Scheidt: Concertuum Sacrorum

Samuel Scheidt - Heinrich Schütz - Christoph Bernhardt

Released on 1/1/07 by Ricercar
Main artists: Ricercar Consort La Fenice
Genre: Classical

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This double disc combines material from several earlier recordings, featuring different performers (albeit under the umbrella of the same Belgian ensembles, the Ricercar Consort and La Fenice) recorded as far back as 1981. That practice can be an irritant, but here the two discs complement one another beautifully -- even if the graphic designer of the booklet didn't bother to make the two track lists match each other visually. The pairing illustrates the large-scale (disc one) and small-scale (disc two) modes of early German Baroque sacred music. The occurrence of one or the other was largely determined by the financial resources a court might have at any given time during a period of war and upheaval, and the Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Small Sacred Concertos) of Schütz and his successors heard on the second disc are stylistically related to the larger works by Samuel Scheidt on disc one: all the music grafts Italian dramatic music onto a sacred core that used chant, and later chorales, in an immensely satisfying combination that led directly to the towering accomplishments of Bach. The Schütz works have been heard in many places, but the weighty Scheidt works on the first disc, mostly for two choirs (there are three in the splendid opening Magnificat tribus choribus) are not so common. The instrumentation, not specified by the composer, is simply but imposingly realized by combining brasses with a rich continuo of organ, triple harp, and violone. The "choirs" consist of a single voice per part, but with eight singers in all in the large Hodie completi sunt and Angelus ad Pastores the dreaded madrigal-like effect is partly avoided and the singers stand up adequately to the instrumental group. This is a reasonable example of a recording that scales down the forces of Baroque music without losing its pomp and circumstance, and the contrast with the intimate solo, duo, and trio works on the second disc comes through. The singers by and large work better as an ensemble than they do solo, but these performances are recommended for libraries serving students of the early Baroque period. Text translations are given in French, English, and (where necessary) German, but note that the ordering does not always correspond to that on the CD itself.

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Scheidt: Concertuum Sacrorum

Ricercar Consort

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