Funeral Music

Johann Gottfried Müthel was the last pupil of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. He was present at the master’s deathbed, and he performed the funeral services, taking over the duties of the deceased Cantor. Mühtel’s music (“full of novelty, taste and grace” according to the great art historian and traveller Charles Burney) is of a wide variety: his Organ Fantasias are imposing, monumental and substantial, his chorale preludes offer intimate meditations on the chorale texts, all of it written in a highly original, dynamic musical language full of contrasts and instrumental virtuosity.

Arne Nordheim (20 June 1931 – 5 June 2010) was a Norwegian composer. Nordheim received numerous prizes for his compositions, and from 1982 lived in the Norwegian State's honorary residence, Grotten, next to the Royal Palace in Oslo. He was elected an honorary member of the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1997. On 18 August 2006, Arne Nordheim received the honorary doctors degree (doctor honoris causa) at the Norwegian Academy of Music. He died at the age of 78 and was given a State funeral.

This beautifully programmed CD presents three settings for viola and orchestra and a more eloquent statement about the beauty of the viola as an instrument would be hard to imagine (except for perhaps including Vaughan Williams' 'Flos Campi'). The viola finds that middle voice between violin and cello, a rich tone with a built in quality of mournfulness. That quality has inspired the works on this recording and the result is some of the more wistful music ever written. Dennis Russell Davies conducts the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with the superb violist Kim Kashkashian.

The award-winning Theatre of Early Music with Daniel Taylor and friends is back in this new recording of poignant funeral cantatas by Bach and Telemann. Death was a beloved theme for both composers, who understood its agony as a prelude to the soul’s joining with God and sought to justify its hour through their transcendent musical language.

Wolfgang Mozart joined the order of the freemasons at the lodge "Zur Wohltдtigkeit" (Benefaction) in Vienna on December 14, 1784. Mozart and freemasonry seemed an ideal match, and in a little over a year he would achieve the status of "master mason." A small number of works among Mozart's late output was intended directly for use in Masonic lodges, and two major non-Masonic works, the opera Die Zauberflцte (The Magic Flute, K. 620) and the Requiem K. 626, share strong Masonic connections. The best known of Mozart's Masonic compositions is the Maurerische Trauermusik, K. 477 (479a) scored originally for two violins, two violas, clarinet, basset horn, two oboes, two horns, and bass. Mozart later added parts for two additional basset horns and bassoon, resulting in an instrumentation absolutely unique in Mozart's vast output…

- David Lewis

The golden age of string orchestra repertoire must certainly be the period spanning the final decades of the 19th century to the early 20th century. The density of sound, great dynamic range, long phrases and virtuosity that are uniquely possible with this combination of instruments saw it become a particularly cherished ensemble for many of the greatest composers of the day. This same era also witnessed the birth of the Great National Schools and the influence of composers’ native folk melodies on their compositional output.