Gotthold Schwarz: Jauchzet ihr Himmel

Georg Philipp Telemann and his cantatas for the liturgical year stand at the heart of this Rondeau Production CD: the Leipzig-based singer Gotthold Schwarz, members of St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig, and the Sächsisches Barockorchester present an historically informed recording of select solo cantatas for bass, which nevertheless demonstrates the space available for artistic interpretation.

The listener is invited to step through the liturgical year with the cantatas recorded here: he passes through the church’s main feasts of New Year, the Passion, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and the end of the liturgical year. Listening to this music, the emotions related to the feast days—suffering and fear, but also hope, thankfulness, and joy—are experienced. Telemann had a deep understanding of the church’s liturgical riches, and gave them their very own expressiveness through his music in these cantatas.

The religious atmosphere is reflected impressively in the appropriate choice of instruments in the individual cantatas. The number of members from St Thomas’s Boys Choir matches the ensemble size which Telemann would have had at his disposal with the boys of the Hamburg Johanneum in the eighteenth century. Gotthold Schwarz’s double function as conductor and singer corresponds closely with Telemann’s own ideal of church music, for he himself used to appear as performer and director.

The selection on the present CD demonstrates the theological, poetic, and musical richness of Telemann’s cantatas. It reveals the central historical importance of Telemann as a composer of Protestant church music of the early eighteenth century. Georg Philipp Telemann and his cantatas for the liturgical year stand at the heart of this Rondeau Production CD: the Leipzig-based singer Gotthold Schwarz, members of St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig, and the Sächsisches Barockorchester present an historically informed recording of select solo cantatas for bass, which nevertheless demonstrates the space available for artistic interpretation.

The listener is invited to step through the liturgical year with the cantatas recorded here: he passes through the church’s main feasts of New Year, the Passion, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and the end of the liturgical year. Listening to this music, the emotions related to the feast days—suffering and fear, but also hope, thankfulness, and joy—are experienced. Telemann had a deep understanding of the church’s liturgical riches, and gave them their very own expressiveness through his music in these cantatas.

The religious atmosphere is reflected impressively in the appropriate choice of instruments in the individual cantatas. The number of members from St Thomas’s Boys Choir matches the ensemble size which Telemann would have had at his disposal with the boys of the Hamburg Johanneum in the eighteenth century. Gotthold Schwarz’s double function as conductor and singer corresponds closely with Telemann’s own ideal of church music, for he himself used to appear as performer and director.

The selection on the present CD demonstrates the theological, poetic, and musical richness of Telemann’s cantatas. It reveals the central historical importance of Telemann as a composer of Protestant church music of the early eighteenth century.

Gotthold Schwarz
Thomanerchor Leipzig
Sächsisches Barockorchester