Alongside Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach Andreas Hammerschmidt is one of the most significant and popular composers of sacred music in 17th century Germany. Hammerschmidt wrote motets, concertos and arias, and almost all of his output is sacred vocal music in the concertato style. Many of his compositions are in the form of the chorale monody, an adaptation of the early Baroque Italian form for a sacred, and specifically Protestant, purpose.

Hammerschmidt belonged to those who distilled a native German Baroque tradition out of forms and styles imported from Italy. While his motets represent a more conservative style, his concertos – concertato pieces with opposing groups of voices and instruments – are written in a current idiom. This CD presents an anthology of sacred, secular and instrumental works, partially recorded for the first time. In this way the wide range and the extraordinarily high quality of Hammerschmidt’s oeuvre is outlined.