Buxtehude Sacred Cantatas
Stylish singing graces a useful disc of the lighter side of Buxtehude
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Dietrich Buxtehude
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Naxos
Magazine Review Date: 11/2004
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 59
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8 557041
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Jesu, meine Freud und Lust |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Kevin Mallon, Conductor Matthew White, Countertenor |
Sicut Moses exaltavit serpentem |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Katherine Hill, Soprano Kevin Mallon, Conductor |
Passacaglia |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Kevin Mallon, Conductor |
Wenn ich, Herr Jesu, habe dich |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Kevin Mallon, Conductor Matthew White, Countertenor |
Jubilate Domino, omnis terra |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Kevin Mallon, Conductor Matthew White, Countertenor |
Was frag' ich nach der Welt |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Katherine Hill, Soprano Kevin Mallon, Conductor Matthew White, Countertenor Paul Grindlay, Bass-baritone |
In te, Domine, speravi |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Katherine Hill, Soprano Kevin Mallon, Conductor Matthew White, Countertenor Paul Grindlay, Bass-baritone |
Wie schmeckt es so lieblich |
Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer
Aradia Ensemble Dietrich Buxtehude, Composer Katherine Hill, Soprano Kevin Mallon, Conductor Matthew White, Countertenor Paul Grindlay, Bass-baritone |
Author: Lindsay Kemp
With more than 120 sacred cantatas to his name, Buxtehude looks like a composer ripe for exploration, and sure enough he has been attracting increased attention on disc in recent years. The Aradia Ensemble offers three cantatas for solo voices and strings not otherwise in the catalogue alongside four already available. As might be expected in music possibly written for the Sunday afternoon concerts which the composer mounted at St Mary’s Church in Lübeck, they seem designed more to entertain than to instil with religious introversion, inspired by cheerful texts along the lines of ‘How lovely and good the saviour, how drunk and filled I am!’ and ‘What is the world to me when I have Jesus?’. Buxtehude expresses these sentiments in attractive and well-written music of the lilting, Italianate sort; only the soberly strophic Wenn ich, Herr Jesu, habe dich sets a really serious note.
Aradia’s three singers give good accounts of themselves. Countertenor Matthew White – noteworthy in Glyndebourne’s Rodelinda – has a strong, pleasing and fluid voice, which he uses affectingly in ‘Wenn ich’ and with sprightly accuracy in Jesu, meine Freud und Lust and the more frequently recorded showpiece Jubilate Domino. Katherine Hill’s bright and clear soprano is shown to good effect in Sicut Moses, and Paul Grindlay is light-toned but solid in the three cantatas requiring three voices. Yet while these are pretty performances, their success is hampered by some lapses in polish and, more seriously, by a lack of overall strength and purpose. This is most debilitating in a string arrangement of the organ Passacaglia, which should surely have hinted at a greater sense of stored-up power. If you are collecting Buxtehude you will want this disc for the new pieces; if you are a newcomer, a better bet would be last year’s Purcell Quartet disc (Chandos, 6/03).
Aradia’s three singers give good accounts of themselves. Countertenor Matthew White – noteworthy in Glyndebourne’s Rodelinda – has a strong, pleasing and fluid voice, which he uses affectingly in ‘Wenn ich’ and with sprightly accuracy in Jesu, meine Freud und Lust and the more frequently recorded showpiece Jubilate Domino. Katherine Hill’s bright and clear soprano is shown to good effect in Sicut Moses, and Paul Grindlay is light-toned but solid in the three cantatas requiring three voices. Yet while these are pretty performances, their success is hampered by some lapses in polish and, more seriously, by a lack of overall strength and purpose. This is most debilitating in a string arrangement of the organ Passacaglia, which should surely have hinted at a greater sense of stored-up power. If you are collecting Buxtehude you will want this disc for the new pieces; if you are a newcomer, a better bet would be last year’s Purcell Quartet disc (Chandos, 6/03).
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