The 17th and early 18th centuries were high times in literature and music for the production of occasional works. Johann Crüger (1598-1662), cantor at St. Nikolai in Berlin from 1622, municipal music director and teacher at the local Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, also played his part in the flood of casually composed music in bourgeois Berlin/Cölln in the 17th century - consisting mainly of wedding congratulations (Epithalamia) and funeral carmina (Epicedia). Two eight-part vocal works for weddings, which the grammar school pupil had printed by Runge in Berlin in 1619 and 1620, seem like a worthy portal to Crüger's life's work. The two motets, each lasting around five minutes, captivate the listener with their perfect mastery of the eight-part movement and their simultaneous abundance of imitations and constrictions. In contrast to Crüger's German Magnificat settings of 1626, the polyphonic sections also occupy a relatively larger space. The proportion of block-like alternation according to the principle of Venetian polyphony and the imitative sections are pleasantly balanced.
om314/2 (choir reduction) ISMN 979-0-502342-36-4
