Notes and Editorial Reviews
Featuring Kathleen Cantrell and Campbell Rightmyer, sopranos, and Morwaread Farbood, organ. The Teares Of The Muses, New York University Collegium Viol Consort, Margaret Panofsky, director.
The distinctively hued scoring of high voices in combination with viols was an ensemble sound much favored in seventeenth-century Germany—here enhanced by abundant ornamentation. The featured composer is the Bohemian, Samuel Capricornus, whose few extant works deserve a present-day revival. "O Traurigkeit, O Herzelied" is a profound Good Friday lament. It is followed by "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld" which uses the Lamb to symbolize Jesus’ martyrdom. These two pieces comprise his "Zwei Lieder
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von dem Leiden und Tode Jesu" of 1660. Capricornus, like the incomparable Franz Tunder in his "An Wasserflüßen Babylon," followed the principles of musical rhetoric, wherein melody, harmony, and rhythm amplified every nuance in the text. To separate the five movements of "Ein Lämmlein," the performers adopt the time-honored baroque practice of creating transcriptions. These, for viols, use the chorale settings "O Welt, ich muß dich lassen" by Johann Sebastiani from his "St. Matthew Passion," and "Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund" by Samuel Scheidt from his monumental keyboard collection, "Tabulatura Nova." Additional music for viols includes a five-movement suite by Johann Hermann Schein and an instrumental lament by David Funck.
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Works on This Recording
1.
O Taurigkeit! by Samuel Capricornus
Conductor:
Margaret Panofsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Teares Of The Muses
Period: Baroque
Written: Germany
2.
Banchetto musicale: Suite no 1 in D minor by Johann Hermann Schein
Conductor:
Margaret Panofsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Teares Of The Muses
Period: Baroque
Written: 1617; Leipzig, Germany
3.
Ein Lämmlein by Samuel Capricornus
Conductor:
Margaret Panofsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Teares Of The Muses
Period: Baroque
Written: Germany
4.
Stricturae Viola de Gambicae : Intrada & Lamento by David Funck
Conductor:
Margaret Panofsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Teares Of The Muses
Period: Baroque
Written: Germany
5.
Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund' by Samuel Scheidt
Conductor:
Margaret Panofsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Teares Of The Muses
Period: Baroque
Written: by 1624; Germany
6.
An Wasserflüssen Babylon by Franz Tunder
Conductor:
Margaret Panofsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Teares Of The Muses
Period: Baroque
Written: 17th Century; Germany
7.
St. Matthew Passion: O Welt, ich muß dich lassen by Johann Sebastiani
Conductor:
Margaret Panofsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Teares Of The Muses
Period: Baroque
Written: Germany
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 
( 1 Customer Review )
"Early Music America" review, Spring 1012 March 1, 2012
By Margaret P. See All My Reviews
"Ein Lämmlein: 17th-Century German Passion Music, Audio CD
Can there be such a thing as a penitential compact disc? Listening to this beautiful recording seems (as I listen on the shortest, darkest day of the year) as close to an act of penitence in a sacred setting as one might find in this secular age of MP3s and computers. Not for nothing did Bach choose the voice of the viol to speak at the depths of his setting of the “John-Passion.” The Teares of the Muses have chosen a particularly dark program, structured around a work by Samuel Capricornus (1628-1665) from 1660, the “Two Songs of the Suffering and Death of Jesus,” divided into six parts, and set for [seven] parts (two voices and four viols [and continuo]). Although Capricornus (born in Bohemia as Bockshorn before concluding his career in Stuttgart) left at least other collections of sacred works, and a variety of instrumental music as well, he remains little-known, so it is good to have this heartfelt reading of music which reveals the composer’s mastery of the expressive possibilities of the chromatic Italian harmonies of the beginning of his century. Sopranos Kathleen Cantrell and Campbell Rightmyer are ideally matched, and their tones are ideal for this music, with an innocent and pure character that blends beautifully with the sounds of the viols. Panofsky has made the wise choice to intersperse the five sections of the second work (“Ein Lämmlein”) with instrumental numbers, and the first work, “O Traurigkeit,” is followed by a dark suite from Schein’s “Banchetto Musicale.” The close recording of the viols adds to the particularly intimate character of the disc. Sadly, gambist David Fenton passed away between the recording and the release.
—Tom Moore, Early Music America, Spring 2012 "
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