Prætorius & Italy

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Prætorius & Italy PrætoRius & Italy RIAS KAMMERCHOR CAPELLA DE LA TORRE KATHARINA BÄUML FLORIAN HELGATH PrætoRius & Italy 1 Michael Praetorius Meine Seele erhebt den Herren à 6, 10 & 14 11:31 RIAS KAMMERCHOR 1572–1621 from /aus Puericinium (1621) (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9) * Soprano / Sopran I & II Friederike Büttner • Susanne Langner (1) * • Anja Petersen (2) * • Christina 2 Adriano Banchieri Sonata sopra l’aria Musicale del Gran Duca à 4 ° 2:27 Roterberg (3) * • Inés Villanueva • Dagmar Wietschorke • Viktoria Wilson (4) * 1568–1634 from/aus Primo libro delle messe e motetti, op. 42 Alto / Alt I & II (1620) Coline Dutilleul • Andrea Effmert • Katharina Heiligtag (5) * • Waltraud Heinrich • Hildegard Rützel • Marie-Luise Wilke 3 Antonio Cifra Magnificat à 8 à versi Spezzati 11:36 1584–1629 from/aus Moctetta et Psalmi Octonis Vocibus (1629) Tenor I & II • • • • (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) * Volker Arndt (6) * Joachim Buhrmann (7) * Jörg Genslein Minsub Hong Christian Mücke • Volker Nietzke • Kai Roterberg • Shimon Yoshida (8) * 4 Claudio Monteverdi Lauda Jerusalem à 5 6:41 Bass I & II 1567–1643 from/aus Messa a quattro voci et salmi (1650) Stefan Drexlmeier (9) * • Jörg Gottschick • Matthias Lutze • Marcel Raschke • Andrew Redmond • Johannes Schendel • Jonathan E. de la Paz Zaens (10) * 5 Michael Praetorius Siehe, wie fein und lieblich 9:48 [ist, dass Brüder einträchtig beieinander wohnen:] cum Sinfonia & Ritornello [: Lobet den Herrn] à 8, 12 & 16 CAPELLA DE LA TORRE from/aus Polyhymnia Caduceatrix et Panegyarica (1619) (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) * Friederike Otto (cornetto / Zink) Birgit Bahr (alto shawm / Altpommer) 6 Ludivico Viadana Sinfonia „La Bergamasca“ à 8 ° 2:15 Regina Hahnke (curtal / Dulzian) 1560–1627 from/aus Sinfonie musicali (1610) Annette Hils (curtal and recorder / Dulzian und Blockflöte) Falko Munkwitz & Gerd Schnackenberg (tenor sackbut / Tenorposaune) 7 Ludivico Viadana Laudate Dominum à 2 Soprani, Basso e B.c. 3:23 Tural Ismayilov (tenor and bass sackbut / Tenor- und Bassposaune) from/aus Cento Concerti Ecclesiastici (1602) Jürgen Groß & Christiane Gagelmann (violin / Violine) Marthe Perl (viol / Viola da Gamba) 8 Agostino Agazzari Et repleti sunt omnes à 2 Tenori e B.c. 2:19 Frauke Hess (viol and violone / Viola da Gamba und Violone) c. 1580–1642 from/aus Sacrae Cantiones (1609) Johannes Vogt & Ulrich Wedemeier (theorbo / Theorbe) (6, 8) * Martina Fiedler (organ / Orgel) 9 Michael Praetorius Christ, der du bist der helle Tag à 3-8 4:58 KATHARINA BÄUML, shawm and direction / Schalmei und Leitung from/aus Musae Sioniae IV, VIII & IX (1610) 10 Giovanni Gabrieli Sonata Pian‘ e forte à 8 ° 4:11 1554/57–1612 from/aus Sacrae Symphoniae I (1597) FLORIAN HELGATH, conductor / Dirigent 11 Ludovico Viadana Doleo super te à 2 Bassi e B.c. 3:00 from/aus Cento Concerti Ecclesiastici (1602) (9, 10) * °) instrumental 12 Michael Praetorius Christe, der du bist Tag und Licht 14:08 *) solo à 7, 8, 11, 12 & 16 from/aus Polyhymnia (1619) (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10) * MICHAEL PRAETORIUS IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS ITALIAN Praetorius was extraordinarily busy, serving his employer in multiple capacities: not CONTEMPORARIES only was he active as a composer but as a court official he frequently had to assume more general duties as a secretary and accompany the duke on his travels. By 1604 “To all organists, instrumentalists, organ builders and instrument makers and to he had risen to the rank of Kapellmeister and as a result became responsible for all all who perform instrumental music, not just of the German nations but of oth- the court’s musical activities. His reputation as a leading authority on music spread ers too, as well as to all amateurs” – with this wide-ranging dedication, Michael quickly to the whole of Central Germany. And time and time again he was invited to Praetorius introduced Part Two of his Syntagma musicum in 1619. This three-part write reports on new organs and to advise his colleagues on reorganizing court or- treatise is the most important manual on music theory to have been published chestras. Throughout this time he was also receiving more and more commissions in the German-speaking world at the beginning of the seventeenth century. With to write music for festive events and for exceptional occasions such as political the precision of a perfectionist Praetorius introduces his readers not only to every summits and the weddings of influential members of the nobility. contemporary instrument but also to their performing practices and, finally, to all the musical genres of his time. It is difficult not to be impressed by his universal When Duke Heinrich Julius died in 1613, the Elector Johann Georg I of Dresden suc- knowledge, a knowledge acquired at first hand through his study of printed edi- ceeded in luring Praetorius