Search - Miriam Feuersinger, Capricornus Consort Basel :: Herzens-Lieder

Herzens-Lieder, Songs of the Heart this title would certainly have appealed to the two librettists and four composers featured upon this CD. Presumably they would not have had any problem referring to their cantatas simply as Lieder, songs. Their main concern was singing mit Herz und Mund, with heart and mouth, accompanied by instruments. The text Mein Herz schwimmt in Blut (My heart swims in blood), set by both Graupner and Bach, is written by Georg Christian Lehms (1684-1717). In the preface to this work, the poet expresses his hope that composers will set his cantatas to music in such a manner that not only the harmony of the instruments is heard, but that the heart is revived through the power of the sung words. The composers featured on this CD would have agreed wholeheartedly with his musical and spiritual aim of refreshing and reviving the heart through word and sound. In terms of music and church history, they all Johann Kuhnau, Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner, and Johann Sebastian Bach form part of the Lutheran church choir tradition. The vocal soloist of this recording is the Austrian soprano Miriam Feuersinger, Echo award winner in 2014 for her recording of cantatas by Graupner (CHR 77381). She has played with renowned musicians such as Rudolf Lutz, Ton Koopman, Václav Luks, and Peter Kooij and with baroque ensembles such as the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, La Cetra, Collegium 1704, Capricornus Consort Basel, and LArpa Festante, to name but a few.