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GRAMOPHONE (02/2025)
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Perfect Noise  PN2405

Code barres / Barcode : 0719279934151

Reviewer : Edward Breen

This is one of those delightful occasions where a complex and highly nuanced solo programme both holds together as a musical sequence and is wonderfully executed, combining intellectual joy with sonic beauty. Seelentrost translates as ‘soul comfort’ and appears to be a popular title for playlists of many types on Spotify. This programme is different, however, as it explores music about the soul through ‘musical leitmotifs’ – as Oliver Geistler describes it in his booklet note – that proliferated in the early Baroque. On the way we meet Sophie Elisabeth of Mecklenburg, Duchess of BrunswickLüneburg (1613-76), a pupil of Schütz and well worth getting to know. We also meet the artistry of Isabel Schicketanz, and I suspect we’ll all be watching out for her in future: she’s a baroque specialist with a steel core, and readers may have recently noted her sparkling singing on ‘Abendmusik’ with Capella de la Torre (DHM). Here, she sings with empathy as well as vocal prowess as her programme moves from darkness to love and faith, and finally to acceptance of death.

Beginning with a rather austere rendition of Heinrich Albert’s Ich steh in Angst und Pein for solo voice and harpsichord, the texture warms for Schütz’s Eile mich, Gott, zu erretten, with tender string-playing. Staying with Schütz, the striking text repetitions in Erbarm Dich mein, o Herre Gott have a flustered, pleading quality that is very moving. There is a sympathy here with Robin Blaze’s debut solo album (‘German Seventeenth Century Church Music’ – Hyperion, 7/99), chiefly a sense of directness in the simplest musical textures. This is nowhere more apparent than in Sophie Elisabeth’s short works: if there is a hint of timidity about An Gott recht gläuben from Schicketanz, the warmth of recorder in Mein Augen will ich immer proves an encouraging presence, and the even fuller instrumentation of David Pohle’s Ich hebe meine Augen auf inspires her brilliant, bright top notes.

Schicketanz’s more animated side is on display in Adam Krieger’s Ein Freund, ein Trunk, ein Lieb, ein Sprung. This is a splendid debut and it certainly gave me goosebumps.

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