A European tour

David & Salomon: Schütz: Psalmi, Canticum Canticorum 

Les Cris de Paris, Geoffroy Jourdain

Before Bach, the gold standard of German composers was Heinrich Schütz, whom the conductor Geoffrey Jourdain describes in this album’s liner notes as someone whose “artistic motto [was] absolute clarity.” The selections that Jourdain has chosen and the vocal and instrumental performances that he has coaxed from Les Cris de Paris (the Street Cries of Paris), a small group comprising a choir and instrumental ensemble, not only illustrate that clarity but also invigorate it with the exuberance and the attention to detail that it deserves. The juxtaposition of the majestic (six Davidic psalms sung in German) with the sensual (four Song of Solomon excerpts sung in Latin) in particular accentuates the richness of both.

Herman Vogt: Light Shall Shine

Anders Eidsten Dahl

The title of this fascinatingly expressive solo church organ recording comes from the five-movement, 40-minute suite that leads it off, Light Shall Shine Out of Darkness (inspired directly or indirectly by Luke 17:21, John 8:12, Mark 10:15-16, Matthew 5:14, Galatians 5:22, and the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas). The title of the 15½-minute piece that brings the album to a close, “The Marvel of Turin,” comes from the famous cloth relic that may or may not be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. In between, there’s the 15½-minute “Ré-sur-Ré…exit,” a continuously morphing exploration in sounds both eruptive and reflective of the event without which the Christian faith is just wishful thinking.

Jacob’s Ladder

Brad Mehldau

For his second Scripture-inspired album in three years, Mehldau dives headlong into the progressive rock that he loved as a kid, covering—or maybe “mining” would be more accurate—Rush, Gentle Giant, and Yes. He also oversees a polyrhythmic racket of his own. In “Herr und Knecht,” Tobias Bader shouts quotations from Hegel’s “master-slave dialectic” while Mark Guiliana drums up an ELP-worthy storm. And sometimes Mehldau looks a lot further back than the 1970s. He also looks a lot further back than Hegel: In the title cut’s first movement, six speakers recite Genesis 28:10-19 in English and Dutch simultaneously.

Sempiternam By Rhona Clarke  

State Choir Latvija, Māris Sirmais

Unlike the music of some composers who “rub against the tradition,” Rhona Clarke’s choral works have about them an inviting singability that augurs well for their entry into and survival in the repertoire. Not that they don’t sound daunting. Along with its pressurized dynamics and swooping lines, her setting of Catullus’ “Ave Atque Vale” requires well-timed riser stomping, and nearly every piece would seem to demand superior breath control. But the effort yields dividends. The Three Carols on Medieval Texts and perhaps even the setting of Clare Harner’s “Immortality” will lift your spirits. The four-movement Latin-language Requiem will lift them higher—and keep them there.

Encore

In the publicity accompanying the release of his mostly instrumental 2019 album Finding Gabriel (Nonesuch), the jazz pianist Brad Mehldau spoke of the project’s having grown out of his “close reading” of the Bible. Yet “The Prophet Is a Fool,” which featured a narrator paraphrasing Obama’s line about “bitter clingers” against the backdrop of a “Build that wall” chant, made the album seem less like a heartfelt exploration of ­transcendent truth and more like mere Trump-bashing à la the Religious Left.

Now, in light of Mehldau’s persistence in making Bible-themed music, it’s worth revisiting such nonverbal Finding Gabriel tracks as “Born to Trouble,” “O Ephraim,” and “St. Mark Is Howling in the City of Night” and taking their textured, synthesizer-glazed luminosity at face value—as sonic code, in other words, for sensitivity to otherworldly realities.

It’s also worth wondering whether Mehldau’s latest album, Jacob’s Ladder, is an answer to the prayer spoken throughout Finding Gabriel’s title track. —A.O.