Cantica Obsoleta Cantate Domino Cantica Obsoleta Forgotten Works from the Düben Collection
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ACRONYM Cantica Obsoleta Cantate domino cantica obsoleta Forgotten Works from the Düben Collection 1 Sonata a5 in D Minor ( Johann Heinrich Schmelzer) 7:10 2 Cantate domino canticum novum ( Johann Philipp Krieger) 8:21 3 Doleo et pœnitet me (Giacomo Carissimi) 7:39 4 Selig, ja selig, wer willig erträget (Christian Geist) 7:16 5 Sonata a6 in E-flat Major ( Johann Jacob Löwe) 3:54 6 Salvum me fac Deus (Samuel Capricornus) 7:40 7 Inter brachia salvatoris mei (Christian Flor) 5:50 8 Liebster Jesu, trautes Leben (Caterina Giani) 3:56 9 Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe ( Johann Martin Radeck) 6:10 10 Sonata a6 in G Minor (Andreas Kirchhoff) 5:51 11 Miserere Christe mei (Christian Ritter) 6:43 12 Ich kann nicht mehr ertragen (Daniel Eberlin) 9:04 Total Time 79:33 ACRONYM Hélène Brunet, soprano Reginald Mobley, alto Brian Giebler, tenor Jonathan Woody, bass violin & viola: Beth Wenstrom Edwin Huizinga Adriane Post Johanna Novom Chloe Fedor viola: Kyle Miller treble & bass viols: Loren Ludwig Zoe Weiss tenor viol & violoncello: Kivie Cahn-Lipman violone: Doug Balliett harpsichord & organ: Elliot Figg theorbo & guitar: John Lenti Cantate domino cantica obsoleta 3 HE DÜBEN COLLECTION consists of approximately 2300 music manuscripts, assembled T by and named after a family of composers who served in succession as Kapellmeister (literally: “chapel master,” the director of music) to the Royal Swedish Court in Stockholm. The largest contributor to the collection was Gustaf Düben the Elder (1628–1690), but others included his father Andreas (1597–1662) and his sons Gustaf the Younger (1659–1726) and Anders the Younger (1673–1738), the latter of whom donated the collection to Uppsala University Library where it remains today. Much of the music within the archive is unique, and the and was eventually appointed Kapellmeister of Wiessenfels, vast majority of it has neither been published in modern a position which he held forty-five years until his death. edition nor recorded. ACRONYM previously scoured the Cantate domino canticum novum sets a lightly edited excerpt collection for sonatas that can now be heard on our Paradise from Psalm 98. (Bertali) and Wunderkammer recordings, and while doing so Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi (c.1605–1674) was our interest in this unmined treasure trove of seventeenth- perhaps the last master of the Roman School of composi- century music was piqued. This recording consists of some of tion, which included several generations of Renaissance the most beautiful and fascinating works found within the composers such as Giovanni Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Düben Collection, and it is likely the first time any of these Victoria. Carissimi is credited with having brought signifi- cantica obsoleta have been heard in hundreds of years. cant changes to the church cantata genre and to recitative Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (1620–1680), renowned singing in general, and he was the first major composer to as one of the finest violinists of his era, worked his way write baroque oratorio. Doleo et pœnitet me is an example slowly through the musical ranks of Vienna. He eventually of the Latin Dialogue, an unusual baroque cantata style in became the first Austrian Hofkapellmeister of the imperial which characters engage in a sung conversation on a sacred city—succeeding many generations of Italians—before subject. succumbing to the plague only a short time later. His Sonata German organist and composer Christian Geist (c.1650– a5 in D Minor shows the influence of Giovanni Valentini and 1711) joined the court orchestra in Stockholm in 1670, and Antonio Bertali in its use of irregular meters and surprising he remained there under Gustaf Düben the Elder for ten harmonic sequences. The opening sections of the sonata also years. Geist was employed as a composer and keyboardist survive (minus the viola parts) in a concordance in the Rost (and apparently also as a copyist; a Sonata a4 by Johann Codex in Paris. ACRONYM’s most recent CD is the first Philipp Krieger—on ACRONYM’s Wunderkammer recording of Schmelzer’s oratorio Le Memorie Dolorose. recording—survives only in Geist’s handwriting). He spent Johann Philipp Krieger (1649–1725) studied with Johann his later years as organist of several of Copenhagen’s largest Rosenmüller in Venice and later traveled to Vienna, where churches before succumbing to the bubonic plague along he was ennobled by Emperor Leopold I on the basis of his with his entire family. The text ofSelig, ja selig, wer willig fine organ playing. He won posts in Bayreuth and Halle erträget was written by Johann Frank (1618–1677). Cantate domino cantica obsoleta 5 Educated in Vienna and Dresden, Johann Jacob Löwe Inter brachia Salvatoris mei—originally for