Hermann Wayl

This set is a rerelease of recordings made in 1991, not previously reviewed in Read more . In the order listed in the header, these four cantatas were composed for the following festal days in the liturgical church calendar: the Third Sunday in Advent, the Feast of St. John the Baptist, Pentecost, and Easter Sunday. All stem from the time of the younger Bach’s increasingly fractious and unhappy years as director of music in Halle, which spanned 1747 to 1764. The first of these is definitely known to have been written in 1749; the dates for the others are less certain, but stem from the mid to late 1750s.

After listening to this inspired oratorio, it’s clear why Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf was recognized in his day as Franz Joseph Haydn’s primary competitor. It’s a lovely work, loaded with drama, style, and expertly crafted instrumental and vocal writing. From the dramatic dotted rhythms and churning string sequences of the overture to the resounding spirited choral fugue finale, Dittersdorf’s music masterfully propels his grandiose subject matter, commanding attention more profoundly than any recorded vocal/choral work in recent memory (and this one’s more than two and a half hours long!).

Graun was in his mid-twenties when he composed this Grand Passion . It is a surprisingly mature work, full of subtle gems. When first listening to this two-CD album, I wrote: “The music is very pleasant. Although it is quite tuneful, little of it is memorable and at two hours tends to wear out its welcome. There is almost a monotonous similarity of one number to the next. It needs something rousing like the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.” Repeated hearings of this album have increased my appreciation considerably. Even Handel liked this Passion , and quoted some of its music in his own works.

Written for London audiences in 1770, Johann Christian Bach’s only extant oratorio, Gioas, Re di Guida, is a proverbial curate’s egg. Attempting to please both those weaned on Handel and those hoping to hear the oratorio genre given a rococo makeover, it failed to please either. Such was London’s veneration for the spirit of Handel that Bach was booed when he dared play an organ interlude between acts; and despite George III’s patronage, the work was soon neglected. Audiences of the time simply did not want to hear Italian operatic conventions in their oratorios.

Composed in 1778, J.C. Bach's La Clemenza di Scipione is a nice, direct, fat-free work. The arias tend to be short (not one of them is a da capo), the recitatives are to the point and likewise brief, and the action moves swiftly. Roman Scipio (tenor) has taken Cartagena and Spanish soprano princess Arsinda (and her soprano pal, Idalba) prisoner. Male soprano, fellow non-Roman Lucieo, is betrothed to Arsinda, while the Roman general Marzio (tenor) is in love with Idalba and vice-versa. The whole plot revolves around the heroic Lucieo's attempts to rescue Arsinda, et al., his being taken prisoner, and his being threatened by death if he refuses to pledge allegiance to Rome.

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (Königsberg, January 24, 1776 – Berlin, June 25, 1822), who changed his third name to Amadeus in honour to Mozart, is one of the best-known representatives of German Romanticism, and a pioneer of the fantasy genre, with a taste for the macabre. He was also a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist.
As a musician, he composed about 80 works, including several operas, among them Aurora (1811-12), after Franz von Holbein, and Undine (1814), after Baron Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's tale, one symphony, sacred and chamber music, as well as instrumental pieces.