Das Neue

Einer der Höhepunkte des Bachfestes Leipzig 2014 im 300. Geburtsjahr Carl Philip Emanuel Bachs war die Aufführung und Einspielung seines Oratoriums "Die Israeliten in der Wüste" mit den Experten für historische Aufführungspraxis des Neuen Orchesters & Chorus Musicus Köln unter der Leitung von Christoph Spering.

Lobgesang, Mendelssohn's ''Hymn of Praise'', is no longer a rarity on disc, with a dozen versions listed. That makes it timely that Spering, following up the success of Herreweghe's Harmonia Mundi version of Elijah (4/94), here presents a performance in period style. When the composer's preference for fast speeds is well documented, and has so convincingly been followed up by his latterday successor at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Kurt Masur, it is perhaps surprising that Spering is far more relaxed in his choice of tempos. His overall timing—64'48'' as against Masur's 58'32''—shows what a wide discrepancy there is, and in no way does he let the music drag or become sentimental. For with clean, crisp textures this is a most refreshing performance, full of incidental beauties, of a work that for several generations was regarded as too sweet on the one hand, over-inflated on the other. Spering's clean directness and his obvious affection for the music reverses that jaundiced judgement.

Instrumental and vocal techniques are intertwined in the music of Harrison Birtwistle: he often treats the voice instrumentally and his instrumental writing has vocal characteristics. Many of his works for small ensembles, with or without voices, occupy this common ground, his highly individual style juxtaposing the static and the violently dynamic and intersecting with his fondness for ritual and myth – not least a recurrent concern with the figure of Orpheus. This recording presents some of these relatively neglected pieces, recorded live in the presence of the composer, who also talks about his songs in interview.

In celebration of the 150th Anniversary this Album focus on still less-known but exceptional sensitive and impressive Choral Symphonic and Orchestra songs by Max Reger. With these works, Reger entirely adhered to the trend of the time; the large-scale idea, which would have had no place in the operas of the period, is transferred to the concert hall, so to speak, and is as far removed from the "simple" orchestral song as some of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder. The Hebbel Requiem, Op. 144b includes audible parallels with Johannes Brahms‘s German Requiem and was Reger’s memorial for the German soldiers killed in the war.

Dschinghis Khan was a German pop band created in 1979 to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest. The name of the band is the German spelling of Genghis Khan and was chosen to fit the song of the same name written and produced by Ralph Siegel with lyrics by Bernd Meinunger. Appearing at the height of the disco boom and following on the heels of other German-produced bands such as Boney M, Arabesque, and Silver Convention, the band achieved wide popularity throughout the world, especially in Europe, Russia, and Japan, though they went wholly unnoticed in the United States. Their songs invariably were themed on historical figures and exotic cultures and locales. Though the group broke up in the mid-1980s, it has enjoyed a recent resurgence in popularity on the internet due to a video of them peforming their hit song Moskau being discovered.

Interesting that the librettist of this oratorio, none other than Pietro Metastasio, avoids biblical passages completely. In doing so, this lets in an emotive realism that allows a quasi-operatic treatment by Prague-born Myslivecek. The composer's penchant for Metastasio in his thirty-odd operas obviously extended to oratorio. The apostle Peter becomes a major figure in the drama. Absent from the crucifixion itself, he has to make urgent enquiry into the state of play. Enter Mary Magdalene - a Biblical character under much re-evaluation in current spirituality - who accompanied Jesus to the cross. Other characters include John (here of course Giovanni), the second eyewitness, Joseph of Arimathea (Giuseppe).