JOHANN ROSENMÜLLER Weihnachtshistorie (Christmas History) Cantus Cölln, Concerto Palatino, Konrad Junghänel

Belonging to the same tradition as the celebrated Weihnachtshistorie of his teacher Schütz, these sacred concertos by Rosenmüller date from the period 1645-50, when the young composer was enjoying a rapid rise to eminence in the good city of Leipzig. Long before his enforced exile in Venice for ‘unnatural vice’, a typically Italian suavity is already clearly perceptible all through these remarkable settings of St Luke’s account of the Nativity. Cantus Cölln returns here to its favourite repertoire, eight years after a first release devoted to the same composer’s Vesper music.