SKU: CA.204110
ISBN 9790007074272.
The six collections of Vierstimmige Motetten und Arien published by Johann Adam Hiller offer a selection of motets, mostly from the second half of the 18th century. They show us the products of a new age of achievement in which the motet was again able to flourish after this genre had led only a shadowlike existence for more than a century. The editor of those collections, Johann Adam Hiller, was active as a composer of Singspie, editor of various musical periodicals, leader of the Gewandhaus concerts, University Director of Music, musical director of the Neukirche, and finally, from 1789, Thomaskantor in Leipzig. Upon Hiller's assumption of the office of Thomaskantor the older motets were replaced in Leipzig church services by contemporary compositions. Printed texts which have been preserved show that Hiller's collections were used widely. A Critical Report from the editor, Uwe Wolf, with additional information concerning the motets and their composers, will be published to cover all the collections.
SKU: CA.204140
ISBN 9790007095628.
The fourth volume of Johann Adam Hiller's editions of motets and arias continues where the previous volumes left off, with further motets by Graun, Hiller, Homilius and Rolle. Once again the motets of Theodor Christlieb Reinhold are represented. Reinhold was Kantor at the Dresden Kreuzkirche during the time Bach was Thomaskantor in Leipzig. This volume concludes with four senstive choral arias by the early Bach admirer Christian Friedrich Penzel after psalm texts which appeared at that time as poetic translations by Johann Andreas Cramer.
SKU: CA.204150
ISBN 9790007096083.
Part 5 of the collections of four-voiced motets and arias published by Johann Adam Hiller represents a continuation of the previous volumes: It contains works by two great master of the motet, Homilius and Rolle, as well as, for the first time, motets by Neefe (known as Beethoven's teacher), the Kantor from Merseburg, Johann Gottfried Weiske, and by Johann Weilhelm Hasler, a composer and organist born in Erfurt.
SKU: CA.204160
ISBN 9790007096090.
The final part from 1791 took on a new direction, as was reflected in the formulation of the title: Four-part Latin and German choral settings for use by choirs in churches and schools. The first part, or the motet collection, part VI, from Johann Adam Hiller, Ducal Music Director of Kurland, Cantor of St. Thomas School and Music Director of both of the main churches in Leipzig. (additional parts were not published). The volume precedes a foreword, in which Hiller relates why he composed and published the present pieces. Of special interest is the great amount of information about church music and liturgical practice of this time, which he in part could shape, but in the face of whose traditions he also sometimes felt powerless. So this foreword belongs among the most important documents on the living practice of Protestant church music in the last years of the 18th century.
SKU: CA.204130
ISBN 9790007095116.
In his six-volume collection Motetten und Chorarien (1779) Johann Adam Hiller compiled the works of his fellow composers in six volumes and published them himself. The third volume of this collection contains compositions of the master motet composers, Homilius and Rolle, as well as works by Graun, Caldara, Fehre, Tag and Hiller. The motet by Caldara, a Latin composition for three lower voices and basso continuo, is in many respects out of place.
