Rosenmüller: In te Domine speravi

Album review

To be sure, Johann Rosenmüller was immensely famous in his day: as a composer of countless religious works, of which several would go on to inspire generations of musicians, and indeed for his love of little boys – apparently a well-founded accusation, which meant that he had to flee prison while he was making a pitch for the post that Bach would later hold. He took refuge in Venice for a few years, where he worked at the famous Pietá – the famous girls' school, where he seemed not to pose any danger, and where Vivaldi would later work… Rosenmüller, who was born in 1619 – around the time of the deaths of Gesualdo and Gabrieli – and died in 1684, a year before Bach's birth, lived in the Serenissima for 24 years, but he had the time, in 1682, to return to Wolfenbüttel, and the court of the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, which was at the time a considerable centre of cultural development. In the 1750s, some of Rosenmüller's manuscripts were found in the library at Wolfenbüttel (prior to their transfer to Berlin), which included the Sacred Concertos on Psalm 31: "In te Domino speravi", set to music several times with different arrangements: from solo voice accompanied by a few strings, to a five-voice ensemble paired with five instruments. In it, we hear a major Italian influence (picked up in Venice? Or already there in Leipzig? The manuscripts aren't dated...) alongside Germanic polyphonic and counter-punctual styles. The excellent vocal and instrumental ensemble Weser-Renaissance allow us to enjoy these treasures in all their original beauty. © SM/Qobuz