Buxtehude: Jubilate Domino, omnis terra, BuxWV 64

The pieces on this recording demonstrate the consummate art with which the German composers reconciled the new ideas imported from Italy at the very beginning of the 17th century (the principle of the basso continuo, accompanied monody, the concertato technique) with local traditions, thereby giving birth to works of a subtle beauty and an almost inexhaustible richness. This stylistic revolution paved the way to the flourishing of great forms like the vocal solo, the spiritual concert, the cantata, etc. cultivated by composers as different as Schütz, Buxtehude, Tunder and Erlebach: in the very heart of Baroque Europe the Germans were taking their place.

German baroque masterworks for countertenor and strings Buxtehude’s fame rests principally on his keyboard music but this disc explores his outstanding vocal works, set in the context of J.S. and J.C. Bach. Each of these composers worked in important centres of Lutheran music in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Germany. Seventeenth-century German composers quickly adopted the new vocal styles that burst onto the scene in Italy at the beginning of the century: monody, in which a single voice declaims a text with special attention to the emotion and meaning of the words, and in the concerto style, consisting of opposing bodies of sound.

"One of the most glorious countertenor voices in the world today" The Independent

Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Young Artist 2009, countertenor Iestyn Davies demonstrated that he is the outstanding artist of his generation. His expressiveness of tone, intensity of sound and musicianship were brought to bear in concert, and, of course, in opera, where his natural sense of drama stole many a show and, significantly, brought the spotlight back to the countertenor voice.

Iestyn Davies emerged as one of the country’s leading countertenors following his prize in the London Handel Singing Competition in 2004, only shortly after completing his studies at St John’s College, Cambridge as a choral scholar. He was immediately identified as an exciting operatic prospect, and his rôles soon included Ottone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (Zurich Opera with Harnoncourt), Corrado in Vivaldi’s Griselda (Ensemble Matheus with Spinosi), and Hamor in Handel’s Jephtha (Welsh National Opera). Engagements quickly extended to rôles in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, also at WNO, and the parts of Apollo in Britten’s Death in Venice and Arsace in Partenope for English National Opera. He is equally active on the concert platform, appearing with many of the leading British ensembles, including the Academy of Ancient Music, Polyphony and the Monteverdi Choir. He made his solo recording début in Vivaldi’s Griselda with Ensemble Matheus for Naïve. This recital was part of the Wigmore's Hall's ongoing 'Art of the Countertenor' series, which also featured Andreas Scholl and Bejun Mehta.