FISCHER, J.C.F.: Sacred Music – Hlavenkova, Eibenova, Forster SUPRAPHON

We are releasing the world premiere recording of sacred music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (1656-1746), an important representative of the Czech Baroque in music. His name is no surprise or mystery for listeners from the Czech Republic or elsewhere: all textbooks give Fischer credit, for example, for the collection of organ fugues titled Ariadne musica in twenty-four keys which he wrote twenty years before Bach’s famous work Das wohltemperierte Klavier! Many of Fischer’s highly-sophisticated sacred works have been preserved in the archive of the Order of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in Prague. From this unique manuscript collection we have prepared a recording of works written on commission for the Order – O Crux venerabilis, Concertus de Sancta Cruce, Offertorium de Dedicatione Templi, and Missa Inventionis Sanctae Crucis – rendered by the first-class orchestra Musica Florea – the current Czech “pinnacle” in the field of early music – together with the boys’ choir Boni Pueri of Hradec Králové and five soloists headed by the outstanding Austrian countertenor Markus Forster.’

Concertus de Sancta Cruce

O Crux Venerabilis

Offertiorium de Dedicatione Templi

Missa Inventionis Sanctae Crucis

• I. Kyrie
• II. Gloria
• III. Credo
• IV. Sinfonia. Adagio – Presto – Adagio (coro tacet)
• V. Sanctus (attacca) VI. Benedictus VII. Agnus Dei