New CDs with Early Music. We will listen to two recently released CDs with music for Holy Week and Easter. The first one focuses on the Lamentations and Responsories by Emilio de’ Cavalieri, the second on cantatas for the Easter period by Christoph Graupner.
Emilio de’ Cavalieri is primarily known for his morality play ‘Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo,’ which was first performed in 1600. It is a modern work for solo voices and basso continuo. Likely a few years earlier, Cavalieri composed Lamentations and Responsories for Holy Week in the same style. In doing so, he was a pioneer: they are the first sacred works in the modern monodic style with basso continuo to be composed. Elam Rotem provided a new edition, upon which the recording is based, performed with his ensemble Profeti della Quinta
For most of his life, Christoph Graupner worked as a chapel master at the court in Darmstadt. Here, he composed cantatas for all Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year. Soprano and bass took on the main roles in these cantatas, as Graupner had access to virtuosic soloists in these vocal ranges. Remarkable, in terms of instrumentation, are five cantatas that he composed for the weeks around Easter in 1720 and 1721: two sopranos and one bass sing both the recitatives and arias, as well as the choruses and chorales. It is essentially a relic from the 17th century, when this instrumentation was quite common. Florian Heyerick, a specialist and pioneer in Graupner’s work, recorded all five cantatas in this instrumentation with the Kirchheimer BachConsort and three soloists.
Emilio de’ Cavalieri (ca. 1550-1602)
1. From ‘Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae cum Responsoriis Officii Hebdomadae Maioris’:
Prima Die
– Lectio I: Incipit Lamentatio Hieremie prophete – Aleph. Quomodo sedet
– Lectio II: Vau. Et egressus est
– Lectio III: Jod. Manum suam
– Responso I: Eram quasi
– Responso II: Una hora
– Responso III: Seniores populi
Profeti della Quinta conducted by Elam Rotem
(CD: “Emilio de’ Cavalieri – Lamentations”, Pan Classics PC 10451, 2023)
Christoph Graupner (1683-1760)
2. “Zerfließ’, mein Herz, in Blut” (GWV 1127/20), cantata for Good Friday 1720
3. “Christ lag in Todesbanden” (GWV 1130/21), cantata for Easter Monday 1721
Marie Luise Werneburg, Hanna Zumsande, soprano. Dominik Wörner, bass. Kirchheimer BachConsort conducted by Florian Heyerick
(CD: “Christ lag in Todesbanden – Complete Cantatas for Two Sopranos & Bass”, CPO 555 577-2, 2023)
additionally:
Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785)
4. Christ lag in Todesbanden (HoWV VIII.7)
Thomas Kientz, organ
(CD: “Intégrale des Chorals pour Orgue” – Hortus 153-154, 2017)
