On the back of a successful recording of Monteverdi’s Vespers last year, Cantus Colln return to a similar theatre. The Marian cycle of devotions set by Johann Rosenmuller continues the group’s important mission of illuminating Germany’s finest seventeenth-century offerings, and this is a magnificent vindication of their efforts. Rosenmuller is an impressive protagonist as anyone who has heard Cantus Colln’s Sacri Concerti (DHM, 6/93) will know. If Schutz’s visit to Venice 40 years earlier was ostensibly to observe the secunda prattica in its relative infancy, Rosenmuller’s reasons for considering a longer term of exile there were rather less admirable: in all likelihood, he was forced to escape imprisonment for sexual impropriety. He soon made his mark as a composer, however, assimilating with ease the mid-baroque language of the classic Italian dramatic vocal concerto. Indeed, so successful was he that when he returned to Germany in 1682, his reputation as one of Europe’s finest musicians was firmly established.
Rosenmuller’s style is something of a godsend to Cantus Colln, and vice versa. Here is a composer with an exemplary command of the Venetian aesthetic. As a fluent and brilliant colourist of the most grandiloquent styles, he also never forsakes Teutonic contrapuntal discipline; the combination, at its best, produces a meticulously voiced control of texture and tautness of conception. These are attributes long admired in the performances of this eminent vocal ensemble also, and they are heard with concentrated fervour in five Psalms and a Magnificat, interspersed with plainsong, motets (with texts expertly re-worked to fit the Vespers) and two fine instrumental sonatas. Whilst “Dixit Dominus”, in terms of scale (it is over 600 bars long), is a memorable compendium of glistening scoring, rhythmic vitality, snappy declamation and textual characterization, often of a masterly kind, there are other works – less structurally ambitious – where the totality of Rosenmuller’s invention flatters rather more. “Laudate pueri” evolves mesmerizingly, capped by a thrilling extended “Sicut erat” (so too in the C minor Magnificat, whose opening chords resemble an early romantic opera overture). Cantus Colln give a virtuoso performance of this work – “He raiseth the poor out of the dust” is punctuated wonderfully by the instrumental commentary – and also “Laetatus sum”, where the singers’ invigorating dialogue distracts the listener from D major overkill, a small Achilles’ heel in Rosenmuller’s dazzling armoury. “Laude Jerusalem” is in the same vein, yet with a rolling sarabande momentum and an unusual obbligato combination of trumpet and cornetto.
Cantus Colln and Concerto Palatino can certainly boast a distinctive homogeneity in repertoire of this kind, one in which a relatively small consort can sound majestic through extreme care in all matters of ensemble and intonation. That said, when singers do escape the shackles of the tutti, they are far more persuasive than I have yet heard them. The sopranos are flexible and responsive even if, as with their male colleagues, a truly ravishing solo presence is more elusive. But it would be churlish to detract attention from what is, in short, a significant triumph. By extending the Venetian Vespers tradition into new realms – not just in terms of repertoire but the dazzling and imaginative exploration of what moves and excites us about this music – Cantus Colln celebrate their first Harmonia Mundi recording with a potential Gramophone Award-winner. A fine achievement.'