Matteo Messori - Kerll - Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

The first complete collection on record of the keyboard works by an organ virtuoso of 17th-century Austria and a notable forerunner of J.S. Bach.

The sacred vocal music of Johann Caspar Kerll (1627-1693) has attracted its fair share of attention, with recent recordings devoted to his Masses and the Requiem he composed in 1669 while still a court musician in his home city of Munich. However, during his lifetime Kerll was known above all as a superb organist. Having composed a Mass for the coronation of Leopold I in 1658, he was furnished with the subject for an improvisation by none other than emperor himself, and Kerll’s astonishing invention became the stuff of legend, being recalled in 1740 by the theorist Johann Mattheson, in an age long before the testamentary value of recordings.

Kerll’s original compositions retain the freshness and vitality of his performances, as later composers recognised. Handel adapted the entire fourth Canzona for the chorus ‘Egypt was glad when they departed’ in for Israel in Egypt and used part of the cheeky Capriccio Sopra il Cucu in the second movement of an organ concerto. His masterpiece is the Modulatio organica, which contains some of the finest contrapuntal writing for organ before J.S. Bach. It was composed in 1679 in response to the plague of Vienna, which claimed thousands of victims including the composer’s wife; with eight sets of organ versets to be played in alternation with sung verses of the Magnificat, Kerll assembled a work whose comprehensive mastery of technique anticipates The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Receiving its first complete recording, the Modulatio organica occupies the last CD of this invaluable guide to the landscape of Austro-German music in the generations before Bach.

TRACKLIST

01. Matteo Messori - Toccata Prima
02. Matteo Messori - Toccata Seconda
03. Matteo Messori - Toccata Terza
04. Matteo Messori - Toccata Quarta
05. Matteo Messori - Toccata Quinta
06. Matteo Messori - Toccata Sesta
07. Matteo Messori - Toccata Settima
08. Matteo Messori - Toccata Ottava
09. Matteo Messori - Canzone Prima
10. Matteo Messori - Canzone Seconda
11. Matteo Messori - Canzone Terza
12. Matteo Messori - Canzone Quarta
13. Matteo Messori - Canzone Quinta
14. Matteo Messori - Canzone Sesta
15. Matteo Messori - Ciaccona
16. Matteo Messori - Passacaglia
17. Matteo Messori - Capriccio Sopra Il Cucu
18. Matteo Messori - Battaglia
19. Matteo Messori - Suite in D Major: I. Allamande
20. Matteo Messori - Suite in D Major: II. Courante
21. Matteo Messori - Suite in D Major: III. Sarabande
22. Matteo Messori - Suite in D Major: IV. Gigue
23. Matteo Messori - Suite in F Major: I. Allamande
24. Matteo Messori - Suite in F Major: II. Courante
25. Matteo Messori - Suite in F Major: III. Sarabande
26. Matteo Messori - Suite in F Major: IV. Gigue
27. Matteo Messori - Suite in A Minor: I. Allamande - Partita
28. Matteo Messori - Suite in A Minor: II. Courante - Partita
29. Matteo Messori - Suite in A Minor: III. Sarabande - Partita
30. Matteo Messori - Suite in G Major: I. Allamande - Partita
31. Matteo Messori - Suite in G Major: II. Courante - Partita
32. Matteo Messori - Suite in G Major: III. Sarabande - Partita
33. Matteo Messori - Rycercata in Cylindrum Phonotacticum Transferenda
34. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: I. Magnificat Primi Toni
35. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: II. Magnificat Secundi Toni
36. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: III. Magnificat Tertii Toni
37. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: IV. Magnificat Quarti Toni
38. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: V. Magnificat Quinti Toni
39. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: Vi. Magnificat Sexti Toni
40. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: VII. Magnificat Septimi Toni
41. Matteo Messori - Modulatio Organica: VIII. Magnificat Octavi Toni



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