Around The World ( 26)

Hello today the second installment from the EMI vaults, Sacred Treasures, and that means harmonies, choirs and soloists singing (Pavaroti ) praise.

During the Renaissance, sacred choral music was the principal type of (formal or 'serious') music in Western Europe. Throughout the era, hundreds of masses and motets (as well as various other forms) were composed for a cappella choir. The interaction of sung voices in Renaissance polyphony influenced Western music for centuries. Madrigals continued to be written for the first few decades of the 17th century. Contrapuntal motets continued to be written for the Catholic church in the Renaissance style well into the 18th century.

Independent instrumental accompaniment opened up new possibilities for choral music. Verse anthems alternated accompanied solos with choral sections separated these sections into separate movements. Oratorios extended this concept into concert-length works, usually loosely based on Biblical stories. George Frideric Handel is the best-known composer of Baroque oratorios, most notably Messiah and Israel in Egypt. Lutheran composers wrote instrumentally-accompanied cantatas, often based on chorales (hymns). Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) made the most prominent mark in this style, writing cantatas, motets, passions and other music. While Bach was little-known as a composer in his time, and for almost a century after his death, composers such as Mozart and Mendelssohn assiduously studied and learned from his contrapuntal and harmonic techniques.

Besides the technicalities, what is expressed to the listener is harmony, obviously in those days , harmony was strongly associated with heaven. After centuries of strive, witch hunts and pests, death had been omnipresent and thus heaven needed some expression, the harmony of choirs. The church lutheran and catholic were not only important sponsors to the composers, the churchbuilding was it's podium. There people could connect to a better place.
These days there are still many choirs, and even when they rarely get any press, many millions sing in choirs, the reportoire is much more mondain these days but the essential part remains, and that is harmony. From the perspective of the chaos merchants, those powers that be, it's terrorism of a kind they cant attack, only corner and ignore.

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Millenium Classics - Sacrad Treasures ( 99 ^ 165mb)



01 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Mattheus Passion, BWV 244 - Kommt, Ihr Tochter, helft mir klagen (9:05)
02 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Mattheus Passion, BWV 244 - Wir Setzen uns mit Tranen nieder (7:19)
03 - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi - Stabat Mater - I-Stabat mater dolorosa (3:42)
04 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Ave Verum Corpus, K.618 3.26 (3:26)
05 - Charles Francois Gounod - Ave Maria (3:11)
06 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem, K.626 - I-Introitus 'Requiem Aeternam' (5:12)
07 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem, K.626 - Confutatis maledictis (2:27)
08 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem, K.626 - Lacrimosa dies illa (3:06)
09 - Franz Schubert - Ave Maria, D.839 (5:39)
10 - Gabriel Faure - Requiem, Op.48 - Pie Jesu (3:19)
11 - Gabriel Faure - Cantique de Jean Racine - Verbe egal et tres Haut (5:46)
12 - Giuseppe Verdi - Messa de Requiem - Requiem Aeternam (5:15)
13 - Giuseppe Verdi - Messa de Requiem - Dies irae (2:09)
14 - Guiseppe Verdi - Requiem - Ingemisco (3:41)
15 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Johannes Passion, BWV 245 - Ruht Wohl (7:55)
16 - George Friedrich Handel - Messiah - Hallelujah (3:59)

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