P.H. Erlebach: Lieder

Album review

After the past 18 months, we could all be forgiven for forgetting that our generation doesn't have the monopoly on sitting in mortal peril at the mercy of a powerful and uncontrollable natural force. However we don't. Humankind has of course both been here before, and bequeathed us the art by which to remember it – including many of the texts set by German Baroque composer Philipp Heinrich Erlebach in his Harmonische Freude musikalischer Freunde.
Published in Nuremberg respectively in 1697 and 1710, these two vocal collections contain respectively 50 and 25 arias for one to four solo voices accompanied by instrumental ensemble and basso continuo, setting poems that flit between the moralistic and secular spheres; and while ultimately this is conjecture, they do at least appear to hint at their contemporary context of an era lived against the backdrop of natural disasters including Bubonic Plague, and the superstitious fear provoked in 1680 by the appearance of Europe's largest comet of the seventeenth century – an event perhaps referenced in the line, “Today bloody comets shine, Tomorrow we are free of distress”.

As for Erlebach himself, he was born in 1657 in Essens, and spent almost the entirety of his life and career as one of the stars of the Thuringian court of Rudolstadt, which at that point was an aristocratic capital whose vibrant musical life kept fully abreast of European musical trends. Having been appointed Rudolstadt's Kapelldirektor as young as 24, Erlebach went on to be described by the influential music theorist Wolfgang Caspar Printz in 1696 as a musician “who among German composers gives the most satisfaction and acquits himself with great distinction”. So it's tragic that the vast majority of the huge collection of music he left behind at his death in 1714 was lost to a fire just twenty years later. Especially when what is left is so tantalisingly good, as is demonstrated by this superbly performed, sensitively engineered programme from countertenor Damien Guillon and his ensemble Le Banquet Céleste (consisting of two violins, two viola da gamba, violone, archlute and alternating harpsichord and organ).

As advertised, the main meat here is Lieder from those aforementioned vocal collections: seven in total, opening with with the sombre lament, Seine Not recht uberlegen wird manch Tränen-Bad erregen – over which the poet mourns his distress before drawing comfort on the thought that heaven sees him – whose gently sighing lines are a lovely fit for Guillon's softly warm, otherworldly yet clean-edged, penetrating tones. Le Banquet Céleste is no less immediately beguiling either, as its piano violins weave searchingly around Guillon, alive to his every inflection. Onwards, and while the Lieder's atmosphere of intimate, sober reflection remains the constant, the individual flavours vary. For instance, next up is Des Tadlers stich verlache ich, a feisty, up-tempo repost to the poet's mockers, where Guillon brings fabulously crisp definition and en pointe technical control to its fast passagework – something you're also constantly appreciating over his embellishments.

Plus there's more, because punctuating the Lieder are two of Erlebach's trio sonatas, published a few years before the arias. Consisting of a three-section (slow-fast-slow) sonata movement appended by a dance suite, these serve as the perfect complements and palate cleansers to the Lieder's intense emotions, all adding up to an album you're likely to find yourself making repeat visits to for some time to come. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz
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Accompanied by his ensemble Le Banquet Céleste, the countertenor Damien Guillon places his voice at the service of a programme of vocal pieces by the German Baroque composer Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, a large part of whose output was destroyed in a fire at Rudolstadt Castle in 1735. Among the works that have come down to us are the two collections Harmonische Freude musikalischer Freunde, containing respectively fifty and twenty-five arias for one to four solo voices, instrumental ensemble and basso continuo. Most of the German texts of these pieces depict humankind at the mercy of an unpredictable and volatile destiny.
Alongside natural phenomena such as storms, dark clouds and withered leaves, the poet also chooses the expression "bloody comets" as a metaphor for torment and ‘the distress of the heart’. In fact, the biggest comet of the seventeenth century appeared in Europe in 1680: contemporaries feared these celestial bodies, seeing them as bad omens. © Alpha Classics