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5.0 out of 5 stars
Desert island disc of German baroque devotional cantatas, June 12, 2011
This review is from: Baroque Bass Cantatas From Central Germany (Audio CD)
Mügeln is a small town in Saxony. The Kantorei (being a vocal society) of Mügeln's St John's Church has continued from 1571 to the present day. These cantatas, sung with great sensitivity and warmth by the wonderful bass baritone Klaus Mertens, are from the archive of the Kantorei. Mertens is accompanied by Accademia Daniel, a group of Israeli musicians playing period instruments. The cantatas are by the famous baroque composers Emanuel Kegel, Christian Wolff, Johann Theodor Roemhildt, Hoffmann (given name unrecorded), and Johann Gottfried Donati. I'm joking by calling them famous, as all of them were completely unknown to me.
Finally the most sublime and haunting of all of the cantatas on the disc ("Kaum ist der Heyland auf der Erde" - Hardly is the Saviour on earth) was noted in the archive as being by Georg Philipp Telemann - a composer I do know and love. But musicologists are of the view that the recitatives from this cantata are uncharacteristic of Telemann, and there is no copy elsewhere. So it seems possible that when a copy of this cantata was added to the Kantorei's archive a few centuries ago, the church's music director attributed it to Telemann because of its expressive quality.
Every cantata on this disc, by these obscure composers, is beautiful. How lucky the parishioners of St Johannis Church at Mügeln were - to hear music of this quality when they went to worship. The "Telemann" cantata is one of the glories of baroque church music and equal to Telemann and the great JS at their best. If I had to take an overnight bag of CDs to a desert island for a long stay, this would be one of them.
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