The Seasons (2CD)

Detailní popis produktu

Emma Kirkby / Tim Mead / Hans Jörg Mammel / Markus Simon
Musica Franconia Festival Choir / La Banda / Wolfgang Riedelbauch

Already 60 years before Joseph Haydn, the German composer John Christopher Smith wrote an oratorio about the seasons that was also based on the epic poem quot;The Seasonsquot; by the Scottish poet James Thomson. Smith was born in 1712 in Ansbach as Johann Christoph Schmidt and emigrated with his parents to London, for his father worked as a manager and copyist for George Frederic Handel. Young Smith received his first instruction from the master personally and later became Handel's closest working associate. He helped Handel with his composing and, when his mentor became blind, he directed performances of his oratorios. But Smith himself was also a recognised composer who was quot;highly appreciated by many of the 'first heads' in the Kingdomquot;, as the English music scholar Charles Burney reported.
His oratorio about the seasons is an imaginative tone painting in a style which extends beyond the baroque, already introducing elements of the Empfindsamer Stil (Sensitive Style). In particular, Smith's colourful representations of nature - ranging from birdsong and the undulations of the forest to icy winter storms - are very successfully realised. They show that he was far more than just Handel's assistant.

Disc 1
The Seasons (Oratorium) (Gesamtaufnahme)
Smith, John Christopher
raquo; Sinfonia 2:53	play
raquo; Larghetto 3:00	play
raquo; Chor: The seasons, as they change 3:41	play
raquo; Sinfonia: The Spring 3:55	play
raquo; Rezitativ: Forth in the pleasing spring 0:13	play
raquo; Arie: Wide glow the fields 4:02	play
raquo; Pastorale: Summer 1:29	play
raquo; Rezitativ: Then comes thy glory 0:23	play
raquo; Arie: And of thy voice 5:17	play
raquo; Sinfonia: Autumn 1:39	play
raquo; Rezitativ: A yellow floating pomp 0:12	play
raquo; Aria: Thrown from thy lap 4:49	play
raquo; Aria: In winter deadful Thou 1:42	play
raquo; Arie: On the whirlwinds' wing 2:38	play
raquo; Chor: Mysterous round 3:40	play
Disc 2
raquo; Chor: Nature, attend 3:31	play
raquo; Arie: To him, ya gales 3:19	play
raquo; Chor: Oh talk of him in solitary glooms 2:01	play
raquo; Accompagnato: And ye, whose bolder note 0:49	play
raquo; Arie: His praise, ye brooks, attune 2:25	play
raquo; Trio 2:02	play
raquo; Chor: Ya headlong torrents 1:24	play
raquo; Rezitativ: Roll up your incense 0:25	play
raquo; Arie: Ye forests bend 3:57	play
raquo; Rezitativ 0:19	play
raquo; Arie: Ye that keep watch in heaven 7:55	play
raquo; Accompagnato: Great sourcew of day 0:27	play
raquo; Duett: The thunder rolls 5:05	play
raquo; Rezitativ: Bleat out afresh 0:41	play
raquo; Arie: For the great shepherd reigns 5:02	play
raquo; Accompagnato: Ye woodlands all, awake 0:57	play
raquo; Arie: Sweetest of birds 8:49	play
raquo; Rezitativ: Ye chief 0:18	play
raquo; Chor: Crown the great hymn 4:03	play