Free Postage! Schutz: The Christmas Story. CD.

Free Postage! Schutz: The Christmas Story. CD.

Four Christmas motets by Giovanni Gabrieli; another strong point in its favour was that the performance was by the King’s Consort, who always perform this type of period music so beautifully.

Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) was an important German composer, who was also influenced, as many of his contemporaries were to be, by Italian music. In fact, Schütz studied with Gabireli for three years in Venice, after being given a grant by the Landgrave of Moritz. When Gabrieli died in 1612 Schütz returned to Germany and was appointed Kappelmeister at the court of the Elector of Saxony. Schütz was to return for a visit to Venice in 1628, as the Thirty Years War began to bite in Saxony. It was not until 1657 that Schütz was allowed, by a new Elector, to retire from most of his duties in Saxony, and so it was an elderly composer who wrote The Christmas Story, his ‘Historia der … Geburth … Jesu Christi’ (SWV435) in 1660, where it is thought to have been performed at the Court that year.