This disc presents a selection of music from 1650 to 1750 collected
and performed in the Thuringian villages of Eschenbergen and
Grossfahner. Developments in education, and rising musical standards,
led to a demand for new works and the church director in Grossfahner,
the composer, violinist and educator Abraham Nagel did much
to propagate music new and old in his village. The works that
CPO presents are Protestant cantatas for solo soprano and a
small instrumental accompaniment. These attractive works are
of modest forces for village church performance.
Johann Heinrich Buttstett was a pupil of Pachelbel, and a distinguished
organist. Das ist meine Freude was composed around
1705 and is written in a sophisticated, theatrical up-to-date
style. Its obsessively circling variations on the first four
words of the text represent a powerfully authoritative statement.
And the duetting violins add to the vibrant spirit of this startlingly
dynamic, compact work. The varied nature of the accompanying
string and continuo support can be appreciated when the violins
drop out, and the caressing melismas offered to the soprano
Maria Jonas have something gently erotic about them. The work
ends as it began, with suggestive operatic hints. Jetzt
ist das Mahl bereit offers pathos and colour, and warm
shafts of light, in another brief but effective setting. What
a pity that so few of Buttstett’s works have survived intact.
Georg Friedrich Kuenstel was a court organist and also widely
known, it appears, as a wheeler-dealer, flogging music which
he’d had copied at court expense, and pocketing the money. The
notes don’t go into detail as to how posterity knows this, though
it is an interesting detail. Was will mich die Suende schrecken
is a most impressive work, requiring the accompanying solo violin’s
dextrous virtuosity in the opening Sonata. The concertante-like
division between voice, violin and continuo demonstrates a practical
and assured musical mind at work. Fortunately Jonas sings splendidly
and violinist Anne Schumann likewise. The other violinist in
the original instrument Chursächsische Capelle Leipzig is
Dorothea Vogel, and she proves expert in Pachelbel’s Mein
Fleisch ist die rechte Speise with its plangent scordatura
and sensitively performed answering vocal phraseology. It’s
good to have an opportunity to hear organist/music director
Johann Topf’s Gott, du bist mein Gott which is another
attractive, melodic and well structured cantata.
Finally there are three Telemann cantatas. Schmecket und
sehet is illuminated by a joyful dialogue between soprano
and accompanying violin. Ich hoffe darauf, dass du so gnaedig
bist employs in part a pre-existing melody – it’s the second
movement chorale, but it’s pleasurable to hear the calcedon,
as elsewhere we hear the theorbo.
The performances throughout are polished and effective. There
are good notes, texts and translations. The music combines relatively
little known composers with such as Telemann and Pachelbel,
which is a representative reflection of the music performed
at the time in these particular Saxon villages. Just one final
question: why has this disc been on the back burner since 2003?
Jonathan Woolf
Maria Jonas (soprano)