CCMusic.com

Jan Dismas Zelenka is a significant but frequently neglected eighteenth century composer who received his musical training in Prague and was active from around 1710 at the court of August Elector of Saxony in Dresden where he was primarily responsible for church music at court, but also composed secular instrumental works. He was universally admired in his time and is today steadily regaining his well deserved reputation. His music displays a wide emotional spectrum ranging from contemplation to triumphant ecstasy to an equal degree in his vocal works and textless instrumental music. The accomplished young British countertenor Alex Potter succeeds in displaying this wide emotional range in selected works for alto solo: he dazzles with astounding virtuosity in the motet "Barbara, dira effera" and soars in tender arcs of tension in his performance of the "Christe eleison" from a late unfinished mass by Zelenka. He is accompanied with consummate sensitivity by the Capriccio Barockorchester from Basel.