soprano and here (1628–1703) was held in such high regard by his teacher, transposed down—likely plays on the word brachia in its or- Heinrich Schütz, that Schütz recommended Löwe for ap- chestration for only accompanying violas da brachia (i.e., vio- pointment as Kapellmeister in Wolfenbüttel when the latter las) over continuo. The Düben Collection manuscript bears was only twenty-six years old. Löwe would eventually leave only the initials “C.F.,” but a contemporaneous catalog of Wolfenbüttel for Zeitz, and he concluded his career as or- a now-lost manuscript archive lists Christian Flor (1626– ganist at St. Nicolai in Lüneburg, where he might have been 1697) as the composer of a work with the same name and one of several instructors to a young J. S. Bach. Löwe’s So- the same unusual instrumentation, making the attribution nata a6 in E-flat Major has an unusual sequence in which here extremely likely. Flor served for many years as organist all parts are marked in 5/2 meter, despite each part only con- at St. Johannis in Lüneburg. He is best known today for hav- taining three beats per measure. ing written one of the earliest Passion oratorios. Samuel Capricornus (1628–1665) was born Samuel Among the several hundred men whose works are found Friedrich Bockshorn, in Žerčice, now part of the Czech in the Düben Collection, there are also a small number of Republic. He Latinized his name sometime prior to his studies women. Scarce information about Caterina Giani (fl.1650– in Vienna with Giovanni Valentini and Antonio Bertali. At a 1673) exists except for what can be derived based on records young age he was appointed Kapellmeister in Stuttgart, where of her husband. Giani was a Venetian singer who worked for he became embroiled in a lengthy public feud with the local some time at Sant’Aponal, where the composer Massimiliano organist, Philipp Böddecker, who coveted Capricornus’s Neri sponsored her prior to them marrying. She traveled new position. The two sniped in published letters about with him to Germany after he was appointed Kapellmeister each other’s counterpoint, and Böddecker’s brother—a local in Köln, but based on the baptismal records of their children cornettist—was caught up in the kerfuffle when Capricornus in nearby Bonn, they must have lived in separate cities. Two publicly declared that he played his instrument like it was copies of Liebster Jesu, trautes Leben—the only known piece a “cow horn.” ACRONYM has also recorded the modern by Giani—are held at Uppsala, and one has Latin headings premieres of a Sonata a8 by Capricornus, as well as his of its sections, indicating a lost alternate text for the same Jubilus Bernhardi, an epic twenty-four motet cycle. Salvum music. me fac Deus sets an excerpt from Psalm 69 nice. 6 ACRONYM German keyboardist and composer Johann Martin Radeck Music was one of the many professions of the violinist (1623–1684) had a successful career at several of the largest and composer Daniel Eberlin (1647–c.1715), who was churches in Copenhagen. After his death, his successor at the involved with the military early in life and then employed Trinitatis Kirke and Helligåndskirke was Christian Geist, in various cities as a librarian, banker, and administrator. who married Radeck’s widow. The text toHerr, wenn ich nur He served as Kapellmeister in Eisenach during J. S. Bach’s dich habe consists of the same excerpt from Psalm 73 that was childhood—where he was also secretary of the local mint, set during this era by Schütz, Buxtehude, and Rosenmüller. although he fled the city when the mint was audited—and eventually moved to Hamburg to captain a militia. Few of Almost no details survive about Andreas Kirchhoff (fl. Eberlin’s compositions survive, and only one other work by 1670), an organist and composer based in Copenhagen who him has ever been recorded: a trio sonata in ACRONYM’s might have been related to a number of municipal musicians Wunderkammer. The text to the strophic opening of Ich kann from that era who shared his family name. Kirchhoff ’s extant nicht mehr ertragen—a dialogue between the soprano human compositional output is scarce and comprises little more than soul and the bass spiritual guide—was written by Anton three sonatas in the Düben Collection. Ulrich (1633–1714). A chorale verse (the fifth stanza of Christian Ritter (c.1645–c.1725) held positions as an Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist) follows, and the unusual organist in Halle (where he was succeeded by Johann structure concludes with a fugal Amen. Philipp Krieger) and Dresden, and until 1699 he was vice- Kapellmeister in Stockholm under various members of the Düben family. His whereabouts thereafter are less certain; he appears to have worked in Hamburg around 1704, and he is one of several plausible composers of a Johannes Passion composed there and formerly attributed to Handel. Ritter eventually returned to Stockholm, possibly serving as the acting Kapellmeister.