Album Notes

This performance of music by Franz Tunder was held on May 5, 1957 at St. Thomas? Church in New Haven, Connecticut and is reproduced here in full. Howard Boatwright selected and transcribed the pieces, which were probably receiving their first performance since the seventeenth century! Two evenings later, the program was repeated in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The original live recording of this performance was made by Richard Burns of Overtone Records and was digitally remastered by him at Syracuse University. This compact digital disc was originally recorded on analogue equipment and released as a vinyl LP. We have attempted to preserve as closely as possible the sound of the original recording.

Howard Boatwright (1918-1999) was a violinist, composer, and conductor who first became involved in performing early music at the University of Texas in the 1940s. Boatwright was also interested in the seventeenth century music of J. S. Bach?s precursors. His first concert was a performance of Heinrich Schütz?s Weinachts-Historie in 1949, using St. Thomas? choir augmented with professionals and Yale students. Boatwright?s devotion to early music continued throughout his tenure as Professor of Music at Yale University and Dean of the School of Music at Syracuse University.

Helen Boatwright, soprano, was Howard Boatwright?s wife and colleague. She, too, devoted much of her career to early music. Her career as a soprano soloist spanned 50 years. She sang with groups such as Paul Hindemith?s Collegium Musicum, Alfred Mann?s Cantata Singers, and Johannes Somary?s Amor Artis Chorale.