«Unknown Renaissance: the 450th anniversary of J.P. Sweelinck»
Live in Grand Hall of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, April 22, 2013
This recorded concert was the final event of an international musicological conference with concerts and workshops entitled “The Unknown Renaissance: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s 450th Anniversary». The Russian audience had the opportunity to listen to the vocal music of the “last great Dutch composer”: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), as well as the music of his contemporaries. The compact disc opens with Sweelinck’s Christmas motet “Hodie Christus natus est”, SwWV 163 from the collection “Cantiones sacrae” published in 1619. It is followed by the motet “Ascendit Deus” by Peter Philips (c.1560/61-1628), an English composer who spent the most fruitful part of his life in the Spanish Netherlands. In 1593 Philips made a special trip to Amsterdam in order to meet Sweelinck, who previously, in 1580, had written a cycle of variations on Philips’s Pavane. Philips’s motet “Ave verum corpus” is followed by a composition set to the same text by one of his teachers, William Byrd (c. 1540/1543-1623).
The disc also presents compositions by some of the greatest of Sweelinck’s elder contemporaries: the motet “Dum complerentur” by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) and “Timor et tremor” by Orlando di Lasso (c. 1532-1594). The famous “Miserere mei, Deus” by Gregorio Allegri made it possible to incorporate some of the acoustical possibilities of the Grand Hall of the Conservatory into its performance.
Part of Sweelinck’s standing amongst the musicians of his time was not only as a composer, but also as a teacher: the “creator of Hamburg organists” was how he was dubbed by the famous 18th century musician, Johann Mattheson. The second half of the concert is opened by the Magnificat on the fifth tone by Hieronymous Praetorius (1560-1629), whose two sons, Jacob and Johann, were pupils of Sweelinck and became outstanding organists. It is also likely that Johann Stobaeus, the cantor of Koenigsberg, for whose wedding in 1617 Sweelinck wrote his motet “Diligam te, Domine” (SwWV 191), was also a pupil of the composer. As well as writing for the keyboard, Sweelinck was an exceptionally prolific composer of choral music, in particular setting the entire Geneva Psalter in French. Our concert finishes with Psalm 33 (the 32nd in the Russian numeration of the Book of Psalms) from this cycle – “Rejoice, O ye Righteous, in the Lord” (SwWV 33).
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562 – 1621)
1. Hodie Christus natus est from Cantiones sacrae, SwWV 163
Peter Philips (c. 1560/61 – 1628)
2. Ascendit Deus
3. Аve verum corpus
William Byrd (c. 1540/43 – 1623)
4. Аve verum corpus
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 – 1594)
5. Dum complerentur
Gregorio Allegri (1582 – 1652)
6. Miserere mei, Deus
Hieronymus Praetorius (1560 – 1629)
7. Magnificat Quinti Toni
Orlande de Lassus (c. 1532 – 1594)
8. Timor et tremor
Peter Philips (c. 1560/61 – 1628)
9. Ave Jesu Christe
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562 – 1621)
10. Ab oriente venerunt magi from Cantiones sacrae, SwWV 153
11. Diligam te Domine, SwWV 191
12. Réveillez-vous, chacun fidèle (Psalm 33) from Livre second des Psaumes de David, SwWV 33
Artistic Director Ekaterina Antonenko
Conductors: Peter Phillips (1–7, 9–14), Ekaterina Antonenko (8)
Soloists:
Maria Grigorieva, soprano (8)
Lyubov Temnova, soprano (8)
Ekaterina Kolomina, mezzo-soprano (8)
Ivan Derevnin, tenor (8, 9)
Nikolay Basov, bass (8)
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