Christoph Graupner must have made a deep and lasting impression on his contemporaries. Otherwise, more than two decades after his death, an admiring epitaph would scarcely have attested that he regarded church music as "so lofty, venerable, and sacred that he distinguished it from operatic and chamber styles as far as heaven from earth; the stranger who heard him for the first time marveled and believed himself transported into another world." Our catalogue now offers ample opportunity to test the truth of these words of praise. The cantatas released thus far represent only a small fraction of the nearly fifteen hundred works Graupner left behind. Yet, in every single one, we hear that he approached this genre "with diligence, punctuality, quiet serenity, and joy of heart." These same qualities have clearly inspired the performers, who now join forces for the sixth time in their commitment to the long-serving Kapellmeister of the Darmstadt court.
