In 1596, the Wasungen-born Melchior Vulpius was called to Weimar as the cantor, music and Latin teacher at the municipal school and the St. Peter and Paul Parish Church (Stadtkirche). Thus he became the highest ranking Ernestine church musician and the expectations of him were equally high. Within some years, he created a considerable repertoire, which he published from 1602 onwards: He released a new collection almost every year until his early death in 1615 aged 45. Many of them found their way to the cantorial library in the little Saxon town of Waldheim where they were preserved until today. Since 2002, this musical heritage has been investigated and gradually made accessible to the public once more. Waldheim’s cantor René Michael Röder and Capella Daleminzia directed by him now release an album series with the complete works by Vulpius. This release as Vol. 3 of the Melchior Vulpius Edition contains the 19 six-part and 5 seven-part motets of the Cantiones Sacrae II. These are mainly musical versions of psalms and Gospel texts. In this collection, Vulpius’ own numbering counts all single verses or text parts, resulting in a total number of 43. While the compilation of the motets of the Cantiones Sacrae II lacks the euphoria of the first part, a growing compositional maturity of the motets is noticeable in comparison to the first part.

This album is Alon Sariel's personal homage to Rembrandt van Rijn - the world of arts is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the death of the great painter in 2019. As a lute player, the Dutch Golden Age has drawn Alon Sariel's attention for a while now. Perhaps because these musical pearls are hardly ever played and certainly are not regarded within what became standard repertoire for the instrument. A large part of this project was originally lute music, as the lute was without doubt the most popular instrument in the Dutch Golden Age. We see that in the paintings: Around twenty-five per cent of musical paintings show a lute. Sariel did however add a few instruments into this project, instruments which were as well very common in the Dutch Golden Age, like different viols and recorders. Through the arrangements to be found on this album, this lute music becomes even more colorful. There's also quite some amount of free improvisation in Sariel's arrangements, as improvisation was a very important element in the music of the time, and also today's musicians follow their own imagination driven by Rembrandt's paintings. While rehearsing and recording this music with Concerto Foscari, the musicians often spoke about colors, trying to get a darker or brighter sound etc., that's when they noticed that a lot of the musical terminology actually comes from the visual world, from paintings. The moment where painters try to visualize music could therefore be a very fascinating one. As if they try to "freeze" music into some-thing eternal, which has a longer life than simply a chord on the lute. What Alon Sariel aimed to do in this album is to "de-frost" those moments and, above all, to create the "soundtrack" of the Dutch Golden Age. Two of the pieces are receiving their first modern recording: Louys de Moy's "L'Italiana & Spagnolet" and the Allemande by Constantijn Huygens.

This, the Advent and Christmas album 2019 of the Isura Madrigal Choir from Geretsried in Bavaria guides the listener through the first weeks of the church year and wants the joy which the choir singers had when they were recorded were also transferred to the homes and hearts of the listeners. Advent in its current form dates back to the 7th century. The four Sundays before Christmas symbolized the four thousand years that believers had to wait for the Savior after the fall, according to what was then believed. Advent is the time to prepare for the Lord's arrival through fasting and contemplation. It is not uncommon to find psalm settings, for example in Albert Becker's “Machet the Gates Wide”, which together with works by Anton Bruckner, Johann Crüger, Gustav Holst and Arvo Pärt form the advent part of this release. The second part of this album contains pieces, that sing the real festival of the birth of Jesus. Today Christmas is mostly celebrated as a family festival with mutual gifts; This custom was introduced around 1535 by Martin Luther as an alternative to the present custom on St. Nicholas Day, in order to direct the children's interest on Christmas Eve. The festive, radiant but also folkloric character of the Christmas festival has inspired composers of all ages - the range on the album ranges from the 17th century with Johann Crügers "Merry should my heart jump" to the recent present with "Silent Night" in one rarely heard sentence by Bernd Englbrecht.

The focus of this recording is the organ of the St. Lukaskirche in Krippehna, built by Johann Ernst Hähnel in 1771 and restored by the organ workshop Kristian Wegscheider in 2015 - 2018, whose tonal and technical concept determines the selection of the pieces. The core of the disposition, which is still very classic and, with its very high, shiny mixtures, almost conservative in its disposition, contains sensitive sounding flutes 8 ’and 4’ as well as an Unda Maris 8 ’, which evokes some memories of organs from the Casparini family. The pedal keyboard, which is firmly linked to the manual, often demands great creativity from the player and strongly influences the use of the 3-register pedal mechanism, which gives the organ a very good tonal foundation with its wonderful trombone 16’. The mild tempering makes all keys playable and the subtle nuance of the key colors even convinces in selected works from romantic literature, which also includes works by Johann Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, all of which worked in Leipzig, not far from Krippehna.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

ORGELN IN SACHSEN 4

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music