San Marco in Hamburg

The title San Marco in Hamburg refers to the style of this group of Latin otets, composed by Hieronymus Praetorius and published between 1599 and 1625: Hamburg had several churches that were large enough to accommodate the polychoral style of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, developed at Venice's St. Mark's cathedral, and that style had become known by this time even as far north as Hamburg. These otets, in Latin (German came for the most part later), aren't really precursors to Schütz's dramatic reimaginings of the polychoral style in terms of Lutheran directness. They lie between enaissance and aroque, with generally polyphonic textures intensified by changes in texture rather than affective word-painting. The historically informed accompaniment by the north German ensemble Weser-Renaissance consists of brasses and strings. The period trombones and cornett are played with an impressive smoothness, at a low enough dynamic level that they don't overwhelm the rest of the ensemble. The group's one voice per part performance practice nevertheless has a strange effect in this ambitiously sized music. Especially in the murky sonic surroundings of a church in the Saxon town of Bassum, the voices just aren't the dominant forces in the music. Instead, they seem to be peeking around the corners of the instrumental lines. There is doubtless evidence for the one-voice-per-part practice, and there are intimate pieces of seventeenth century acred music in which it can work beautifully. But evidence of the existence of this practice does not constitute evidence that it was always, or ever, a sound ideal, and in this music it yields less-than-ideal results. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide