Jung Dayeon

Nature is my sanctuary and source of creative energy; I retreat to it whenever I find myself overwhelmed by stress or questioning my purpose. The grandiose, expansive, and symbolic styles in the music of Rameau, Chopin, and Debussy depict what I see and feel in nature—joy, hope, and love.

Francesco Feo was one of the greatest Neapolitan composers of the first half of the 18th century. During a career extending from 1713 through 1760, the year before his death, he remained in Naples, where he composed operas, oratorios, cantatas, masses, passions, psalms, and canticles, among other works. His setting of Metastasio’s first opera libretto, Siface, led to commissions from Rome and Turin. His growing fame resulted in commissions from Madrid and Prague; Hasse, resident in Dresden, where Feo’s works were also performed, wanted to entrust Feo with leading the premiere of a serenata he wrote for Naples. The music historian Charles Burney praised his works for their “fire, invention, and force in the melody and expression in the words.”

Petr Eben drew upon the Old Testament and sacred texts from early church fathers for his powerful sacred vocal works. Latin was his preferred language for these settings, and he favoured Gregorian chant which he used as inspiration for his weaving polyphonic lines, complex rhythms and irregular patterning. This body of work, written in the teeth of party opposition in Czechoslovakia – born a Jew, Eben became a practising Catholic – is one of the most important by a Czech composer in the twentieth-century.

Acclaimed for her “superior vocal value” (Boston Globe), Soprano Hein Jung has performed in major cities throughout the US and Korea. These venues include Opera Tampa, Tanglewood Music Festival, San Francisco Opera Merola Program, Milwaukee Symphony, Madison Opera, St. Petersburg Opera, Bel Canto Chorus, Tampa Oratorios Singers.

While Hasse’s early fame rested above all on his operas, in more recent times it is especially his sacred compositions that have enjoyed immense esteem. This CD features his Te Deum and other sacred works.

The Messiah by Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785) was performed by the Sächsisches Vocalensemble and the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle under the conductor Matthias Jung at St Anne’s Church in Dresden on the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of the composer’s birth on 5 June 2014, and is now being released on CD by cpo. Homilius is regarded as one of the most significant church composers during the transition between the baroque and classical eras.