German Baroque Cantatas

Vincent Lübeck - Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music - Manuel Tomadin (2018) {2CD Set Brilliant Classics 95453}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 764 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 349 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 25 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2018 Brilliant Classics | 95453
Classical / Baroque / Harpsichord / Organ

Vincent Lübeck (1654-1740) was a well-known teacher and trusted advisor on organ design in the generation of organists in North Germany before J. S. Bach. By 1675 he had become organist of St Cosmae et Damiani in Stade, near Hamburg, where there was an organ by Arp Schnitger. In 1702, Lübeck moved into Hamburg and became organist at St Nikolai, where there was a four-manual Schnitger organ of 67 stops.

On Meine Seele (My soul), Canadian countertenor Matthew White breathes new life into sacred cantatas by German composers who preceded Bach. Listeners are invited to rediscover forgotten works by such 17th-century German masters as Franz Tunder, Christoph Bernhard, and Philipp Heinrich Erlebach. Alexander Weimann is one of the most sought after harpsichordists, ensemble directors, soloists and chamber music partners of his generation.

By 1648, Heinrich Schuetz was both a survivor and a relic of his own past glory. The 63-year-old devout Lutheran had survived the religious slaughter of the Thirty Years War, which had killed more than half of the musicians of his German world. Surely the most influential composer of German history, he had also outlasted his own impact on the next generation of German composers, patrons, and audiences, who unjustly regarded his music as outdated. Who knows how he felt about his growing isolation, but it's interesting that he chose to compose one of his grandest and greatest accomplishments - the Geistliche Chormusik 1648, op. 11 - in the antiquated contrapuntal style of Renaissance vocal polyphony, the prima prattica, rather than the operatic Italianate seconda prattica he himself had introduced to German music.

The title Seelen-Music (Soul Music) refers to the first complete collection of all the extant Cantatas by Johann Theile for soprano solo with viol accompaniment, presented here with the recording premieres of Sacred Concertos by Theile’s fellow Northern German Christian Flor and Instrumental Suites by the Gottorf violinist Gregor Zuber. The composer Johann Theile is of great significance in music history inasmuch as he is held to be one of the last pupils of Heinrich Schütz, who was the most important German-language composer of the seventeenth century.

The Italian Steffani spent most of his fabulous career as a composer, spy, and diplomat in Germany, in München and Hanover, with a prolonged visit to Paris to the court of Louis XIV. In terms of the prevalent national styles of music in the late 17th C, Steffani was "all over the place" – his overtures are thoroughly French, his arias sparklingly Italian, and his mastery of counterpoint profoundly German. Does that stylistic Duke's Mixture ring any bells? A certain pair of Germans born in 1685, one revered for his cantatas and the other for his operas, were both indebted to Steffani for his synthesis of Italian, French, and German fashions.

The sonata concertata form is perfectly illustrated in these trios by Dietrich Buxtehude which, according to Peter Wollny constitute ‘a landmark in the history of the sonata’. They provide a better understanding of a composer who has owed his fame chiefly associated to his cantatas and organ works, and to the admiration of the young Johann Sebastian Bach, who walked 400 kilometres to hear him play. After recording Buxtehude’s first set of chamber sonatas (ALPHA367), the musicians of Arcangelo (Sophie Gent, Jonathan Manson, Thomas Dunford and Jonathan Cohen) now revive the pieces from the second collection, published in 1696. It shows the multiple European influences (Baltic, Italian, German, French) that flourished in Lübeck, the north German city where Buxtehude worked as organist of the Marienkirche, but also in Hamburg, where the music was type set.

Hailed by the international music press and highly praised by music connoisseurs, the recordings of Bach’s entire body of vocal music made by the Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ), its conductor Masaaki Suzuki and numerous prestigious soloists, many of whom have remained remarkably loyal to the undertaking from the outset, are here brought together to form the only complete set of these works in high-resolution format.

German baritone Benjamin Appl is Gramophone ‘Young Artist of the Year 2016’ and one of the stars of the European ‘Echo Rising Stars’ concert series. Appl is a former chorister of the famous German choir Regensburger Domspatzen, and now one of the most interesting artists of the new generation, with a great voice, charming personality and great stage presence. The new album presents wonderful music by Johann Sebastian Bach from famous as well as less known cantatas but also from the St Matthew Passion. It was recorded with the renowned Ensemble Concerto Köln, one of the leading ensembles for historically-informed performance practice.

German baritone Benjamin Appl is Gramophone's "Young Artist of the Year 2016" and one of the stars of the European "Echo Rising Stars" concert series. He is also a former chorister of the famous German choir Regensburger Domspatzen, and now one of the most interesting artists of the new generation, with a great voice, charming personality and great stage presence. The new album presents wonderful music by Johann Sebastian Bach from famous as well as less known cantatas but also from the St. Matthew Passion. It was recorded with the renowned Ensemble Concerto Köln, one of the leading ensembles for historically-informed performance practice.