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Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott / Rilling, Bach Collegium Stuttgart
Haenssler Classic · Mar 2017CD$18.99 -
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Praetorius: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott / Finke, La Protezione della Musica
arcantus Musikproduktion · Nov 2021CD$16.99 -
Lob, Ehr und Preis sei Gott - The Loveliest German Hymns / Vocal Concert Dresden
Berlin Classics · Oct 2013CD$20.99 -
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Mozart: Requiem - Bach: Ein feste Burg / Masters, New Jersey Chamber Singers & Orchestra
Affetto Records · Nov 2018CD$18.99 -
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Ullmann: Der Kaiser von Atlantis / Agudin, Orchestre Musique des Lumieres
IBS Classical · Sep 2018CD$17.99 -
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Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott / Rilling, Bach Collegium Stuttgart
Martin Luther reformed the structures of the church. Preaching the gospel was bound to have visible consequences for the form of divine service. Preaching and Luther’s own writings are complemented by the sacred song, through which evangelical faith is spread. The new song of the Reformation springs from the faith of a confessing church. In arranging, translating and expanding a whole series of older church melodies, and in particular through his own figures of speech, Luther was the true founder of German Protestant congregational singing. His own hymns reflect his strong personality founded on faith, exercising a powerful effect on his and following generations. He was the “Wittenberg Nightingale.” The reforming of the old order of service had shown the need for Latin chants to be replaced by verses sung in German. Luther’s first congregational hymn “Nun freut euch, liebe Christen gmein” was written in 1529. The first Lutheran hymn book, Geistliches Gesangsbuchlein, appeared in 1524. This “little book of sacred songs” introduces the great hymns of the Reformation, soon to find a place in popular culture and to be sung wherever the gospel is preached: Music had great significance for Luther. In honor of the 500th anniversary of the reformation, this collection of hymns by Martin Luther and songs from JS Bach is released.
J.S. Bach: Ein feste Burg
Praetorius: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott / Finke, La Protezione della Musica
For the 400th anniversary of Praetorius' day of death, the ensemble put together a collection of vocal and organ compositions quite representative for his ouevre. The recording was made at St. Mary's Church in Lemgo, using a Scherer organ dating from 1613. Founded by Jeroen Finke in 2015, La Protezione della Musica has quickly developed into a recognized ensemble for historically informed performance practice. The focus of our work is primarily on the music of the early baroque. Our audience is enthusiastic about virtuosity, coupled with the joy of playing and the commitment to not only (re-) perform well-known works.
Lob, Ehr und Preis sei Gott - The Loveliest German Hymns / Vocal Concert Dresden
1 Nun lasst uns Gott, dem Herren
2 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
3 Befiehl du deine Wege
4 Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
5 Du meine Seele, singe
6 Gott des Himmels und der Erden
7 O Gott, du frommer Gott
8 O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß
9 Christ ist erstanden
10 Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist
11 Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten
12 Großer Gott, wir loben dich
13 Jesus, meine Zuversicht
14 Schönster Herr Jesu
15 O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden
16 Auf, auf, mein Herz, mit Freuden
17 In dir ist Freude
18 O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf
19 Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her
20 Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn
21 Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern
22 Nun danket alle Gott
23 Wie lieblich ist der Maien
24 Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud
25 Der Mond ist aufgegangen
Mozart: Requiem - Bach: Ein feste Burg / Masters, New Jersey Chamber Singers & Orchestra
This live recording features the New Jersey Chamber Singers 40th Anniversary concert celebration. The program is anchored by the Mozart Requiem and also features festive works of Bach’s Reformation Cantata, Ein feste Burg, because 2018 also marked the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. While it is more common to hear these works performed by larger ensembles, this historically-informed performance honors the repertoire’s intimacy by only employing 32 voices and a similarly sized orchestra. All three pieces on this album were touched by hands beyond those of their composers. While many purists have worked extensively to cleanse iconic works of foreign elements, this performance embraces them. Bach’s Ein feste Burg proudly features the extra parts for three trumpets and timpani added by his son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. Haydn’s Te Deum was written for Empress Marie Theresa even though he was employed to write music for the Esterhazy court in Eisenstadt. Even though the complete autograph is lost, trombone parts were later discovered to have been written in the hand of his copyist, Johann Elssler. So, it is probable that Haydn delivered a large-scale work including three trombones and three trumpets to the Empress, even though he performed a slightly down-sized version of the same work in Eisenstadt to accommodate the orchestral forces available to him. This recording boasts all extant parts. Finally and most famously, Mozart’s Requiem was completed by Süssmayr following his death in 1791. This album honors a perspective in which early music is still a living art that is capable of change and worthy of exploration.
