From the beginning of the dreadful Thirty Years War, which devastated Europe from 1618 onwards, to the end of the no less dreadful “war to end all wars” (which tragically did not) in 1918, the Lautten Compagney musical ensemble here explores all the various music that surrounds war: music that condemns it, sings about it, tries to escape from it or tries to lift people’s spirits. It’s a bold move to mix Heinrich Schütz, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Hildebrand and Heinrich Isaac (all of whom, in one way or another, suffered in the Thirty Years War) with Friedrich Holländer (who signed the music of L'Ange bleu, among others) and Hanns Eisler (with his sometimes dodecaphonic accentuation) - especially if, in the case of 20th century composers, the accompaniment is entrusted to baroque instruments!
The ensemble even extends the range a little further to include Satie with an effective instrumentation of Gnossienne played on these very old instruments, which underlines both the timelessness of this music and its resolutely archaic aspect. And it works, very well in fact; the exquisite quality of the musicians and singers helps no doubt, but the concept itself is very wholesome, even if it is a little iconoclastic. The dark aspects found in the vast majority of these works span over centuries, from one massacre to another, and Callot's Misères de la guerre could just as easily have been written in 1915 instead of 1633, by swapping the halberds for bayonet rifles. © SM/Qobuz