Jan Dismas Zelenka: Solo Motets

opis:
Editor's info:
Jan Dismas Zelenka is a signifi cant but frequently neglected eighteenth century composer who received his musical training in Prague and was active from around 1710 at the court of August Elector of Saxony in Dresden where he was primarily responsible for church music at court, but also composed secular instrumental works. He was universally admired in his time and is today steadily regaining his well deserved reputation. His music displays a wide emotional spectrum ranging from contemplation to triumphant ecstasy to an equal degree in his vocal works and textless instrumental music. The accomplished young British countertenor Alex Potter succeeds in displaying this wide emotional range in selected works for alto solo: he dazzles with astounding virtuosity in the motet Barbara, dira effera and soars in tender arcs of tension in his performance of the Christe eleison from a late unfi nished mass by Zelenka. Alex Potter was a choirboy at Southwark Cathedral in London and subsequently Choral Scholar at New College in Oxford before continuing his studies in ancient music with Gerd Türk and Evelyn Tubb at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He now works regularly with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Frieder Bernius and Roland Wilson. On the current CD he is accompanied with consummate sensitivity by the Capriccio Barockorchester from Basel who also round off this recording with several of Zelenka's instrumental works.