HEINRICH SCHÜTZ: Musikalische Exequien, SWV 279-281; Ich bin die Auferstehung, SWV 464; Grimmige Gruft, SWV 52; Gutes und Barmherzigkeit, SWV 95; Ich hab mein Sach Gott heimgestellt, SWV 94; Das ist je gewißlich wahr, SWV 277; O meine Seel, warum bist du betrübet?, SWV 419 – soloists/Dresden Kammerchor/ Hans-Christoph Rademann – Carus

HEINRICH SCHÜTZ: Musikalische Exequien, SWV 279-281; Ich bin die Auferstehung, SWV 464; Grimmige Gruft, SWV 52; Gutes und Barmherzigkeit, SWV 95; Ich hab mein Sach Gott heimgestellt, SWV 94; Das ist je gewißlich wahr, SWV 277; O meine Seel, warum bist du betrübet?, SWV 419 – Dorothee Mields (soprano)/ Anja Zugner (soprano)/ Alexander Schneider (countertenor)/ Jan Kobow (tenor)/ Tobias Mäthger (tenor)/ Matthias Lutze (bass-baritone)/ Harry van der Kamp (bass)/ Matthias Müller (violin)/ Ludger Rémy (organ)/ Dresden Kammerchor/ Hans-Christoph Rademann – Carus multichannel SACD 83.238, 68:24 [Distr. by Albany] ****:
This album of funeral music by the ever-inventive and long-lived Protestant composer Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) is the third issue of what Carus promises will be the composer’s complete music. Like most works emerging from the Protestant reformation, there is a striking affiliation between sound and text, and the music here employs a multiplicity of forms in order to achieve its final purpose, whether simple four-part chorales, or complex spatial chorales indicated by multiple polyphonic instances. Each provides a comforting yet realistic appraisal of death while maintaining a fervently life-affirming stance both emotively and musically—there are no dies irae-type motives in this music, each set with a poetic sensibility that launched the composer far above his peers.
Aside from the multiple motets (all on funereal themes) given on this recording we are graced with one major work, the Musikalische Exequien, composed for the funeral of Prince Heinrich Posthumus of Reuss, possibly the very first German requiem, one which Brahms knew well and adopted much of the text and even the suitability of form for his own. The work is profoundly settling and pleasing on the ear, and this marks its first venture into SACD territory. Even though there are a number of superb recordings available, this one as a performance holds its own easily, with splendid reverberation and finely-placed choral sound that is clear and understandable. The instrumental forces are minimalist with only organ and single string as accompaniment, but it works very well in the textures that Schütz sets forth. Easily recommended!
—Steven Ritter