Schein and lots of different, 2024

This Week in Classical Music: January 15, 2024.  Schein and rather more.  A number of composers had been born this week: Niccolò Piccinni (b. 1/16/1728), an almost forgotten Italian composer who was well-known in his day for his Neapolitan opera buffa; Cesar Cui (b. 1/18/1835), a Russian composer of French descent (his father entered Russia with Napoleon) and a member of the Mighty 5; Emmanuel Chabrier (b. 1/18/1841), a largely self-taught French composer, whose España is his best-known symphonic work however who additionally wrote some very good songs; Ernest Chausson (b. 1/20/1855), one other Frenchman, who wrote the Poème for the violin and orchestra which entered the repertoire of all virtuoso violinists; Walter Piston (b. 1/20/1894), a prolific and distinguished American composer of the 20^th century who usually used Schoenberg’s 12-note methodology; Alexander Tcherepnin (b. 1/20/1899), a Russian composer who was born right into a distinguished musical household (his father, Nikolai Tcherepnin was a famous composer and cultural determine), left Russia after the 1917 Revolution, settled in France, moved to the US after WII and had a number of symphonies premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and, lastly, one other Frenchman, Henri Duparc (b. 1/21/1848), greatest identified for his artwork songs.  None of those composers had been what’s often referred to as “nice” however all had been proficient and a few of their works are very fascinating.  Pay attention, for instance, to Alexander Tcherepnin’s 10 Bagatelles, op. 5 in a model for piano and orchestra (right here).  Margrit Weber is on the piano, Ferenc Fricsay conducts the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.  Or, in a really completely different means, right here’s Duparc’s tremendous track, L’invitation au Voyage.  Jessye Norman is accompanied by Dalton Baldwin.

One composer, additionally born this week, pursuits us greater than all of the above, regardless that his title is nearly forgotten- Johann Hermann Schein.  Schein, a great good friend of the better-known Heinrich Schütz, was some of the essential German composers of the pre-Bach period.  He was born on January 20^th of 1586 (99 years earlier than Bach) in Grünhain, a small city in Saxony.  As a boy, he moved to Dresden the place he joined the Elector’s boys’ choir; there he additionally obtained thorough music instruction.  In his twenties, on the elector’s scholarship, he studied regulation and liberal arts on the College of Leipzig.  He revealed his first assortment of madrigals and dances, titled Venus Kräntzlein, in 1609.  Beginning in 1613 he occupied a number of kapellmeister positions, beginning in smaller cities, until 1616, when he was referred to as to Leipzig.  He handed the audition and was accepted because the Thomaskantor, essentially the most senior place within the metropolis and the one Bach would assume 107 years later.  Like Bach a century later, he was chargeable for the music at two most important church buildings, Thomaskirche and the Nicolaikirche, and for instructing college students on the Thomasschule.  Schein held the place of Thomaskantor for the remainder of his life, which, sadly, was quick: in his later years, he suffered from tuberculosis and different maladies and died on the age of 44 (Heinrich Schütz visited him on his deathbed).

Right here‘s Schein’s motet, Drei schöne Ding sind (Three lovely issues), carried out by the Ensemble Vocal Européen beneath the route of Philippe Herreweghe.  And right here’s one other motet, Ist nicht Ephraim mein teurer Sohn (Is not Ephraim my expensive son?), carried out by the identical musicians.