Cantus Thuringia

Melchior Franck: Geistliche Gesäng Und Melodeyen Cantus Thuringia

Melchior Franck (1579-1639) was often named as the most important composer of his time, alongside Praetorius, Schütz, Schein and Scheidt. However, little is known about Melchior Franck's early life. Born around 1580 (presumably in Zittau), he went to Gymnasium in Augsburg and became court conductor to Duke Johann Casimir of Saxe-Coburg in 1602, where he lived and died in 1639. He wrote over a thousand works and it is a surprise that 100 years after his death he was forgotten and his work was not rediscovered before the end of the 19th century.

His work Geistliche Gesäng und Melodeyen (1608) stands at an important place in the history of the Biblical motet, or Spruchmotette, the genre which dominated German sacred music during the early Baroque. This album features most of the motets from this work. Together with the Lachrimae Consort Weimar and under the direction of Christoph Dittmar, Cantus Thuringia & Capella have recorded the 19 of a total of 24 motets from Franck's "Geistliche Gesäng und Melodeyen". Franck was the most prolific composer of Spruchmotetten and he worked during the period of their greatest flourishing. This collection is his first to use German texts and the largest German collection of wedding motets of its era. Most of the motets here set passages from the Song of Solomon, a traditional source for wedding texts; several texts from other Biblical sources appear as well. Although these motets date from fairly early in Franck's career, they exemplify his style at the level of its greatest intricacy and complexity. Although there were a great many settings of texts from the Song of Solomon throughout the Renaissance and early Baroque by composers such as Palestrina, Lassus or Schütz, collections focused so strongly on these texts were rare. Franck's elaborate and virtuosic settings here are unsurpassed in imagination, drama, and emotional intensity - a collection worth discovering, in which numerous vivid musical images can be found.