Buxtehude : Salvator Mundi

Chronique

One can debate the proper forces for the performance of Dieterich Buxtehude's vocal music and Bach's too, but in the case of Buxtehude, intimate, one-voice-per-part performance seems the way to go; Buxtehude wrote larger works for major church services (now mostly lost, unfortunately), and these small cantatas, in German and Latin, might have been performed at concerts in modest spaces or as liturgical interludes. They are quite inward and reflective in spirit, different from most of Bach's sacred works. Here, a small ensemble led by viola da gamba player Philippe Pierlot offers powerful performances that capture the expressivity of these eight works. One of them is in three movements; all have sectional forms of the sort Bach would abandon, but that set off the individual lines of text in a persuasive way. Sample the repeated text at the beginning of Fürwahr, er trug unsere Krankheit aus, where the opening word, "Fürwahr" ("For sure"), is repeated and set off by rhythmic pauses. It is not quite operatic, but it qualifies as madrigalian and as impactful. This entire work, an antiphonal piece with two separate little vocal-instrumental ensembles, is probably the high point, but many of the pieces have distinctive passages of text-setting. Pierlot is well served by his soloists, especially by countertenor alto David Sagastume, and by his period-instrument Ricercar Consort, less so by the sound at the Abbaye Sainte-Trinité de la Lucerne d'Outremer, which makes everything sound murky except for extraneous noise from the performers. At root, though, these are wonderful performances of a sorely underexposed repertory.

© James Manheim /TiVo