For music on either side of the year 1700, recording catalogs and history books have focused on Italy and on the North German traditions that led to J.S. Bach. But the various establishments maintained in Germany by the so-called Electors of the Holy Roman Empire had their own musical traditions. The court of the Elector Palatine at Düsseldorf was among the most sumptuous, and apparently Bach himself, who copied out the gorgeous Mass in G minor of Johann Hugo von Wilderer that opens the disc (there are only a Kyrie and Gloria, or at least that's all Bach needed), kept tabs on the music there. The Jan Wellem named on the cover was the Elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz-Neuburg himself; Jan Wellem was the Low German version of the name (which may or may not be apparent to listeners outside the German sphere; it is not explained anywhere). The two composers represented were Wilderer, an organist who became the court kapellmeister, and Carlo Pietro Grua, a singer/composer. Works by the two composers alternate on the program, but the mix of styles represented is common to both. It includes polyphony in modified Renaissance style (Wilderer's Custodi me, track 12, is a beautiful example), with orchestral strings merely doubling lower voices and thus giving polyphonic texture a bit of a harmonic basis, formal liturgical pieces like Wilderer's mass, sacred concertos with solo voices expounding on subtle religious issues, and pieces for splendid occasions like the final Te Deum of Wilderer, which features an orchestra like the one that attended the coronation of Charles VI as emperor and included 53 players. It makes for a varied and attractive program, smoothly executed by the home-team
Norddeutscher Figuralchor and
Neue Düsseldorfer Hofmusik under
Jörg Straube; if there's a weakness here it's the plodding quality of the soloist ensembles. Recommended for serious Baroque enthusiasts, who will have heard little of this music.