Product Review

The Cologne Academy led by Michael Alexander Willens present on CD the first of Johann Wilhelm Hertel's ten fully dimensioned sacred passion cantatas, Der sterbende Heiland (The Dying Savior) of 1764. The musical style of Hertel's cantata is distinguished, first, by a strong affinity to baroque tone painting, and, second, by unconventionality and impulsiveness in the harmonic sphere. Johann Friedrich Loewen, the librettist, rher educed the passion narrative to its most highly affective moments.