Anyone who loves the motets of J.S. Bach will find an immediate appreciation for these works by Dresden-based composer/organist Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785). And through the vibrant, rich-textured, clear-toned singing of the Stuttgart Chamber Choir, listeners will experience these pieces--recorded for the first time, in absolutely ideal sound, from a newly published complete edition--in performances that are as finely polished technically as they are interpretively impassioned and faithful to critical stylistic concerns. This last pertains to the clarity and balance of the often swiftly changing, colorful harmony in this predominantly homophonic music, and also to the important aspects of syllabic emphasis at strong or weak places in words or phrases.

Although the music is quite different in structure from Bach's works in the genre, it nevertheless shares a common spirit born of similar harmonic choices and functions, the special use of dissonance, and in attention to particular words and their emphasis through rhythmic and/or harmonic means, which illustrates why it's so important for performers to understand and execute the music with appropriate articulation and energy, as these Stuttgart singers flawlessly do.

As you listen you can't help but believe that during his tenure in Leipzig (his early 20s), Homilius not only learned a great deal about compositional technique as a pupil of Bach, but also listened very carefully to the sounds, textures, and voicings of his teacher's choral works. From 1742 he was in Dresden, eventually taking over responsibilities for the music at the three main Dresden churches, for which he produced a substantial body of sacred compositions for both organ and choir. Whatever the source of his compositional voice and style, Homilius learned much from Bach about musical word and mood painting--just listen to the way he contrasts the "tears" and "weeping" music with that of "joy" in the motet Die mit Tränen säen, such that we get a clear sense of the nature of the text without reading the words. Homilius creates drama in Herr, lehre uns bedenken worthy of Bach's more exciting passages in the Passions.

And if that's not enough, the masterful integration of melody and harmonic progression in Selig sind die Toten (not to mention the striking contrasts of color Homilius achieves with the simplest basic chordal structures) suggests the sort of ideas Brahms used in his own motets more than a century later. The same is true for both Sehet, welch eine Liebe and Siehe, das ist Gottes Lamm. But the inventive melodic/harmonic turns and exciting mood swings in Die mit Tränen säen are quite unlike anyone else's work, and it would be difficult to find a choral setting anywhere that more tenderly and beautifully expresses its text than Die richtig für sich gewandelt haben, kommen zum Frieden (Those who have turned aright come to peace). And speaking of originality, So gehst du nun, mein Jesu, hin (So go you now forth, my Jesus), with its poignant harmonies, delicate variations in texture, and subtle yet dramatic expressive effects shows without question why Homilius stands apart from most other composers of his time and place.

It would be easy to go on to mention the special aspects of each of these 17 pieces, about Homilius' consistent, distinctly different treatment of joyful texts versus more somber, sorrowful ones, or about his extraordinary setting of Unser Vater in dem Himmel (Our Father, which art in heaven)--but why hold you up any longer when what you should be doing is listening (and perhaps sending the folks at Carus an email demanding more Homilius!)? [12/10/2004]

--David Vernier