Die Vögel unter dem Himmel - NYC
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DIE VÖGEL UNTER DEM HIMMEL |  |
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The back cover of the booklet accompanying this recording states that “Schütz would never have heard his music performed by forces such as these and on such a scale – surely he would have been a strong advocate of this outstanding aural experience”. While very often such advertising “blurbs” are a convenient exaggeration, I cannot help in this case but think that this is the truth.
One is quite simply struck dumb by both the massiveness of the sonority of the NYCGB and its astounding agility – there is never any sense that Mike Brewer’s clearly very deep understanding of Schütz’s musical rhetoric is compromised by having to work with such vast forces (140 voices!). Quite the opposite – there is a feeling that such a large group is absolutely capable of vast extremes of dynamics and articulation: ppp is never a problem for a large, well trained choir, and the lightly tripping phrasing of some of Schütz’s more dance-like sections, as for example Ich weiss, dass mein Erlöser lebt, have to be heard to be believed. There is at work here an amazing sense of choral discipline combined with a genuinely exultant joy.
As if this were not enough, these uplifting performances of Schütz’s choral music are interspersed with organ music by Samuel Scheidt, beautifully played by John Kitchen. Most highly recommended, and not only to admirers of Schütz.
IVAN MOODY
From Musicweb International:
Not for nothing is Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) often called the greatest German (speaking) composer before Bach. His music has variety, depth, technical acuity and originality, joy, pain, regret, grief, hope - amongst a wide range of emotions, clarity and a felicitous shade of the grave effortlessly balanced between sternness and wisdom. Such equilibrium, when the composer was aware of dread, death and depression of the Thirty Years War, is particularly striking and confers upon his mostly devotional musical output something special and appealing.
For all that, Schütz is under-performed and under-appreciated. His œuvre all too often gets shunted into a Christmas compilation disc or is talked about without being actually listened to properly. Lovers of Baroque music will all benefit as Schütz gathers many and competent advocates.
In The National Youth Choir of Great Britain he’s certainly found yet another champion. ‘Die Vögel unter dem Himmel’ is an almost hour long anthology of sacred choral music by Schütz with half a dozen pieces lasting just under a further 20 minutes by contemporaries, Scheidt, Scheidemann and Sweelinck.
It must be said that the quality of singing by the Choir under Michael Brewer is very high indeed. The recorded repertoire of the ‘NYC’ (founded in 1983) has tended to emphasise living composers … Giles Swayne, Karl Jenkins, Alan Rawsthorne. Maybe it’s comfort in this milieu that gives their approach to Schütz such freshness and clarity. The Choir’s attention to the all-important marriage of words and melody that came as much from Schütz’s Italian experiences as anywhere is exemplary: never forced or self-conscious but deliberate yet benevolent. As if the Choir is singing just for you but without any sense of servility or reticence: the music is exposed in all its fervent polish and delicacy – just as is. The Choir and Brewer see no need to embellish in order to persuade.
Still, the Choir’s trenchant, engaged and vigorous singing draws the listener into the music without fuss or frills. The pacing is right, the balance both between the way one Schütz item follows another and the way in which the Schütz pieces are set amongst those of Scheidt, Scheidemann and Sweelinck is right; and so is the emphasis which the singers are keen to place on the relationship of text to melody.
This relationship is important because real sensitivity to Schütz’s Italianate idiom is required. It’s important not to slip into a style more redolent of Monteverdi and St Mark’s than one embedded in Protestant Saxony. It’s also important because the numbers in the Choir (well over a hundred) are much greater than Schütz would ever have expected to use. They preserve detail well.
So this is a satisfying and stimulating collection of Baroque choral pieces. The organ plays a minor but important rôle and adds a welcome spatial depth. The recording – in two locales - is a good one. The informative booklet contains the texts in German/Latin and English with a useful background essay – and photographs which (with Brewer conducting in shorts) convey the down-to-earth and relaxed accomplishments of this ensemble of young musicians. Because these forces have understood so well that the appeal of Schütz’s sincerity lies more in energy than in maudlin, it is hard to see how this recording can fail to delight.
Mark Sealey, Musicweb International
From The Scotsman:
"Inevitably he 140-strong National Youth Choir of Great Britain sounds big and opulent in these performances of music by the grand master of the early German Baroque, Heinrich Schütz. Yet its legendary director, Michael Brewer, manages to overcome the hefty numbers and the ringing church acoustic, with singing of psalms and other scared settings which is well-enunciated and never over-blown. John Kitchen stylishly punctuates the vocal music with organ works by Scheidt, Schiedemann and Sweelinck."
