Schutz

It is with great joy that I am able to return to my listening of Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672), the greatest German composer prior to Bach. I remember finding a copy of the old recording of the Symphonia Sacrae III of Bernius and dubbing. Recently, I picked up the new recording by Junghanel with Cantus Colnn and have now been able to obtain scores and so am comparing the two recordings. So far, I find the new recording to be better performed and better sounding. I'll provide commentary as it happens. Again these are notes, not analysis.

Symphonia Sacrae III:
Der Herr ist mein Hirt (SWV 398): Gorgeous. Opening salvo retuns at the end, in a ot dull way. Schutz uses word-painting delicately when it is needed and in his own way breaks up the various phrases of the psalm with different sorts of similar, yet distinct melodic phrases and phrasing. Particularly lovely is the way that he sets the phrase "und werde bleiben des hausen der Herren" Also impressive is the way he shifts between duple and triple with the triple being used for the opening and other more lyrical passages. Amazing the color he gets from these ensembles.

Ich hebe meine Augen auf zu den Bergen (SWV 399): Satisfying setting of Pslam 121. It begins with an ornamented solo for the bass later joined by the tenor and violins before what would normally be an opening sinfonia. In this way I think we have a new opening, particularly because of the dotted rhythms in the sinfonia and with this we develop particular narrative symbolic characters for the different instrumental/vocal characters - the bass and tneor become the protagonists the violins take on a holy spirit role and the choir as some sort of resounding voice of God resounding in the valleys. We can see a similar effect in Saul, Saul wa verfolgst du mich. In this way the entrance of the choir serves to amplify - in this very pictoresque way the importat points of the piece - the Lord does not slumber, etc. It ends with a full choir Amen. Beautiful.