Sacred Music

J.S. Bach: St. John Passion [2 CDs]

Bach’s St. John Passion is like an eternal cry into the void, carrying the essence of western, protestant answers to the fundamental questions in life in music. Our wrongdoings on Earth contrasted with higher moral principles. Nowhere else does it crystallize into music more profoundly and beautifully than in this immortal manifestation of Bach’s genius. (Berlin Classics)

2CD# 0302071BC $22.99

Machaut: Songs from Remede de Fortune

The story told by the ‘Remede’ may be familiar episodes of courtly life and love in fourteenth century France but from it, Machaut develops a magisterial work exploring themes of philosophy, psychology and artistic endeavour. “A beautiful, intimate performance....delicacy and intimicay are suberpbly matched to these more introspective works.” – Gramophone (Hyperion)

1CD# MOB283999 $19.99

Reforming Hymns / Musica Ficta

There is, naturally, only a small region which sings in Danish. The psalms sung by religious communities during the time of the Reformation in Denmark were, for the most part, borrowed from other languages and used with existing melodies. With this recording, the Copenhagen based vocal ensemble Musica Ficta explores the Danish Reformation hymnody from an international perspective. (Dacapo)

1CD# 8226142 $15.99

Grandi, Rigatti, Rovetta & Schutz: Worship in a Time of Plague

Sacred motets for 1–6 voices published in Venice before, during, and after the plague of 1630, featuring Capella Intima and the Gallery Players of Niagara. Founded in 2008, the vocal quartet Capella Intima presents unique programming of mainly 17th century repertoire. (Musica Omnia)

1CD# MO0804 $13.99

Sørensen: St. Matthew Passion

To mark Oslo International Church Music Festival’s anniversary in 2020, a new St. Matthew Passion was commissioned from Bent Sørensen, one of northern Europe’s most performed and admired composers and winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Music in 2018. The libretto [in English] was curated by Jakob Holtze and is made of fragments of the Gospels of Matthew and John. (BIS)

1SACD# BIS-2611 $19.99

Graupner: My Faith Stands Firm - Cantatas for Bass Voice

There are scores for over 1,400 of Christoph Graupner’s church cantatas. Forty-seven of these are for solo bass voice with a variety of instrumental pairings. This recording, featuring cantatas and instrumental works composed between 1720 and 1745, offers the listener an introduction to Gaupner and an important, if small, piece in the larger puzzle that is Graupner’s life and work. (Affetto)

1CD# AF2301 $16.99

Caporali: Via Crucis – Cantate Sacre [2 CDs]

The first CD is entirely dedicated to the Via Crucis, the re-enactment of the journey taking Jesus to the cross through the traditional fourteen stations, while the second CD contains two sacred cantatas dedicated to Saints Paola and Ciriaco, patron saints of Malaga, and to Santa Maria della Vittoria, also protector of the city since the conquest in 1487 by King Fernando the Catholic. (Tactus)

2CD# TC950391 $25.99

Mold: Passiontide – a Lenten Cantata

Passiontide – A Lenten Cantata. Simon Mold’s new setting is a triumph drawing deeply on the traditions of baroque Passion settings as well as such works as Stainer’s ‘The Crucifixion’ and Maunder’s ‘Olivet to Calvary’. A strikingly accessible work that explores a range of emotions with a sure feel for word-setting and an irrepressible tunefulness. (Divine Art)

1CD# DDA25238 $18.99

Mozart in Milan: Sacred Music around the Exsultate, jubilate

The splendour of Mozart’s motet Exsultate, jubilate stands out in a repertoire that has for too long remained in the shadows: the magnificent output of church music composed in 18th-century Milan, the city in which Mozart, then not even 17 years old, wrote his first masterpiece of sacred music precisely 250 years ago. (Arcana)

1CD# A538 $18.99

Praetorius & Schutz: Sacred Works in Parallel Settings

In our series “Music from Wolfenbüttel Castle,” the sixth concert in the series featured and recorded parallel settings of sacred works by Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz. One does not immediately think of counting the great Dresden composer Heinrich Schütz among the kapellmeisters at the Wolfenbüttel court, and yet he was officially engaged there as “Capellmeister von Haus aus” from 1655 until at least 1666.

(CPO)

1CD# 555503-2 $16.99