Haller

"Schützens Musik ist von einer so hervorragenden Qualität. Klare Gedanken, eine dem Sprachrhythmus ideal angepasste Rhythmik, ausdrucksvolle und klare Harmonik, eine gestische und klangrednerische Melodik und die eindringliche Durcharbeitung. Durchführung eines Textes, das sind nur einige der Positiva die mir spontan einfallen." Eine solche Hymne ist eher selten. Die Musik des Heinrich Schütz ist nicht vergessen, aber doch eigentlich eine für ein kleineres Publikum.

Haydn's "The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross", originally written for orchestra, has undergone numerous adaptations, from oratorio to string quartet. Benoît Haller and Guillaume Humbrecht now present a version for string and vocal quartet. The new arrangement required some changes in the vocal parts, as well as the transcription of the second introduction for string quartet instead of wind ensemble. The eight musicians of the Chapelle Rhénane and the Quatuor 1781 perform the transparent "new creation" with great enthusiasm and attention to detail.

Benoit Haller and his Strasbourg-based ensemble, La Chappelle Rhénane, would only agree to make a live recording of this work, whose immense popularity is reflected in its virtually uninterrupted performing tradition. Here is a powerful and highly personal version of this timeless, universal masterpiece, marked by the intense commitment of [only] twelve vocal soloists chosen for their specific vocal colour and their fidelity to Handel's music.

Founded in 2001 by tenor Benoît Haller, La Chapelle Rhénane is a musical ensemble of lyrical and instrumental soloists. The team is dedicated to the repertoire of great European vocal works. Its ambition is, through concerts and recordings, to reveal in these works the emotion, humanity and modernity that can seduce a wide contemporary audience. Just like the great European courts during the Baroque period who recruited their musicians across the continent – and to a lesser extent like the composers who never ceased to travel to complete their training and gain new experiences - la Chapelle Rhénane benefits from the central location of Strasbourg, attracting musicians from all over Europe.

The figure of Samuel Capricornus has been unfairly neglected by modern historians of music, editors and performers. Not only was Capricornus admired by his contemporaries even beyond the frontiers; the extraordinary standard of his works and the originality and variety of his output make him quite simply one of the greatest composers of religious music of the seventeenth century. Capricornus's most original compositions are the Lieder von dem Leyden und Tode Jesu (Songs on the sufferings and death of Jesus) and Theatrum musicum. The former are a kind of German equivalent fo the leçons de ténèbres of the French Baroque.

Dietrich Buxtehude composed his Membra Jesu nostri in Lübeck in 1680, and the work, drenched in emotion in a most un-Bachian way, has become increasingly popular in the 21st century. The title might be translated "Limbs of Our Jesus," but actually the Latin texts, of considerable antiquity, describe seven wounds supposedly suffered by Jesus Christ on the cross, and the work thus falls into a group of works in which the number seven takes on mystical significance. Various interpretations have been offered, with the majority adopting the one-voice-per-part technique, sometimes in a severe way, sometimes carrying a feeling of intimate chamber reflection.

Two late and baleful tragedies by Euripides focus on the ill-starred daughter of the Greek King, Agamemnon. Will he sacrifice Iphigenia in order to secure fair winds for his voyage to Troy? In Aulis, the drama rages until she is spared. Having escaped to Tauris, Iphigenia finds herself compelled to kill her own brother before, once more, the fickle gods intervene.