SYMPHONY NO. 5 & OVERTURES
Luther Collage / Calmus Ensemble
Calmus is a vocal ensemble with one soprano and four guys who cover the rest of the parts (countertenor, tenor, baritone, bass). Together they take on everything from cantata movements by Bach, motets by numerous composers (from Praetorius and Schütz to Mendelssohn and Brahms), and even organ chorale preludes, the latter sung in a cool, sensuous Swingle Singers style, enlivened by impeccably tuned, complementary vocal timbres. Notable among these are a couple by Bach–BWV 599 and 659 (sound clip)–and several by Carl Piutti, a 19th-century German composer/organist, who wrote more than 200 organ preludes and did serious time at the Leipzig Thomaskirche, beginning in 1880.
Although this program is very thoughtfully based on Luther’s hymns–beginning with settings of the classic Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott and proceeding through Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, Christ lag in Todesbanden, and several others, all arranged in neatly flowing sections, following the church year from Advent through Pentecost, it’s really about excellent ensemble singing, the art of coordinating and balancing voices, developing and shaping musical interpretations, and using the unique aspects and qualities of the voice to illuminate and give life to words and music. And these singers demonstrate this at every turn and phrase, capturing the glory and grandeur of all manner of musical conceptions–and they do endings in a manner that makes you just want to savor every last note and chord.
It takes a very accomplished ensemble to successfully juxtapose so many styles and settings of these great hymns, and the Calmus Ensemble does it with world-class expertise and just the right amount of charm–yet I have to say, that although every one of these singers is excellent, soprano Anja Pöche, with her seemingly effortless technique and gorgeous sound (not to mention a true, untempered sense of intonation) is a particular treasure. Enthusiastically recommended.
– ClassicsToday (David Vernier)
Ullmann: Der Kaiser von Atlantis / Agudin, Orchestre Musique des Lumieres
Viktor Ullmann arrived in Theresienstadt on 8 September 1942. He was 44 years old, a Jew and a former officer of the Austrian army. Being an accomplished composer, well known for his organizational skills, he was immediately solicited by the Freizeitgestaltung to organize concerts and conferences, to write musical reviews (he authored 26 such texts), and to compose. In fact, during the two years before his transport to Auschwitz, he wrote several instrumental and vocal works, including song cycles for baritone and piano, one sonata for violin and piano, his third string quartet, three piano sonatas (numbers 5, 6 and 7) as well as an opera in one act on a libretto by the young poet Peter Kien Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder die Tod-Verweigerung (The Emperor of Atlantis, or the Disobedience of Death). Ever since his arrival in the ghetto, Ullmann seems aware of the precariousness of his future, as is shown in the quite openly ironic remark on the manuscript of his piano sonata nº 7, dated 22 August 1944: “The performance rights are reserved by the composer until his death”, so, not for long.
REVIEW:
In the three or four generations since composer Viktor Ullmann wrote his opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis with librettist Peter Kien, in the Nazi ghetto-prison Terezín (Theresienstadt) in 1943/44, humanity hasn’t progressed very far. To anyone in today’s world who even pays the slightest attention, this work’s themes and characters–for instance, its “Kaiser” is a demented, tyrannical dictator who launches a massive, unprovoked war–will be all too familiar, and real.
Death and Harlequin are sitting together reminiscing, Harlequin lamenting how life is no fun anymore; Death decrying the loss of the glorious nature of dying as in the old days. Neither finds satisfaction or meaning in a world that has lost its ability to laugh or to properly die. But then Emperor Overall announces that “we have decided in our infallible, all-penetrating wisdom, to declare…the great, beneficent War of all against all.” Every person, whether child, woman, or man (“whether crooked or straight”) will take up arms, everyone against everyone. And, Overall declares, it will all be led by “our old associate, Death.” However, upon hearing this, Death takes offense at the presumption, breaks his sword, and refuses to cooperate. Death goes “on strike”. (The subtitle of the opera is “oder Die Tod-Verweigerung”, or the Disobedience of Death.)
What follows–including the confrontation between two seeming enemies who choose love rather than fighting–concerns the (ultimately chaotic) consequences of a world without death, and, importantly, of removing the instrument of death from a ruler’s arsenal. If death is no longer at his service, then the Emperor no longer has his power. Ultimately Death returns to his work, restores his necessary function, taking Overall with him.
