Vox Mago Special

Patrick Debrabandere conducts the Vox Mago chamber choir in the second edition of their program In Tempus Adventus, recorded in 2019 at the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Presentatiekerk, in Ghent, Belgium. The concert highlights three baroque composers and consists of works composed between 1719 and 1726. It opens with the cantata "Machet die Tore weit" (1719) by G. P. Telemann, composed for the first week of advent commissioned by the court of Saksen-Eisenach. The choir continues with J. D. Zelenka's (the "Bohemian Bach") Magnificat, composed in 1725. It proceeds with J. S. Bach's choral cantata "Meine Seel erhebt den Herr" (BWV 10), which was written at the time Bach already took his position as cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. The concert concludes with the festive Dixit Dominus by Zelenka.

Patrick Debrabandere conducts the Vox Mago chamber choir in a performance of J. D. Heinichen's Magnificat in A. This performance is part of the concert program In Tempus Adventus, consisting of three beautiful baroque cantatas. Recorded in December 2018 in Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Presentatiekerk, Ghent, Belgium. The Magnificat has a typical baroque sound, with a string section, basso continuo, and two oboe parts.

Patrick Debrabandere conducts the Vox Mago chamber choir in a performance of Christoph Graupner's (1683-1760) cantata Magnificat anima mea. This performance is part of the concert program In Tempus Adventus, consisting of three beautiful baroque cantatas, recorded in December 2018 in Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Presentatiekerk, Ghent in Belgium. This festive cantata was composed for Christmas in 1722. Graupner was a very prolific composer, with one of the largest oeuvres in the classical music history. He befriended composers like Händel and Matheson and even was chosen over Johann Sebastian Bach as the new cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, but his employer Ernst Ludwig I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen decided otherwise and still wished to keep Graupner as court composer.

The name of Carl Gottlieb Reissiger (1798-1859), a contemporary of Richard Wagner’s, seems to have been forgotten. Fortunately, the Belgian chamber choir Vox Mago remedies this: it performs Reissiger’s only oratorio, ‘David’ (1851). The work is based on the Bible, but Reissiger’s ‘David’ is not the Biblical king of Judah. The comforting choirs in this oratorio soothe David, who bemoans his own mistakes as well as the death of his predecessor. Reissiger’s ‘David’ follows the model of Beethoven’s ‘Christus am Ölberge’, Op. 85, which was at the root of the 19th-century Romantic oratorio tradition. As in Beethoven’s composition, the role of ‘David’ is sung by a tenor, whose solos alternate between despair and calm determination. Beethoven and Reissiger both use fugues as conclusion for the choral parts of their compositions.