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Reviewer:
Fabrice Fitch
This year has
seen several fine recordings celebrating the quincentenary of the founding act
of the Reformation but this is comfortably the most searching and artistically
rewarding that I’ve listened to. The easy option is to confine oneself to Schütz,
Praetorius, even Bach or Telemann in some cases – never mind that the earliest
of these was born well after Martin Luther’s death in 1546. While Schütz and
Praetorius do feature here, there is also much earlier music, stretching right
back to Johann Walter, one of Luther’s earliest musical collaborators. The music
is of consistently high quality, the selections by ‘minor’ figures frequently as
telling as those by acknowledged masters. Breadth of chronological coverage is
matched by breadth of genre: there’s everything from Latin motets (of which
Luther was very fond) to organ chorale variations and a short German Mass. Vox
Luminis (here with organist Bart Jacobs) give themselves plenty a scope with the
double-CD format, and fill both discs generously.
Programmatic flair is backed up by performances and a sound recording to match.
Vox Luminis have received their fair share of accollades (their Schütz
Musikaliches Exequien was Gramophone Record of the Year across all
categories in 2012) but in ambition certainly, perhaps even in execution, this
may be finer still. Among the vocal selections, Scheidt’s polychoral Ascendo
ad Patrem meum is exquisite. The Veni Sancte Spiritus by Thomas Selle
that follows probably looks slight on paper but some memorably stratospheric
sopranos impart a hair-raising intensity. The selections for organ include some
gems, too: the Thomas organ of St Vincent Church, Ciboure, has some
extraordinary registrations for the chorale line of Lass mich dein sein und
bleiben and Praetorius’s monumental variations on Ein feste Burg
(arguably the quintessential chorale) stand comparison with Sweelinck. And
that’s just the first disc. The acoustic variety is such that I was surprised to
find on second hearing that Vox Luminis achieve all this with just voices and
organ.
The
accompanying long-format booklet is splendidly produced, the plentiful colour
illustrations reinforcing the immediacy of the acoustic experience. The
accompanying notes place the music usefully and legibly in its historical
context. This must be a contender for my pick of the year come December.
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