Disc reviews Steven Ritter "audaud.com" By my count this deluxe production (complete with a 192-page hardbound booklet) becomes the fifth SACD recording we have of this seminal work, and no doubt many will follow. These are period instruments of course, and since, as I have always maintained, it is wrong to compare recordings according to the type of instruments they are performed on, I went back and auditioned three other favorites along with this one.
During the 18th century, one of the most common types of oratorio was the Austria sepolcro, usually meant to be produced between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. While it competed with more normal oratorios, this genre was meant to conform to a more esoteric style, with principal figures often expounding reflections on the crucifixion rather than, say, those that contain the action and real plots found in normal Italian oratorios or Passions from Lutheran areas. These are probably the true descendants of the 17th-century Roman oratorios by Carissimi and others, in that they retain a didactic function and were truly seasonal. For Jan Dismas Zelenka, the opportunity to compose in this genre was relatively rare, but following the marriage of his patron, August the Strong of Saxony, to Hapsburg princess Maria Josepha in 1719, the composer gained access to the Bohemian Estates, which meant that commissions for sepolcri were forthcoming from time to time and even began to be appreciated in Dresden after 1724. By the time he reached the zenith of his own career in the 1730s, Zelenka was happily able to write all manner of Catholic church music for a variety of patrons in both Bohemia and Saxony, of which several sepolcri are not only fully representative of his mature style, they are exemplars of some of the best written during the entire period.
Луиджи Керубини (Luigi Cherubini) Родился 14 сентября 1760 года во Флоренции, в семье бедного музыканта. Музыку сначала изучал дома, а затем занимался в Венеции у известного итальянского композитора Сарти. 25-ти лет он прибыл в Лондон во главе передвижной итальянской оперной труппы и вскоре занял место придворного композитора. После нескольких лет пребывания в Англии Керубини в 1785 году переехал в Париж и с тех пор прочно, до конца своих дней, связал свою жизнь с этим городом.
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