Sunday CD: Seelentrost

Among my recent enthusiasms has been the music of Heinrich Schütz, a prolific composer of primarily church music who flourished in German lands in the 17th century, during and just after the Thirty Years’ War. (As his career progressed, he was forced to compose for smaller and smaller ensembles — the result of the war’s decimation of the local population.)

There’s no shortage of recordings of his work, despite his relative marginalization anywhere but in early music circles. But in its February issue Gramophone bestows a laurel or two on Seelentrost (Perfect Noise), the debut album by soprano Isabel Schicketanz. Subtitled “The sound of inner life in Heinrich Schütz’ time,” her program features work not only by Schütz but also by many of his students, including the recovery of some fine work by Sophie Elisabeth (1613-1676).

Schicketanz plumbs the spiritual depths exemplified by these composers’ immersion in the Christian religion and in early Baroque practice with intent and unerring focus and power (as products of a Protestant theology, the language here is a Lutheran German rather than a Catholic Latin — without this, no German Enlightenment as I described the other day); her coda in the final minute of Adam Krueger’s “Der Liebe Macht herrscht Tag und Nacht” sends shivers down my spine.  Her accompanists are themselves subtle and precise, and Dr. Oliver Geisler’s liner notes provide an incisive and informative introduction to this obscure work:

Speaking of programme conception: with the works on this recording, Isabel Schicketanz takes a path that first leads us listeners into darkness, letting us explore the shadow regions of the soul. A second group of works, from Heinrich Schütz’s “Ich harrete des Herren” (“I waited patiently for the Lord”), portrays a person who lives and loves, who has tasted all aspects of life and can pass on these experiences (of life and faith). The third and final part begins with Heinrich Alberts “Dass alle Menschen sterben” (“That all people die”). The certainty of death is expressed, however, with the promise of coming salvation. A certain serenity can be heard, an inner smile and light that is built on deeper insights into life and the soul.

You can listen to the album through many streaming services, including Apple Classical; you can also hear it on YouTube, but for cryin’ out loud, the delicate work of Schicketanz and her colleagues demands better reproduction than your MacBook will provide. The CD is available from Challenge Records or perhaps an e-tailer near you.

For a deeper dive, the New York Times‘ Anthony Rommasini has more on Schütz here.