Keiser: Passion Music

Capella Orlandi Bremen, Ihlenfeldt, Thomas

CPO 999 821-2

Only three oratorio works by Reinhard Keiser, who is above all known as an opera composer, have been transmitted to us in full. Many shorter pieces, fragments, and works of uncertain authorship still lie unpublished in archives and libraries. The present recording brings together a psalm composition, the fragment of an anonymously transmitted St. Luke Passion, and a printed edition from 1715. The nine instrumentalists and seven vocalists of the Capella Orlandi Bremen under Thomas Ihlenfeldt present these pieces by Keiser, in which, as might be expected, reminiscences of his opera style are in clear audible evidence. In his St. Luke Passion Keiser sets entirely new accents. Allegorical figures are included in the cast of characters and comment empathetically on the action, and the expressive, palpable manner of their interventions in the passion account is innovative. The liturgical components, for instance, the turba choruses, also show the music dramatist's hand. This Hamburg concert, broadcast live on Deutschlandradio Kultur, continues the concert and CD series »Wiederentdeckungen Hamburger Kirchenmusik 1600-1800« (Rediscoveries of Hamburg Church Music, 1600-1800) of the ZEIT Foundation.

CD

8.03.2010

761203982127