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Reviewer: Fabrice Fitch
The title of this recording, ‘Conversations with God’, takes its cue from a 1645 publication by Andreas Hammerschmidt, a representative of the generation of German composers who grew up after Schütz, several of whom are represented on this disc. He was plainly an accomplished musician, conversant with the a cappella church style, the newer Italian solo vocal idiom and the consort music of England. All of these may be heard here but Hammerschmidt’s invention is far from consistent in the short works selected. His younger contemporary Nicolaus Bruhns’s cantata Hemmt eure Tränenflut is far more convincing, albeit in a later style that forms a bridge with Telemann’s fine singlemovement setting of Psalm 8. It’s a curious recital in that it holds together far better than some of its constituent parts: the instrumental numbers frame the vocal ones very successfully.
The same might perhaps be said of the vocal cast, which is stronger as a group, and stronger still when supported by several instrumentalists. (That said, the concluding solo motet by Hammerschmidt, by some way his strongest piece here, is dispatched very confidently by the ensemble’s countertenor.) The sound recording is at its most characterful in the organ works, recorded on the instrument of the church in Chancueil near Paris, an elegant instrument on which one might have wished for more information: the booklet says nothing of it and is silent on a good deal else, not least…most of the music. |
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