germany, where cross currents between national styles, composers’ opportunities to travel and the myriad small courts with their musical establishments was all part of creating an emerging late Baroque synthesis. Each performance is beautiful and moving in itself, but the cumulative effect is distinctive and compelling.

Some motets are in more in the old cori spezzati style; others employ echo effects, like Siehe, wie fein und lieblich ists in three choirs. In a newer and more obviously modern style, Ach Gott, warum hast du mein vergessen has four character voices, beginning with Ps 22.1 and ending with Alleluias, so taking us from the cross to the empty tomb. Its companion piece is Wer wälzet uns der Stein, where a pair of sopranos ask the question ‘Who will roll away the stone?’ A pair of violins dialogue with them, while violas and violone shadow the lower voices and a bright organ sound adds to the outburst of Easter joy. Restrained and sung by just four voices with continuo is O barmherziger Vater, while Christ lag in Todesbanden makes polyphony out of the chorale, setting it for two trebles and a tenor with three trombones and continuo. Easter is celebrated in a less antique Lutheran style in Triumph, Triumph, Victoria, which has upper voices in pairs – two sopranos, two tenors and then a different pair of sopranos – for the verses with two trumpets and three trombones with the tutti. For Ascension Day we have a motet based on upward scale passages that cumulates in tuttis capped by three trumpets. Very different is Vater unser, with four favoriti, a five-part string group and a capella of five voices joining for the tutti, and the poignant words Ist nicht Ephraim mein theurer Sohn, set memorably by Schütz, receives a haunting performance with just five voices.

As so often with Vox Luminis, the performances seem just right: no individualistic voices unbalance the perfect restraint, yet the outbursts of Easter joy are life enhancing. The choice of music not only illustrates the multiple styles to be found in Hammerschmidt, but shows how rich was the melting pot of middle Europe in these mid-17th-century years. This is an important CD, and no one should be without it.

David Stancliffe