Schütz complete recording

The complete recording of his work creates an important monument in sound to Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), the first German composer of international repute! Hans-Christoph Rademann and the Dresdner Kammerchor have completed the first recording of Schütz’s entire multifaceted oeuvre in 20 episodes on altogether 27 CDs.

The Complete Recording has received various awards. In 2020 it was named “Outstanding Editorial Achievement of the Year” by Opus Klassik. In 2019 the recording of the St John Passion was honored with the German Record Critics’ Annual Award as representative of the Complete Schütz Recording project.

The ambitious project of a complete Schütz recording began in 2009 as part of an intensive cooperation between Prof. Hans-Christoph Rademann and the Carus publishers Günter and Dr. Johannes Graulich. It was based on the musicological text of the Stuttgart Schütz Edition, Carus-Verlag’s complete edition. In the following years, the recording was prepared in close cooperation with many Schütz specialists, such as Prof. Werner Breig, Prof. Michael Heinemann, Ludger Rémy, Dr. Uwe Wolf and Dr. Helmut Lauterwasser. The final CD – Vol. 20,Friedensmusiken und Psalmen (Carus 83.278) – has now been released. For the first time, Schütz’s wonderful music can be experienced entirely in all its many facets in an excellent recording.

Prof. Hans-Christoph Rademann on the recording: “I feel deeply grateful that we were able to master such a large project. Furthermore, I feel enormously enriched – and all musicians would surely feel the same – because Schütz’s music testifies to the greatest mastery. The term ‘father of German music’ is absolutely justified. Schütz is able to express an enormous amount with his music; he is, so to speak, an ‘illuminator’ of the word – with powerful musical images. Painting and music move very close together, one learns to see with one’s ears, so to speak.”