Graupner: Christmas Cantatas

Fieri Consort and Camerata Øresund meet in a Christmas programme devoted to Christoph Graupner (1683–1760), a composer whose music has been recorded very little. As Florian Heyerick’s liner essay explains, Graupner was the best-paid court music director of his day. He worked in Darmstadt for almost fifty years, even though he had been a candidate for Bach’s later post in Leipzig, because the Landgrave refused to let him leave. Almost his entire output survives in manuscript, including 1,418 church cantatas, a number surpassed only by Telemann. This album samples three periods of his writing for the church year, alongside orchestral and concerto music that reflect the court’s taste for French overtures and Italian concertos.

The cantatas include Jauchze, du Tochter Zion (1724), a joyful Advent cry for tenor that celebrates the coming light, Wie bald hast du gelitten (1714), a short, haunting chorale motet in the “old” style of his Leipzig teachers, and Schuldige sie, Gott (1750), written for St Stephen’s Day near the end of his career, with arias that contrast revenge and shelter. The Ouverture in B-flat major, GWV 479, with its series of fresh and varied airs, shows Graupner’s role in the late Baroque orchestral suite, and the Concerto for Two Violins in G minor, GWV 334, is a bravura example of the Italian style. The two ensembles met at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in 2019 and returned to the idea of a Christmas project in 2022. Recorded at Christianskirken in Copenhagen, the album is a warm introduction to a composer who deserves to be better known.

Fieri Consort
Camerata Øresund
Peter Spissky, violin and direction