Lortzing: Die Himmelfahrt Jesu Christi

Oratorio for Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra. We know him as the main representative of the cheerful German Spieloper, as the composer of "Zar und Zimmermann", "Wildschütz" and "Der Waffenschmied": Albert Lortzing, still underrated and often misunderstood. But he was also an actor and singer who toured the provinces with his theater troupe and, despite some local successes, almost always found himself on the poverty line. A truly hard life that he mastered with admirable wisdom and a never-ending sense of humor. From 1826 he spent seven years in the Westphalian province, between Detmold, Münster, Osnabrück and Bad Pyrmont. It was here that he wrote his first works for the musical theatre and - a unique work in his oeuvre - the oratorio The Ascension of Jesus Christ, which received its premiere on 15 November 1828 in the Schauspielhaus in Münster. It is thus one of Lortzing's earliest surviving original compositions and - measured against the creative experience of its author at the time - boasts wonderful originality and musical imagination. Thus our premiere recording is a real discovery, which the WDR Rundfunkchor, the WDR Rundfunkorchester and a soloist quintet under Helmut Froschauer make into a sonic experience.