Passion Healed

A stunning collection of some of the greatest sacred music ever written. From the great Lamentations of Byrd, Tallis and Palestrina, the listener is taken on a remarkable spiritual journey through Bach’s great St Matthew Passion, Purcell’s moving and bleak funeral music for Queen Mary, and Handel radiant Messiah. Pergolesi’s masterful setting of the Stabat Mater and Telemann’s Passions-Oratorium are also to be found here, along with Haydn’s Stabat Mater and his dark and intense masterpiece Die sieben letzen Worte, or The Seven Last Words of our Saviour from the Cross. Finally, Allegri’s hauntingly beautiful Miserere opens this collection – a work that was copied from memory after one hearing by the child Mozart. Prior to that moment the work had only been heard in the Vatican.

Since 2009, Carus has been issuing a CD series with Handel’s oratorios as well as select vocal works, operas and instrumental compositions. Now a box containing 13 CDs and comprising several large-scale oratorios has been compiled: it includes, in addition to Messiah, Alexander’s Feast, Israel in Egypt,Brockes-Passion, Solomon as well as the relatively unknown gem L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.

George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), one of the preeminent Baroque composers, was born in Germany, educated in Italy, and spent most of his career in England, making him one of the first genuinely cosmopolitan composers noted, for the elegance, sophistication, and tunefulness of his music. He established his reputation in London as a composer of Italian opera, but after public taste shifted in the 1730s, he turned to English oratorios, the most famous of which is Messiah. Other popular works include Water Music, Royal Fireworks Music, the operas Giulio Cesare and Serse, and the oratorios Israel in Egypt and Judas Maccabeus.

Decca celebrates one of the world’s most prolific conductor-orchestra partnerships with a deluxe 108-CD box set marking both the 20th Anniversary of the passing of Sir Georg Solti and the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 108 CDs presenting Solti’s and the CSO’s complete recorded legacy together: from their very first recording at Medinah Temple in March 1970 of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony to their last at Orchestra Hall, Chicago in March 1997 of Shostakovich’ Symphony No.15.