Gerwin Strobl

Georg Muffat’s “Missa in labore requies” alongside church sonatas of his contemporaries make up audite’s latest offering in the series of polychoral baroque music recorded by renowned Early Music performers.
With its octagonal layout and four galleries, the Abbey Church at Muri provides an ideal acoustic for performing polychoral music. The galleries surround the main body of the church, placing the audience in the midst of the musical event. This sound experience is unique, both in concert and in recordings. The considerable distance between the galleries creates challenges in the musical interaction of the different groups.

A well-regarded composer in his own right, Leopold I transformed the Viennese court into a centre of European culture. The beautiful settings he wrote for the burials of his first two wives, as well as his music for the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, are testament to the Emperor’s musical talent.

To visit the great Venetian cathedrals in the 17th century was to bow deeply to the polychoral or “cori spezzati” style that reigned there, pioneered by Giovanni Gabrieli. The young Heinrich Schutz was no exception. Unable to resist the sparkling sounds arising from polychoral writing and antiphonal placement, Schutz carried the style back to his native Germany. Capella Murensis and Les Cornets Noirs here present with absolute fidelity works by Schutz and Gabrieli that epitomize the high Ventian style.