Passion |Vienna Vocal Consort

‘We want more!’, critics rejoiced after the Vienna Vocal Consort’s release of Byrd. Certainly! Now, the Vienna-based vocal ensemble presents its second production with klanglogo: Passion shows Joachim von Burck as a blazing pioneer of Protestant church music. Joachim von Burck (1546-1610) is the Great Unknown among the musical trend setters of the post-Reformation period: as Johann Sebastian Bach’s predecessor at the church of St Blasius in Mühlhausen, he became a pioneer and trailblazer of Lutheran church music. A comprehensively educated autodidact composer, he was at the forefront of the developments of his day: he took up recent techniques in his works in order to use them for new modes of expression. A fascinating witness of transition. Burck’s ‘Deutsche Passion’ is, in all likelihood, history’s first musical setting of the Passion in the German language. Recorded alongside the ‘Passio Jesu Christi’, the Vienna Vocal Consort closes a glaring lacuna in the repertoire presently available on CD. The Vienna Vocal Consort (www.vocalconsort.at) counts among the most renowned vocal ensembles for Early Music in Austria. Some of its unique character derives from its five members’ unconventional biographies.