17th Century Funeral Music

This CD brings together 17th c. vocal works in which death and burial play a central role, the agony, the penitence and the consolation of the hereafter. Reformation composers didn’t write Requiem Masses for the dead, but they commemorate their beloved deceased in smaller forms of a vocal ensemble accompanied by an instrument group of violin, theorbo and organ. The selections, music of poignant beauty, devotion and consolation, include works by Heinrich Schütz, Michael Praetorius, Johann Hermann Schein, and Johannes Demantius. Performances by the Schütz-Akademie, recorded 1992.