Roland Lange

Bach contemporaries such as Jan Zelenka (1679-1745) and Johann Pisendel (1687-1755), both of whom spent most of their creative lives at the Dresden court, are enjoying a well-deserved period of “discovery”–and so is Johann Schein (1586-1630), a less-interesting contemporary of Bach’s most illustrious predecessor, Heinrich Schütz, who preceded Bach as Kantor in Leipzig by a little more than a century. Schein’s primary claim to importance is his incorporation of Italian madrigal style into Lutheran church music. But it’s also clear that he was influenced by the big block-chord sound and antiphonal choir scoring favored by Gabrieli and similarly employed by Schütz.

Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.