La Risonanza - Missa Non Sine Quare - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Johann Caspar Kerll (1627-1693) worked mainly in Vienna, during the 17th century. He was pupil of Carissimi and teacher of Pachelbel, thus belonging within the line of succession culminating in Johann Sebastian Bach, who much admired his music. Eighteen masses by Kerll have survived of which only one, the first, a 5-part Requiem, is written a cappella, in the so-called old style. All the others are written in stile concertato, that is, with soloists, one or more full choirs, various instruments (violins, violas, trombones) and continuo. The Missa non sine quare is the first of a collection of six masses published in Munich in 1689. In this mass, Kerll gives proof of his undeniable mastery of counterpoint and of contrapuntal blend. Both the solo and the tutti sections exhibit the use of superb, imitative counterpoint. Kerll's melodic ingenuity, contrapuntal finesse and harmonic audacity were admired twenty years later by J. S. Bach.

Jerry Paper - Toon Time Raw! [VINYL LP] Colored Vinyl, Purple date 06/17/2016

Two of Bach's finest cantatas, both for solo alto, composed in Weimar (1714) and Leipzig (1726) respectively, are here coupled with Pergolesi's Stabat Mater of 1736, the eighteenth century's favourite sacred work. The gap between austere Lutheran piety and searing Mediterranean emotionalism might seem unbridgeable. Yet Bach so admired the composition of his Neapolitan colleague that he made his own 'parody' of it to a German text. On this recording, La Nuova Musica and it's two eminent soloists display equal mastery of both idioms.