J.S. Bach / Erny - Passio

Composers throughout the history of music have been inspired by Passiontide- a time of calm and expectation. The new album by the Zurich Chamber Singers is dedicated to this beautiful repertoire, combining Passiontide and funeral music of the English and German Renaissance and Baroque with the newly commissioned piece 'De profundis' by the American composer Kevin Hartnett. Henry Purcell composed 'Funeral Sentences' in 1694 as three burial anthems from earlier drafts. These were performed as part of the royal funeral of Queen Mary II in the same year. All three are settings of texts from the funeral rites of the Book of Common Prayer. Not enough information survives about Bach's 'Jesu, meine Freude' to know whether it was indeed a particular funeral for which this motet was written; yet it has many features of German funeral music of that time. It's eleven sections are organized by choral settings of the hymn "Jesu, meine Freude" over a sacred poem by Johann Cruger. Kevin Hartnett's piece 'De profundis' was written as a commission from the Zurich Chamber Singers and was first performed in 2016 in the chapel adjoining the Grossmunster church in Zurich. The text is taken from the seven penitential psalms, which are featured prominently in the liturgy of Holy Week.