Reinthaler: Jephta Und Seine Tochter / Helbich

"It can from no side seriously be disputed that he was the most important composer that Bremen ever numbered among its residents." It is thus that we read in an obituary in a Bremen newspaper after Carl Reinthaler’s death on February 13, 1896. As Bremen’s music director and its cathedral organist and conductor, he prepared the premiere of Brahms’s A German Requiem in 1868, and as a composer, Reinthaler is finally being rediscovered. He owed his Bremen post to the popularity of a single composition, the oratorio Jephthah and His Daughter, written in large part during a study stay in Rome (1852-55) and inspired by the ancient sites of the Eternal City and impressions of the southern Italian landscape gathered on his travels. Jephthah brought the young composer considerable fame and countless performances. With this work he built a stylistic bridge between the symphonic vocal oeuvre of Mendelssohn and Brahms and also proved to be a psychologically sophisticated composer with a strong dramatic propensity. The wealth of tone-color effects, especially in the choral numbers, is also masterful. This recording was appropriately produced in the Bremen Cathedral, the composer’s place of operations.