17th-Century Sacred Music in Wrocław

The result of a unique collaboration between the Gli Angeli Genève vocal ensemble, the Concerto Palatino ensemble of early wind instruments and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra playing period instruments. The album contains music from 17th-century Wrocław, one of the most important musical centres in Europe at that time.

Album premiere: 2018

Publishers: Claves Records

Conductor: Stephan MacLeod

Performers: Gli Angeli Genève, Concerto Palatino, Wrocław Baroque Orchestra

“Seventeenth-century Wrocław was one of the most important musical centres in Europe. Extensive music libraries were created in the city’s three main Protestant churches: St. Elizabeth, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Bernardine. Their repertoire was shaped by prints from both German and Italian publishing houses, as well as compositions by local cantors or organists employed in church ensembles. A separate collection of almost four hundred musical prints from 1610–1665 remained in private hands for most of the century. Its initiator was probably Ambrosius Profe, organist of the church of St. Elizabeth in the years 1633–1649, and the next owner was Daniel Sartorius, a teacher at the junior high school by this church. After his death in 1671, this collection was incorporated into the Bibliotheca Rhedigeriana – a collection of rare manuscripts, prints, paintings, sculptures, coins and minerals gathered by the Wrocław patrician Thomas Rhediger (1540–1576), deposited in the room above the sacristy of the church of St. Elizabeth, donated to the city in 1645 and made available to the public in 1661. All these musical collections were incorporated into the newly founded Stadtbibliothek in the years 1865–1867. Taken out of the city during World War II, they were dispersed after 1945. Most of the music prints returned to Wrocław, but some have not been found to this day. Numerous manuscripts were considered lost until the late 1980s, when their presence was discovered in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek; they came there from Moscow, where some items from the former Wrocław library still remain. Trying to outline the panorama of sacred music in 17th-century Wrocław, we present compositions from four different collections, most of them unique works preserved only in collections of Wrocław provenance. These are works by Italian, German (including local Wrocław) and Polish composers from the years 1608–1676, testifying to the city’s broad musical horizons and constituting a meaningful testimony to its former artistic splendour.”

Marcin Szelest

Awards: International Classical Music Award 2019 in the Baroque Vocal category, La Clef Du Mois – album of the month (June) in ResMusica magazine, Superconic distinction awarded by Pizzicato magazine