Schütz: Fili mi, Absalon, SWV 269

This recording of baroque music for the unusual combination of trombones and voice features the DATURA-Posaunenquartett and renowned bass singer Anton Scharinger. The music is by several major composers of the period including Schutz, Byrd, Corelli, and Praetorius. The DATURA-Posaunenquartett was formed by four trombone players in 1987. Each member of the quartet has won prizes at major competitions, including the “Concours International de Musique de Toulon” and the “International Competition Prague Spring”.

They have also all appeared as soloists, and been principal trombonist in top orchestras such as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a group The DATURA Trombone Quartet has also been the recipient of several awards including the much-coveted Jan Koetsier Prize in 1993. The trombones used on this recording are all high quality reproductions of sixteenth and seventeenth century instruments and boast an elegant sound full of carrying power.

This is a newly available recording of the young Fischer-Dieskau performing Baroque repertoire and is the only available recording of him singing this repertoire. During the 1950s, the voice of the young Fischer-Dieskau exuded a special lyricism and melodic naturalness as no other had before him.

Recording made in 2003.

Capella Augustana is recording the complete works of Schütz for Brilliant Classics, which will consist of 30 CDs.

Comprehensive booklet essay and sung texts.

Heinrich Schütz lived a long and successful life, and studied with some of the greatest masters of the time, including Monteverdi and Giovanni Gabrieli. He is generally considered to be the greatest German composer of the early Baroque. Travelling between positions in Copenhagen, Kassel and Dresden, his life was hit by personal tragedies – he outlived his wife and all his children, and the Thirty Years War severely disrupted his employment. This CD contains selections from two of his three sets of Symphoniae Sacrae. The first set, composed in 1629, uses Latin texts, whilst the second and third sets are set to German texts. Schütz’s genius lay in his ability to set words to music. The rhythmic strength of his music lies in his ability to capture the nuances of the words, and this skill enabled him to make a major contribution to Luther’s aim of establishing the vernacular as the literary and liturgical language of the Protestant religion. A similar move had been made in England with the adoption of English rather than Latin in sacred music with the introduction of The Book of Common Prayer in the mid-16th century.