Comfort and transience

Baroque church music arose from a lively interaction between the polyphonic Renaissance tradition and the new Italian concertante style. In Duitsland played Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) a key role: as a student of Gabrieli and influenced by Monteverdi, he brought Venetian modernity to the north. Zijn Musicalische Exequien (1636), one of the first completely composed German funeral music, shows how masterfully he knew how to connect text, rhetoric, and expressive innovation. This tradition found a rich continuation within the extended Bach family. Composers such as Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Michael Bach, and Johann Ludwig Bach wrote impressive funeral motets in which expressive polyphony and intimate text sensitivity are central. Vox Luminis lets this music shine with an authentic sound culture and an exceptionally subtle handling of the text, bringing every page of this German repertoire back to life.