Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

This CD is the fourth release in the series 'Musica Sacra Hamburgensis 1600-1800' which gives us a hint that something interesting must have been happening in this city at this time. In brief, Hamburg was developing into one of the richest places on earth and some of this wealth was going to support church music. Meanwhile opera was becoming a fashionable leisure pursuit and inevitably there was a certain amount of overlap. Johann Philipp Fortsch (1652-1732) came from an operatic background and was also a professional church singer. Indeed Fortsch's biography deserves far more attention than we can give it here. In addition to being a musician he was Court music director for Duke Christian Albrecht in Schleswig as well as the Duke's physician and some sort of unofficial diplomat and by the time of his death he was Governor of the territory of the Prince Bishop of Lubeck. But what of the music? Frankly, it is not as interesting as Fortsch's life seems to have been although it is by no means unpleasant. On the 80 minutes of this CD we have a selection of "Dialogs [sic.], Psalms and Sacred Concertos". In style, Fortsch seems more comfortable composing for the Church although perhaps he is reigning in his dramatic tendencies for sacred use. It would have been interesting to hear some of his secular material for comparison but very little seems to have survived and that would seem to be an appropriate epitaph for him. However, let it be said that the early music ensemble Musica Fialta and the vocal sextet La Capella Ducale are splendid.

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