There are discoveries that do not take place in archives, but in places where nobody yet expects music. In 1968, during restoration work at the church of Großfahner, 20 kilometers northwest of Erfurt, workers encountered a sealed space high in the roof timbers behind a wooden partition. There lay nearly three hundred manuscripts with sacred music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for years exposed to moisture and dust, as if time had slowly wanted to erase them from memory. Yet the notes proved legible enough to sound again. This Da Vinci Classics release is therefore much more than a recording of unknown cantatas: it is a musical rehabilitation of voices that have been silent for centuries beneath the beams of a Thuringian village church and simultaneously reveals how many musical worlds still await discovery.
Whoever tells the musical history of Thuringia does so almost automatically from the perspective of Johann Sebastian Bach. Understandable, but incomplete: an entire network of church musicians wrote new music week after week for worship services. The compilers of this cd have not abandoned that liturgical context, but translated it into a carefully constructed dramaturgy. Cantatas, organ works and an instrumental concerto alternate with each other as they might have done during an eighteenth-century Lutheran service. This makes the recording much more than a collection of unknown compositions: it allows a musical world to come alive in which word, prayer and sound are constantly in dialogue with one another.
The program opens with the music of the enigmatic "Herr Troll", a composer of whom not even the first name has been passed down and whose works have come to us solely through the handwriting of copyist Johann Christian Starckloff. Yet it becomes clear from the very first measures that no provincial epigone is speaking here. While the da capo aria had established itself everywhere in Germany, Troll remains true to an older, North German tradition reminiscent of Buxtehude. His arias develop organically from the text, with each change of affect receiving its own harmonic color and the music seeming to breathe continuously with the words.
These qualities immediately come to the fore in the Christmas cantata Siehe, ich verkündige euch. Starting from the words of the Gospel of Luke, Troll writes no superficial festive music, but a musically considered meditation on the incarnation of Christ. The melodic lines follow the meaning of the words themselves: wonder, joy and adoration each receive their own musical color. Striking in this regard is the rich instrumentation. The three trumpets and timpani never serve as mere festive decoration, but constantly react to the content of the text. In more contemplative moments, the brass withdraws to an almost bare continuo; when the words shift toward joy and praise, the full ensemble opens anew in a radiant brilliance. Concepts such as Freude, Hoffnung and the incarnation of Christ thus receive not only a musical frame, but an audible meaning. Troll proves himself here a composer who fully understands the rhetorical power of the Lutheran cantata and places every musical choice in service of the text.
I Contrappuntisti bring these qualities convincingly to life. Marcello Trinchero conducts with an effortless fluidity that avoids any tendency toward pompous monumentality. The natural trumpets sparkle without ever sounding shrill or forced, while bass Marco Grattarola carries the cantata with a dark, warm voice in which authority and restraint constantly alternate. His careful German diction ensures that the words are not lost in the rich instrumentation, but always remain the starting point of the musical development.
After this opening cantata, Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748) offers with his organ chorale setting Von Gott will ich nicht lassen the first liturgical breathing space. Walther – cousin and bosom friend of Bach and later author of the influential Musicalisches Lexicon – represents the strictly contrapuntal tradition of Thuringian organ playing. The choice of precisely this chorale is moreover far from arbitrary: the text about God's continuing presence forms a natural continuation of the Christmas message from Troll's opening cantata. Roberto Passerini opts for a clear registration and a sober approach that does not romanticize the music anywhere. This gives the listener exactly the rest that also had its place within an eighteenth-century Lutheran service between the larger vocal works.
Subsequently, the listener becomes acquainted with Johann Theodor Roemhildt (1684-1756), a composer who during his lifetime enjoyed considerably greater reputation than his mysterious contemporary. His works were performed dozens of times in Danzig, but even that former fame proved ultimately no protection against oblivion. That even a composer who once enjoyed such prestige could ultimately disappear from the collective musical memory says much about the capriciousness of music history. Where Troll constantly surprises the listener with rhetorical sharpness and unexpected harmonic turns, Roemhildt convinces through his natural balance, melodic elegance and a subtle fusion of German earnestness with Italian lyricism.
This becomes immediately apparent in Herr Jesu, deiner Trost ich mich, a cantata that was only preserved in a photographic copy after the original manuscript was lost. It is perhaps the most restrained page of the entire recording. Roemhildt does not aim for grand gesture, but for the individual believer turning to Christ in trust. The vocal line thus acquires an almost spoken character: not dramatically enlarged, but sustained by a deep inner peace. Matteo Straffi responds excellently to this. His lyrical tenor possesses enough warmth to shape the long melodic arcs with natural suppleness, without ever falling into exaggerated sentiment. It is precisely this simplicity that makes this cantata particularly moving.
