Chorus of Emmanuel Music

HEINRICH SCHÜTZ MOTETS

(Koch)

I really sympathize with Scrooge when it comes to Christmas music. Handel's Messiah is a great work (though maybe not Handel's greatest), but I'd be happy to shelve it for another 10 years. Christmas carols are lovely, but who wants to wallow in them? So, my favorite Christmas record? I'd choose the two albums of Heinrich Schütz motets by the Chorus of Emmanuel Music, under the loving hand of Craig Smith. Schütz is the greatest German composer before Bach; he ought to be more widely known. His choral music is intensely spiritual and emotionally complex. The Emmanuel Chorus includes such stellar vocalists as Lorraine Hunt, Susan Larson, Karol Bennett, and Jayne West, and their voices make a sublime blend. Then if my palate still needs something evil and savory, I'll put on my favorite Christmas antidote, Lotte Lenya singing Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins (not entirely inappropriate for the season) and Berlin Theatre Songs ("Mack the Knife," "Surabaya Johnny"), which Sony's Masterworks Heritage Series has just reissued.

-- Lloyd Schwartz

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