Ensemble Correspondances - Buxtehude and Schutz

 Ensemble Correspondances/Sébastien Daucé, Septem Verba & Membra Jesu Nostri  (Harmonia Mundi)

For a 2-disc set at such a budget price, coming in gatefold sleeve and with a good booklet, one can't have much to complain about but I tried in vain to find which of the singers were singing which parts, mainly so I could credit them here. That must surely be only a minor omission but it mattered to me.

Music of such import, on the subject of the passion of Christ, is never going to be anything less than serious but it is, for the most part restrained, rising from its melancholy to moments of celebration and, done with small resources, there is always space for the sound to expand into.

The first disc is Buxtehude's most often heard choral cantatas, Membra Jesi Nostri, contemplating the body of Christ on the cross from the feet upwards so that the unfolding layers of text in the different parts gradually lift the eyes though yearning and sorrow towards deliverance. Ad cor, to the heart, is the sixth part, with a mystical opening on 'vulnerasti' ('thou hast wounded my heart') that is repeated at the end either side of an entirely different middle section and then ad faciem, to the face asks for salvation in death, presumably as part of the deal in exchange for such pietism. Buxtehude's violin parts are lyrical and often desolate and, as ever, one of his best features, belying his reputation being based on his organ work but at least in line with the only surviving picture of him being playing a viol. Membra ends with the most extravagant, baroque Amen that such humility feels it can allow itself, which is more than one might have thought but makes one think that ultimately, the point of the suffering is the celebration it leads to.

Disc 2 begins with Buxtehude's greatest hit, the Klag-Lied, or Elegy, written for the fumeral of his musician father, Johannes, in 1674. This is surely sung by Paul-Antoine Bénos here, listed as 'alto' rather than the 'unnamed soprano' I found it attributed to elsewhere. I may be wrong. Whoever it is does it gorgeously, having been given such lingering, mournful material to work with. It reaches not quite breaking point at a couple of peaks after halfway as the arrangement subtly builds but does without the big finish and exercises all due restraint in finishing gently where it had begun.

Heinrich Schutz was born 52 years before Buxtehude. Here, the shifting string parts in his Erbaum dich mein could be by the same composer as Buxtehude's setting of Luther's Mit Fried und Freud, which had been a more muscular choral piece than the Klag-Lied but the Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund is not an appropriate piece to use for any comparison. It is the 'Seven Last Words from the Cross' long before Haydn set them more famously, James MacMillan most memorably and Lauryn Hill's Forgive Them Father was a part of her hip-hop classic, The Miseducation of. With its several different voices, the Schutz account is almost more like an opera with it's narrative and recitative. It has its moments but as a composition is inevitably more fragmented than other settings. Either Schutz has more to offer elsewhere or this will repay more hearings, which it will certainly get. 

If Buxtehude and Schutz aren't heard quite as often as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven and not household names in every household, their names are almost as well known as The Beatles compared to Ludert Dijkman (1645-1717) who will be as grateful to be remembered here for the 7 minutes of his Lamentum eller En Sorge-Music as Arnulf de Louvain (ca 1200-1250) will be for writing the poem that provides the text for Membra. They've actually done well for themselves when you consider our own chances of being remembered that far into the future. It's bleak but expressive, addressing 'fleeting joy, whose name is but fiction!' and only asks that its prayer is heard.

Buxtehude returns to finish off the show with 18 minutes of Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr, (Most Dearly do I Love Thee, O Lord). One might wish they weren't quite so craven and supplicant but that's what life was like then. Art, for some of us, is less about what is said than how it says it. Otherwise it wouldn't be 'art'. As with the great cathedrals, we can take as much pleasure in the glories of this music for its achievement by appreciating how they did it rather than why. Herzlich moves from a stately chorus into choir parts as an ensemble piece bringing all the forces together for the finale. 

I don't know if I'll need any more recordings of Membra, with three now, and the Klag-Lied here is worth it on its own. I've surprised myself by returning to the William Byrd discs most out of those mentioned here on April 29th. I made the Buxtehude disc by Vox Luminis my Record of the Year only a couple of years ago so he's not due another one just yet. Two discs offering such value are gratefully received but sometimes less is more.

The amount of books and records I've bought recently was underlined by the Visa bill I paid this morning. I need to spend more time with them.

After the last Amen, I feel I'm due something a bit less respectful.