Between the two Roemhildt cantatas, a flute concerto then sounds, whose authorship remains uncertain, though Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755) is often named as the most likely composer. The lively outer sections brim with Vivaldian vitality, but especially the slow middle section continues to resonate. Above a barely moving bass, recorder player Valerio Febbroni unfolds a long melodic line, played with a refined sense of breath, tension and phrasing. The music seems to still time for a moment and achieves an almost hushed intensity. I Contrappuntisti accompany with great sensitivity, without ever overshadowing the soloist, so that the transparency of the score is completely preserved. The authorship may be uncertain, but the quality of this music is hardly in doubt. Within the structure of the cd, this concerto thus receives exactly the right place: not a casual intermezzo, but a moment of contemplation in which the words fall silent for a moment and instrumental expression continues the spiritual narrative.
After this instrumental reflection, the cd returns once again to the organ with a second chorale arrangement by Johann Gottfried Walther: Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn. Here too, the composer demonstrates how refined polyphony can emerge from a familiar chorale melody, with counterpoint always remaining in service of the spiritual content of the text. Roberto Passerini opts once again for a clear and transparent approach, allowing the individual lines to speak naturally to one another. Following the virtuosity and color of the concerto, this work forms a restrained transition to the next vocal scene, in which Roemhildt takes center stage once more.
Whereas his previous cantata presented the restrained voice of the individual believer, Herr, wie groß ist deine Güte unfolds as a festive praise cantata in which choir, trumpets and kettledrums fill the space completely. Here Roemhildt demonstrates his broad compositional range: German attention to text rhetoric goes effortlessly hand in hand with a melodic suppleness that reveals clear Italian influences. Words such as Verderben receive a dark, almost threatening harmonic color, while Hoffnung opens up in lighter, ascending lines that seem to make the meaning of the text audible. This constant interplay between word and music gives the cantata its natural dramatic arc. When in the closing chorale trumpets, choir and continuo merge in a hymn of praise to God's Güte, an impressive profession of faith emerges that sounds both monumental and sincere. I Contrappuntisti manages to maintain the right balance even in this larger setting: Marcello Trinchero allows the rich soundworld of Roemhildt to fully speak without the intelligibility of the text being lost, while Matteo Straffi maintains his lyrical clarity and choir and orchestra complement each other with natural musicality.
After Roemhildt's festive cantata comes another moment of silence at the organ. Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712) – chiefly known as the teacher of the young Händel in Halle – is represented here with his chorale arrangement of Christ lag in Todesbanden, a melody that Bach too would later treat on several occasions. The choice of this work fits perfectly within the structure of the recording: after the exuberance of choir, trumpets and kettledrums, the music returns to the heart of Lutheran worship, the chorale as a collective profession of faith. Roberto Passerini plays once again with a sober elegance and a clear sense of phrasing, allowing the contrapuntal richness to come to the fore without the work ever becoming heavy.
But the last word belongs once again to Troll. That is a particularly well-considered programmatic choice. With the Easter cantata Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, the composer returns to the qualities that made him so convincing earlier: a keen sense of musical rhetoric and the ability to translate the theological meaning of a text directly into sound. Whereas Siehe, ich verkündige euch gives voice to the wonder surrounding the Incarnation of Christ, this cantata directs the gaze toward the joy and triumph of Easter.
This Easter thought finds particular expression in the shaping of the word Auf where Troll's music seems literally to make an upward movement. The rising lines and jubilant energy evoke a sense of musical resurrection: as if the sound itself breaks free from the earth and is drawn toward the light. Trumpets and kettledrums function here not as mere festive ornament, but as active participants in the musical discourse. The festive passages thus acquire not superficial splendor, but become the expression of hope and faith. Marcello Trinchero carefully builds the dramatic arcs: restrained moments retain their inner strength, while jubilant outbursts never degenerate into mere effect-seeking. Marco Grattarola closes here the circle that was opened with the Christmas cantata: the same voice that there carried the intimacy of the Incarnation now sounds with undiminished conviction in the jubilation of the Resurrection. The ability to convincingly unite both extremes – the hushed expectation of Christmas and the overwhelming joy of Easter – in one recording makes his contribution one of the highlights of this edition.
As a result, ultimately not only the beauty of the individual works lingers, but also the larger narrative that this cd tells. Troll and Roemhildt prove to be no insignificant footnotes in the shadow of Bach, but composers with a voice of their own, an idiom of their own, and a meaningful place within the Lutheran church music of their time.
Will this edition therefore rewrite the baroque canon? Probably not. But that need not be. Its value lies precisely in making visible – and audible – the wealth that remained hidden beyond the familiar names. When the final notes of Troll fade away, the thought inevitably returns to that sealed timber roof in Großfahner, where these manuscripts waited for their rediscovery for centuries. If the hundreds of yet unexamined pages possess the same quality as the music on this recording, then there may well await many more voices that wish to be heard again. Let this impressive edition therefore not only be the result of an exceptional discovery, but hopefully also the beginning of further musical rediscovery.