Baroque Sound Mosaic
of Tyrol’s Music

Manfred Schneider, as Curator of the Music Collection of the Tyrolean Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, initiated the project to not only provide a systematic acoustical documentation of the music history of Tyrol by means of concerts with accompanying CDs, but also to make these accessible through diverse media outlets. As a consequence of his innovative initiative – which is also unique in its consistency when compared to other international projects – more than 200 CDs have been produced. These have now been summarized in DVDs, organized according to epochs, and made accessible to everyone on the internet via “Klangraum Tirol.”

This DVD conveys the variety of the Baroque acoustical world as found in Tyrol – in both its sacred and secular realms. In Tyrol itself, hardly any music manuscripts or prints have survived. But, by working together with international libraries and archives, it was possible to provide an extensive fundus of music.

In addition, it was possible to devise new kinds of interpretative possibilities: the goal of following historically accurate performance practice was enhanced by expanding the surviving notation in imaginative ways. For example, Manfred Schneider gave the motets of Leopold von Plawenn a new kind of sonority by using diverse instruments and making a richly varied sequence of the vocal parts. This intensified the expression and, at the same time, reflected the kind of liberties that were taken with music scores in the Baroque era. A similar situation was applied to the trio sonatas of Gottfried Finger. The original bare setting for strings was expanded by adding other instruments. Completely innovative was the technique of enriching the Klangfarben palette also within each piece by means of contrasting sections, which – keeping within the range of Baroque expressive possibilities – especially matched the structure of the movement.

This DVD is not only an informative document about Tyrol’s cultural history, it also serves as an acoustic monument to those composers of the Baroque era that were connected with Tyrol in some way: Georg Arnold (1621-1676), Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter (1665-1742), Vigilius Blasius Faitelli (1710-1768), Gottfried Finger (ca. 1660-1730), Johann Heinrich Hörmann (1694-1763), Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli (ca. 1620-post 1660), Leopold von Plawenn OSB (ca. 1620-1682), Ambrosius Reiner (1604-1672), Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde (ca. 1595-post 1638), Christoph Sätzl (1592/93-1655), Johann Stadlmayr (ca. 1575-1648), Leopold Strach (1699-1755), Johann Elias de Sylva (1716-1798), Johann Georg Tschortsch (ca. 1680-1737), Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani (1638-post 1692), Romanus Weichlein (1652-1706) and William Young (ca. 1610-1662).