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Reviewer: James
A. Altena This release in Hans-Christoph Rademann’s onging series of the complete works of Heinrich Schütz is especially propitious, because it offers what should be the first volume of that great desideratum of a Schütz discography, the Becker-Psalter, which heretofore has had only scattered selections from it recorded. The Becker-Psalter was a rhymed adaptation of the Psalter prepared and published in 1602 by the Lutheran pastor Cornelius Becker (1561–1604) for congregational singing as hymns, in competition to an earlier Calvinist collection by Ambrosius Lobwasser (1515–1585). As such, Schütz’s musical settings are correspondingly four-part hymn tunes—far less complex and elaborate than the motets and sacred arias of Scripture and poetic texts that he customarily set to music. By far Schütz’s most successful and best-selling work in his own lifetime, it was first issued in 1627—significantly, on the second anniversary of the death of the composer’s beloved wife Magdalena (née Wildeck) at only age 24—again in 1640, and then once more in a revised and expanded edition in 1661, the version utilized here. (The booklet note states “second wife,” which to my knowledge is quite wrong. I have never seen any reference in any source to any other marriage by Schütz, and the official heinrichschuetz.com website biography does not mention any such thing either.) Because of their relative simplicity, these settings have been of less immediate interest to professional musicians, which is a great shame, for within the confines of a musical form pitched at a level for broad participation Schütz poured all of his usual genius, not to mention his deep personal religious faith, into creating ingenious and beautiful little gems. In some cases, he utilized existing hymn tunes, but in a substantial number of instances (all of Psalms 1–51 and portions of 52–150) he created his own. Sometimes the same melody is used for more than one psalm; in the first two editions this was indicated merely by cross-referencing, but in the 1661 edition each psalm has its tune printed out with it. The present performances have added additional variety by sometimes alternating singing of stanzas between a four-part chorus and assorted solo voices, plus similarly varied instrumental support. The choral singing is excellent; the soloists are a bit more uneven but never less than solid; instrumental accompaniments are discreet and tasteful. Carus as usual provides excellent recorded sound and extensive booklet notes, though for some reason this time the English translation is frustratingly only an abridged version of the German original. Equally frustrating, only German texts are provided for the Psalms, and in a couple of cases the numbering of verses erroneously suggests that some verses in a psalm are omitted, which is always not the case, though most unfortunately five verses are omitted from Psalm 115. This is a disappointing step below the usual immaculate care that heretofore has been taken with these releases. While this disc is highly recommended, as usual for all the items in this series, one point raises a yellow flag of alarm. Instead of beginning with Psalm 1 and proceeding through the Psalter in order, this disc features the 20 psalms that Schütz previously set much more elaborately in his Psalmen Davids of 1619. However, the disc is not marked “Volume 1,” and the German word Auswahl (selection) occurs in the heading to the list of tracks. Is Carus going to welch on its advertisement of a truly complete Schütz edition by only providing a potted Becker-Psalter? Only time will tell; say your prayers or keep your fingers crossed, according to your personal convictions. | |
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