WECKMANN: Sacred works

Himlische Cantorey

CPO 999944

Only a few years ago, Matthias Weckmann (1616-1674) was known only to a small elite circle. In the meantime, a steadily growing audience admires the enormous expressiveness of his sacred vocal music. Their formal perfection, extravagant harmonic turns and bold chromatic sections also make modern listeners sit up and take notice.
Yet Weckmann was a virtuoso organist and was employed in this capacity at St. Jacobi in Hamburg for 20 years. As a student of Schütz, he attached great importance to correct declamation and loved dramatic texts. Already in the selection of texts, he made sure that his originals were full of affect and could be excellently realized musically. This flair for drama, his formal rigor, extreme expressiveness, and his penchant for perfection as a "learned musicus" make him one of the most important German composers of his generation, an important link between Heinrich Schütz and Dietrich Buxtehude.
The Himlische Cantorey has now recorded eight sacred concertos for us, which make the great importance of this Hamburg master more apparent.

Works:

•Weckmann: Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg
•Weckmann: Freue dich des Weibes deiner Jugend
•Weckmann: Gegrueßet seist du, Holdselige
•Weckmann: Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe
•Weckmann: Weine nicht
•Weckmann: Weine nicht, es hat überwunden
•Weckmann: Wenn der Herr die Gefangnen zu Zion erloesen wird
•Weckmann: Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste
•Weckmann: Zion spricht, der Herr hat mich verlassen

CD x 1

CPO

4/17/03

761203994427