Hermann Wayl

When Johann Hermann Schein became Kantor at the church of Saint Thomas in Leipzig in 1616, he had, on the one hand, to satisfy the liturgical demands of his Lutheran parish and, on the other, compose music that was truly contemporary, sensible to the new style coming out of Italy. Schein exploited the new possibilities brought by the basso continuo, demonstrated his mastery of musical rhetoric and wrote extremely ambitious music of great expressive force.

In the only one of Johann Schein's religious works to be reissued as long as twenty-two years after his death, Fontana D'Israel (Fountain of Israel) is still regarded as his most exceptional artistic achievement. This Israelsbrünnlein contains twenty-six vocal compositions, which, as Schein writes, "can be comfortably played on their own with lively voice and instruments, and also on the organ/harpsichord" and to which he had added a figured bass, admittedly dispensable in most cases.

Hermann Max came to the fore in the first place with the Rheinische Kantorei and the Baroque Orchestra Das Kleine Konzert through a series of productions for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk. He is considered as one of the principal researchers and developers of the HIP, which has become the prevailing approach to the performance of early music today. The ideals that guided him in directing his choir are based on the Italian tradition: a bright sound, precise diction, secure intonation, transparency and lightness.

The music of Jón Leifs is often inspired by Iceland’s powerful nature and literary heritage. From early on he was profoundly influenced by the medieval tradition of Icelandic literature, preserved in a handful of manuscripts, including the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. Leifs’ magnum opus is the Edda oratorio, a massive (although incomplete) work in three large parts which occupied him on and off for most of his composing career – from around 1930 to his death in 1968. A partial performance of Edda I – The Creation of the World – met with incomprehension, and Leifs only resumed work on his great project a decade later, completing the second part – The Lives of the Gods – in 1966.