The True Heinrich Schütz

After a longer break we are happy finally to be able to continue our Schütz edition – repeatedly hailed as a benchmark series – with the WESER-RENAISSANCE Bremen under Manfred Cordes. Heinrich Schütz was surely the outstanding German musician of the seventeenth century. On its latest release the ensemble interprets the Symphoniae Sacrae I, the oldest printed collection of Schütz’s works. It involves works with obbligato early baroque instruments while also qualifying very much as solo music – with the external consequence that these works cannot be performed by a church choir and the internal consequence that their sung parts demonstrate vocal virtuosity both in singing technique and in expressive depth. Their essence can be captured only if the technical bases are fully and truly exhausted by the composer and the interpreters, who of course again, as on their other Schütz recordings, meet these demands: »In this interpretation one hears a vibrancy and a presence, music performed in space and with space, joy in sound, and a varied wealth of vocal and instrumental combinations. Schütz presents himself to our ears as an opulent musician« (FonoForum of the Geistliche Chormusik of 1648).