Piano Excerpts

In many performances of Monteverdi's magnificent Vespers of the Blessed Virgin the 'Lauda Jerusalem' and the Magnificat movements, which lie in a high tessitura, are transposed downwards. So that thes...

In many performances of Monteverdi's magnificent Vespers of the Virgin Mary, the rather high movements "Lauda Jerusalem" and the Magnificat are transposed downwards. In order to make this possible wit...

In many performances of Monteverdi's magnificent Vespers of the Blessed Virgin the 'Lauda Jerusalem' and the Magnificat movements, which lie in a high tessitura, are transposed downwards. So that thes...

In many performances of Monteverdi's magnificent Vespers of the Virgin Mary, the rather high movements "Lauda Jerusalem" and the Magnificat are transposed downwards. In order to make this possible wit...

This six-movement cantata uses the hymn of the same name by Ahasverus Fritsch, first recorded in 1698 in the Darmstädter Liederbuch. This places it amongst those chorale cantatas which use a hymn from...

For soli (SATB), choir (SATB) 2 oboes, 3 trumpets, timpani, 2 violins, viola and basso continuo. Bach's chorale cantata 'Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren' BWV 137, has long been, thanks...

For soli (SATB), choir (SATB) 2 oboes d'amore, 2 violins, viola and basso continuo. The text of Bach's cantata 'Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort' was published in 1715, that is during Bach's Weimar period, in...

Bach's cantata 'My God alone this heart possesses' BWV 169 is from his third annual cantata cycle in Leipzig; it was first performed on 20 October 1726 for the 18th Sunday after Trinity. As recent res...

Probably following a special Leipzig tradition, Bach added four extra movements to the first version of his Magnificat BWV 243a (in E flat major); these can be inserted in performances of the Magnific...

The Ascension Cantata 'Du Lebensfürst, Herr Jesu Christ' BuxWV 22 by Dieterich Buxtehude is based on five verses of the hymn of thanksgiving of the same name by Johann Rist (1641), and in formal terms...

As with many of Homilius' cantatas, the unusual formal structure of the cantata "Kommt, frohe Völker, herzu" for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany, with two choral movements in a cantata of only three mov...

Special scorings inspired Telemann's imagination. In the cantata "Herr, lehre uns bedenken" from 1720, he combined the opening chorus and the two arias with concertante parts for a viola d'amore. Howe...

Georg Philipp Telemann has long been perceived as a composer of sacred music, and particularly of the German-language church cantata. However, in the course of his long life he also composed church wo...

Two things are essentially new: the involvement of the congregation through communal singing and, secondly, the frequent use of the main organ - both in the accompaniment of the congregational chorale...

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returned to Salzburg from his trip to Paris in January 1779, the only work of church music he had in his luggage was an unfinished Kyrie in E flat major (K. 296a) together...

Michael Haydn composed three of his masses in honor of the holy archangels - St Michael, St Gabriel, and the Raphaelismesse in honor of St Raphael now published. By avoiding the use of vocal soloists,...

Handel composed his only oratorio in German between 1716 and 1717 basing it on the then popular Passion text by Barthold Heinrich Brockes entitled 'Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende...

Das Passionsoratorium "Der Tod Jesu" entstand 1754/55, etwa zur gleichen Zeit wie das vielbeachtete gleichnamige Werk Carl Heinrich Grauns. Als Vorlage beider Kompositionen dient das gleiche Libretto...

Max Bruch succeeded in composing an impressive setting of the well known Advent text, 'O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf' (O Saviour, tear open the heavens). Compositionally it is extremely sophisticated...

Brahms' elegy Nänie op. 82, based on the poem by Friedrich von Schiller, was composed in 1880/81 following the death of the painter Anselm Feuerbach, whom Brahms greatly admired. In contrast with the...

Today best known for his comic operas such as Zar und Zimmermann and Der Waffenschmied, Albert Lortzing was also a composer of sacred music. In 1822, inspired by the performances of great choral symph...