Product Review
Few modern listeners know of Johann Rosenmüller (1619-84), but he and his music were admired and even envied in his day--despite a lurid personal history that includes sexual scandal, prison, and exile. (Want juicy details? Buy the album!) Junghänel has assembled large-scale Psalm-settings, small-scale motets, instrumental works, and plainchant into a Vespers service along the lines of Monteverdi's famous Vespers of 1610. Rosenmüller writes at greater length than Monteverdi--and in a more modern style: you'll find, among other surprises, a fugue that wouldn't be out of place in a Handel oratorio, and an "Amen" with solo voices taking turns in dialogue with a trumpet. The performances are entirely worthy of this magnificent music; clichéd though it may sound, this recording is a revelation. --Matthew Westphal