Gramophone Editor's Choices - December 2020
Recording of the Month

Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier

1. Ach Jesus Stirbt
2. O Barmherziger Vater
3. Warum Betrübst Du Dich
4. Ach Gott, Warum Hast Du Mein Vergessen
5. Erbarm Dich Mein
6. Bis Hin an Deß Creutzes Stamm
7. Christ Lag in Todesbanden
8. Vater Unser
9. Ich Bin Gewiß, Dass Weder Tod
10. Triumph, Victoria
11. Die Mit Tränen Säen
12. Wer Wälzet Uns Den Stein
13. Ist Nicht Ephraim
14. Ich Fahre Auf Zu Meinem Vater
15. Siehe, Wie Fein Und Lieblich Ists

Andreas Hammerschmidt is undoubtedly the most unjustly neglected composer of seventeenth-century Lutheran Germany. Very few recordings have been devoted to him, even though his music was widely published during his lifetime. The fifteen or so published collections offer a great variety of works, which, like those of his famous contemporary Heinrich Schütz, illustrate the fusion between the Lutheran polyphonic tradition and the various stylistic influences of the Italian Baroque. For this musical portrait of Hammerschmidt, Vox Luminis has drawn on several of these collections in order to offer as rounded a picture as possible of the variety of the composer's styles. The entire programme is structured around texts for Passiontide and Easter, introduced by an intensely moving madrigalian motet on the death of Christ, Ach Jesus stirbt.

"The subdued atmosphere of the first few pieces has clear echoes of the ensemble’s Award-winning account of Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien. It is tempered by the same quality of inner luminosity that characterises the earlier recording...in fact I’d say it is finer still...Altogether, this is the standout among the albums I have reviewed in a year where such experiences have seemed more necessary than ever." - Gramophone Magazine, December 2020.