Ullmann’s music is a fascinating assortment of styles, owing to influences of Schoenberg (with whom he studied) and to several of the more popular forms of the period (Weill’s “cabaret” music is often mentioned), whose juxtapositions–and the fact that it’s all very “singable”–sustain musical interest while ensuring no loss of dramatic momentum. Here are elements of the colorful, somewhat experimental, developing world of music theatre in “between-the-wars” Central Europe, mixing the tonal and atonal, the humorous and the grotesque, irony and the plainly serious, while, in Ullmann’s hands, always mindful of a necessity for structural formality.
Instrumentation–undoubtedly determined by what was available in the camp–is a colorful mix, a 13-piece chamber orchestra that includes strings and winds, but also harmonium, saxophone, banjo, and harpsichord. Throughout there are quotations, both in the libretto and music, from other works that would have carried particular meaning for the audience. Among them: the very first notes of the opera are the Angel of Death motif from Czech composer Josef Suk’s “Asrael” Symphony; there is an effectively distorted rendition of Haydn’s “Kaiser Lied” (which had become the German national anthem); and at the end of the opera comes the famous chorale tune “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”.
Because of the circumstances of the work’s creation and its ultimate fate–it was never performed in Terezín; its premiere wasn’t until 1975–there is no definitive version. Ullmann and most of the other artists involved in the production were deported to Auschwitz in October, 1944, and before he left, the composer gave his manuscripts to Terezín’s librarian for what he hoped would be safekeeping until after the war. Ullmann was killed on arrival at Auschwitz. The scores survived but were only discovered years later in London. [Note: for a detailed account of the musical lives and activities in the Terezín concentration camp, including those of Viktor Ullmann and many other musicians, please see Joza Karas’ seminal work on the subject, Music In Terezín 1941-1945 (Pendragon Press).]
The existing score was much annotated, marked up with changes made during rehearsals. In some instances Ullmann himself provided alternate choices or leaves uncertain notations that are equally likely options. However, careful study has been undertaken and serious efforts made to discern Ullmann’s intent as closely and clearly as possible and to produce a score based on these findings and educated assumptions. This is the version we get here, and it’s excellent, from the singing to the instrumental work. And don’t forget the first rate notes and the inclusion of the complete libretto in four languages.
The music itself is more than worthy of serious attention; this is a sophisticated, consistently engaging dramatic work that impresses, in the words of annotator Bruno Giner, “not because it was composed in Theresienstadt, not as an emblematic parable of totalitarianism…but indeed because it is an accomplished and artistically successful work.” There are no stand-alone arias in the traditional sense, nor grand, show-stopping moments; it doesn’t require singers of extraordinary technical capabilities (not that the ones here aren’t capable of such!). It’s just a hair-raising story, ingeniously characterized, plotted, and scored; one that makes its points very effectively, one you will remember. The singers and instrumental players assembled for this recording are all first-rate–the singers’ voices exactly right for these roles; the chamber orchestra in command of the style and always supportive and assertive where required.
And, speaking of singers–and the “all too familiar”: In the notes you will read that this recording, which was made in March, 2015, is dedicated “to the memory of our comrade Wassyl Slipak, whose voice never left us.” A baritone at the Paris Opera, Slipak, who here sings the role of Death with impressive vocalism and commanding presence, left his position there in 2015 to join the fight against Russian separatists in his native Ukraine. He was killed by a sniper in June, 2016. And so it goes.
-- ClassicsToday.com (David Vernier)
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott / Meunier, Jacobs, Vox Luminis
This new release is devoted to the Lutheran liturgical repertory from Martin Luther himself to Heinrich Schutz. The first half of the release comprises compositions specific to the Lutheran liturgy: Deutsche Messe, Deutsches Magnificat, Deutsche Passion (the first German polyphonic Passion, by Joachim von Burck) and even a reconstruction of a Deutsches Requiem drawn from polyphonic works that set the same texts as those Brahms was later to use for his Deutsches Requiem. The second half presents a selection of motets arranged according to the liturgical calendar, from Advent to Trinity. These polyphonic pieces were written by a wide range of composers including Martin Luther, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Michael Praetorius, Joachim von Burck, Christoph Bernhardt, Heinrich Schu¨tz, Thomas Selle, Melchior Franck, Caspar Othmayr, Michael Altenburg, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Hermann Schein and Johann Walter. The organist Bart Jacobs completes the programme with a few organ pieces by seventeenth-century composers.
