Spott

Kakerlaken im Hotelbett, Flüge mit Todesangst, Abzocker am Urlaubsstrand: Die schönste Zeit des Jahres kann im Handumdrehen zum Fiasko geraten. Mit diesem Reiseführer der verrücktesten Pannen sind Sie gegen die Tücken des Urlaubsalltags gewappnet hier erfahren Sie, was Sie niemals im Katalog lesen werden, und können aus den amüsanten Erlebnissen von SPIEGEL-ONLINE-Lesern lernen. …

Gebel, who isn’t mentioned in any of the current music encyclopedias, clearly proves–on evidence of this very fine Passion–that he was worthy of acclaim (confirmed by various contemporaty sources) and was capable of original ideas and possessed the creative resources to write music of sustained drama and interest. While this passion setting is nowhere near as powerfully affecting in either the spiritual or theatrical sense as those of Bach, it does offer consistently appealing and emotionally meaningful musical realizations, spread among numerous arias, choral movements, and chorales. Gebel also was quite adept at colorful scoring, exemplified in his fascinating combinations of instruments such as horns, oboe, bassoon, violins (often pizzicato), and theorbo (highlighted in a solo during one of the arias late in the work).

Beethoven’s gifted pupil Ferdinand Ries was never entirely forgotten, but it is only in recent years that CPO and Hermann Max have dedicated themselves with great success to the rediscovery of this spirited late classicist and romanticist. Ries’ oratorio Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Triumph of Faith), is heard here for the first time since 1829 where is was written in response to a commission for the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Aachen. The work develops a philosophical discourse dealing with the power of faith and the grace of God.