Veni Sancte Spiritus

ENSEMBLE 33 ZEITLER

The sacred groove of Ulrich Zeitler’s Missa Credo immediately earned its place on the hit charts. Now the composer and church musician turns to yet another Gregorian subject. He directly interrelates the traditional Pentecost sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus and Veni Creator Spiritus, a much older hymn by Rabanus Maurus, and his modern musical language incorporating jazz elements produces an up-to-date profession of faith, with his highly versatile ensemble also contributing significantly to its special appeal. Zeitler’s Ensemble 333 is both a choir and a pool of soloists. Teaming up with five instrumentalists, they produce the countless sound combinations on which the composer here so richly draws. Zeitler of course closely follows his textual sources, and the musical colors produced by the violin, viola, clarinet, accordion, and piano hold in store many a listening surprise. For example, the two central stanzas of the sequence praise the dualism of light and darkness. A terzetto consisting of three basses, punctuated by sound fragments verging on unstructured chaos in the accordion and by what seems to be the collapse of cohesion, represents darkness, while an extended solo part of the soprano jubilantly venerates the light. And how enthralling it is indeed! Zeitler has scored his work for twelve solo parts and a choir of up to twenty voices. The contralto clarinet supplies a firm tonal foundation and with it the point of departure for a series of original improvisations. The result is a highly varied, individual musical event- here refreshingly and grippingly conveyed in the three dimensions of this album perfectly capturing the nuances of modern church acoustics.

Price: $22.99