Aus: Israelsbrünnlein. Par SCHEIN JOHANN HERMANN. Johann Hermann Schein’s Israelsbrünnlein, published in Leipzig in 1623, is a supreme achievement not only among the works of this composer, who had been Thomaskantor in Leipzig since 1616, but also for the entire body of German music written during the first half of the 17th century. Among the 26 motets written “in the Italian madrigal manner” 23 are settings of Old Testament texts, a fact to which the collection owes its title. The source for the text of this collection is the “inexhaustible fountain” of the Psalms, the books of Moses, the Prophets, the Songs of Solomon, and other books of the Old Testament. / Mottet / Répertoire / Choeur SSATB

Aus: Israelsbrünnlein. Geistliche Madrigale. Par SCHEIN JOHANN HERMANN. Johann Hermann Schein’s Israelsbrünnlein, published in Leipzig in 1623, is a supreme achievement not only among the works of this composer, who had been Thomaskantor in Leipzig since 1616, but also for the entire body of German music written during the first half of the 17th century. Among the 26 motets written “in the Italian madrigal manner” 23 are settings of Old Testament texts, a fact to which the collection owes its title. The source for the text of this collection is the “inexhaustible fountain” of the Psalms, the books of Moses, the Prophets, the Songs of Solomon, and other books of the Old Testament./ Répertoire / Choeur SSATB

The harmonic turns and piano configurations in La vie ant?rieure ??? the ???former life??? ??? seem almost exuberantly lyrical. At the beginning the archaic sounds and words of the male choir conjure up a dream world that is soon flooded with the power of the waves and the rich polyphonic harmony of the choir and the piano. With the outcry ???C???est l? que j???ai v?cu!??? [I have lived there] which expresses the fervent yearning to return to a past life the collective desperately reinforces the longing for the past. Once more the women???s choir conjures up this lost paradise in an undulating soft sound before the desolate sadness is pierced by the power of the music of the piano postlude creating a moment that is completely in the present.