to the Saxon court. During the following years Praeto- tions and published correspondence. In particular he stresses that he has received rius spent lengthy periods in Dresden, and it was here that he came into contact his information from “a number of Italians” and based his own writings upon it. with the young Heinrich Schütz, who was likewise in Dresden from 1614. Praetorius Through his direct contacts with his fellow musicians in Italy and through “the oral spent the final years of his life travelling incessantly between Wolfenbüttel, Dres- accounts of reliable people acquainted with all things Italian”, Praetorius was able den and other towns and cities in order to carry out his numerous duties. He was in to provide this unparalleled panorama of current developments in music within correspondence and personal contact with many of the leading figures of his age. the pages of his treatise. Among them were two of the Kantors of St Thomas’s in Leipzig, Sethus Calvisius and Johann Hermann Schein, as well as Schütz and Johann Staden and two organ And yet a visit to Italy remained no more than a pipe-dream for Michael Praeto- builders, Esaias Compenius and Gottfried Fritzsche. Praetorius died in Wolfenbüttel rius. Although he travelled widely, he was never to visit Venice, Florence or Rome in February 1621 and was buried beneath the organ gallery in the town’s Church of and he never met any of the contemporary musicians such as Monteverdi, Gabrieli, the Blessed Virgin, which had been the principal focus of his activities. Viadana and Agazzari whom he quotes so frequently. The present programme was drawn up to mark the 400th anniversary of his death and juxtaposes a selection of works by Praetorius with pieces by those more Italianate composers whom he cites SACRED WORKS IN THE ITALIAN MANNER as his models in his Syntagma musicum. Michael Praetorius wrote a large number of sacred works and published them in around twenty substantial volumes. Characteristic of all of them are not only the PRAETORIUS AS THE LEADING MUSICAL AUTHORITY IN outstanding works that they contain, all of them fully abreast of their times, but THE GERMAN-SPEAKING WORLD also their detailed instructions and guidance on their practical performance, mark- ings that in turn provide us with invaluable information on the everyday world of Michael Praetorius was born in Creuzburg an der Werra in 1572. His father was a music in the early seventeenth century. Praetorius’s various sets of sacred works pastor who had studied with Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. Michael Prae- undoubtedly culminated in a collection published in 1619 under the title Polyhymnia torius, too, planned to study theology and after attending secondary schools in caduceatrix et panegyrica. It contains forty cantatas “in the new Italian concerto Torgau and Zerbst, he enrolled at the Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder. In order manner” that Praetorius had written for festive occasions at a number of different to pay for his studies he worked as an organist at St Mary’s University and Parish courts. It is by no means unusual for some of these works to be scored for between Church, where it was not long before he had acquired a reputation as an outstand- ten and twenty voices, with a careful balance between strings, winds and singers ing musician. He left Frankfurt an der Oder around 1589 and continued his studies designed to bring out subtle differences of sonority. in Helmstedt. Here his all-round gifts came to the attention of Duke Heinrich Julius of Braunschweig, whose principal residence was in Wolfenbüttel and in 1593 Prae- Time and again Praetorius is able to switch between solos and larger forces, to in- torius was taken on as the organist at the ducal court. Heinrich Julius was also the troduce lengthy purely instrumental ritornellos and to use the continuo group as a bishop-postulate of the Protestant diocese of Halberstadt, resulting in Praetorius’s solid foundation on which to build each piece from start to finish. close ties both with the town itself and with the bishop’s residence at Gröningen just outside the town. The cantata Siehe, wie fein und lieblich is a setting of lines from Psalms 133 and 117. Each of its three sections ends with a jubilant exclamation of the words “Lobet den Herren alle Heiden” (O praise the Lord, all ye nations) set for four choral groups. The Easter hymn Jubilieret fröhlich und mit Schall appears in Polyhymnia caduceatrix composition, his Sacrae symphoniae, reveals his conception of modern church et panegyrica as a sixteen-part cantata but it includes a note to the effect that music and appeared in two volumes in Venice in 1597 and – posthumously – in 1615. the two instrumental choirs can also be performed “on their own with cornetts These volumes contain not only many polychoral motets but also numerous purely and trombones but without the addition of boys’ voices or other vocal parts”.
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