Mozart: Scande caeli limina

Elizabeth Tait, soprano solo

Renée Rybolt & Elizabeth Tait, soprano
Douglas Dodson & Michael Skarke, alto
Stephen Ash & Jesús Guillermo Bravo, tenor
Joel P. Williams & Chris Besch, bass

Manami Mizumoto, concert master
Maria Lin, violin II
Aaron Westman, viola
Adam Young, cello
John Stajduhar, bass
Casey Goldman & McKenna Hill, natural trumpet
Craig Hauschildt, timpani
Bryan Anderson, organ

Mario Aschauer, artistic director

Schütz: Musicalische Exequien

Heinrich Schütz was arguably the most important German composer before Bach and leading figure in the compositional development of the Early Baroque. On the occasion of the 350th anniversary of his death, Harmonia Stellarum Houston presented one of his most popular masterworks, the Musicalische Exequien. Henry II, Count of Reuss-Gera, carefully compiled a selection of biblical extracts which he commissioned Schütz to set to music for his own funeral. The skill and refinement with which Schütz juxtaposes passages in the old (“contrapuntal”) and new (“operatic”) style and the emotional precision of his response to the text results in a profound and moving masterwork that appropriately constitutes the first German Requiem in music history. Here the first movement.

Perhaps the earliest music for clarinet ever written!

A manuscript in the Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna contains what are perhaps the earliest sonatas for clarinet—or, more accurately, it’s predecessor the chalumeau. Harmonia Stellarum has recently recorded the sonatas and they should be published later in 2022. Here’s a sneak peak into the recording session.

F. M. Veracini (?): Sonata in B-flat Major, 4th movement (Allegro)

Ernst Schlader, chalumeau
Eric Smith, cello
Mario Aschauer, harpsichord