Search - Heinrich Schutz, Weser-Renaissance :: Heinrich Schütz: Kleine geistliche Konzerte

Heinrich Schütz published two volumes of Kleine geistliche Konzerte ("Little Sacred Concertos") during the 1630s. They're certainly small in scale compared to the lavish Psalm settings in the composer's Psalmen Davids; these "concertos" are mostly solos, duets, and trios, with no instruments but keyboard or lute. (The Thirty Years War wrecked the economy of central Europe, and the resources for grander church music weren't available--and neither, most likely, was the inclination to perform it.) Yet this is some of the sweetest, most tender music Schütz ever wrote. For example, the way in which the melodic lines in the duos and trios wrap themselves around each other, come apart briefly, and rejoin is magical; the solo tenor in "O misericordissime Jesu" adores the name of Jesus with as much passion as anything in Monteverdi. Weser-Renaissance, a German ensemble that deserves to be much better known, gives us all the Konzerte--on three discs for the price of two, no less--in exemplary performances with careful attention to the text that was so important to Schütz. The standard of singing is generally high, but sopranos Susanne Rydén and Nele Gramß have such beautifully pure tone and musical rapport that they're surely first among equals here. --Matthew Westphal