Peter Holman

Lübeck Virtuosos: Music of Dietrich Buxtehude and His Colleagues - Hamburger Ratsmusik
Buxtehude - G. Schütz - Grecke - Baudinger - Radeck
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 357 MB | RS
Recorded: 3-5/1 2005, Schloß Salzau, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Released: 2005 | Label: Thorofon CTH 2474 | TT: 70:59
Hamburger Ratsmusik, Simone Eckert - viola da gamba

Echo Classic Award 2006

The people of Lübeck had a decided preference for music for strings. Important violinists and viola da gamba players worked there even at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and their teaching abilities ensured a continuous supply of successors. Initially influenced by the English music for viols, there developed a string style in Lübeck which combined English polyphony with a new degree of virtuosity. Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's trio sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo were in the possession of the Marienkirche, and they caused South-German and Italian ideas to be incorporated as well. The music for strings was additionally influenced by the North-German organists' preference for the stylus phantasticus; often several hundred bars in length, the North-German chorale fantasias feature fascinatingly colourful and often abrupt changes in technique, tone colour, improvisatory quality and virtuosity. (Simone Eckert, CD-booklet)

As soul music moved into the early '70s, it became dominated by smoother sounds and polished productions, picking up its cues from Motown, Chicago soul, and uptown soul. By the beginning of the decade, soul was fracturing in a manner similar to pop/rock, as pop-soul, funk, vocal groups, string-laden Philly soul, and sexy Memphis soul became just a few of the many different subgenres to surface. Often, the productions on these records were much more polished than '60s productions, boasting sound effects, synthesizers, electric keyboards, echoes, horn sections, acoustic guitars, and strings.

The Cameo Parkway boxed set that we all have been dreaming of, 115 tracks including 74 chart hits! Painstakingly assembled from the best sources possible (98% from the original tapes), and all in original mono, the tracks include performances by all of the label's stars and its one-hit wonders. A booklet tells the fascinating story of this label.