Ricercar Consort - Philippe Pierlot

Organist and composer Matthias Weckmann (1619-1674) was one of the best students of Heinrich Schütz and was given a thorough and broad instruction. In 1630 Weckmann became choirboy at the Court chapel of Dresden, which was under the direction of Schütz. Weckmann followed him to Hamburg in 1633, where he lived for the remainder of his life, contributing widely to the musical scene of North and Central Germany. Just like his teacher, Weckmann was sensitive to the use of the musical vocabulary. He had a strong preference for dissonance. This seemed justified by the logic of polyphonic composition, as evident in 'Amen' of 'Weine nicht, es hat überwunden'. Just as Schütz's work reveals the personal experience of the misery of the Thirty Years War, Weckmann's compositions also are documents of the chaotic circumstances of these times. Little of his oeuvre has, alas, been preserved. Most of the music that remains dates from the 1660s. This also holds true for a collection of autographs from 1663, which deal with the composition of religious work: it includes clear alludions to the terrible plague of that year, an epidemic which decimated the population of Hamburg and also took the life of many of Weckmann's colleagues.