Baroque Christmas in Hamburg

Praetorius, Hieronymus;
Praetorius, Jacob;
Selle, Thomas;
Scheidemann, Heinrich;
Weckmann, Matthias;
Scheidt, Samuel;
Förtsch, Johann Philipp;
Bernhard, Christoph

Bremer Barock Consort

CPO 777 553-2

After its successful CD featuring choral music for Advent and Christmas by Michael Praetorius, the Bremen Consort under Manfred Cordes has now recorded a second disc with splendid Christmas settings by Hamburg composers for cpo. Shielded from the horrors of the Thirty Years' War by its mighty fortress, this center of trade and commerce served as a place of refuge and work for the leading musicians of the time. The result was music combining original Hamburg elements and influences from the Low Countries through the »organist-maker« J. P. Sweelinck. Musicians from Saxony and Thuringia, Pomerania, and Southern Germany were active temporarily or for longer periods of time in Hamburg and engaged in intensive exchange, so that the Hansa city's music life can be viewed as a mirror of Northern European music culture. The present recording aims at tracing the development of the vocal music (and in part also of the organ music) of this epoch with a few examples and to this end focuses on the rich stores of extant repertoire for one high church feast, that of Christmas.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

CPO

30-09-2010

761203755325