As a result of the destruction of the Kreuzkirche during the Seven Years War, Gottfried August Homilius, the longtime Kreuzkantor and a pupil of Bach, performed his professional musical duties primarily at the Frauenkirche in Dresden. The connection between traditional form and styles ranging from the "sensitive" to early classical have earned Homilius's St. John Passion its special place in the repertoire - musically and textually the events of the Passion presented here display a new and exceptional character. The roll of the choir is limited primarily to the singing of the chorales and turbae, but especially in the latter Homilius shows why he is so highly regarded as a choral composer. Kreuzkantor Roderich Kreile presents this work of his predecessor in a recording on a high artistic level, is characterized by majestic sound and intensity.

Gottfried August Homilius, now considered the greatest cantor of Dresden's Kreuzchor, was, for a while a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. A composer of music for the church, and a great organist, he was described, in 1790, as 'one of the greatest and worthiest organists alive.' While Homilius's name is found on only one score for this passion, stylistic criteria make it almost certain that he wrote this music. This St. Matthew Passion closely resembles Bach's passions - it contains choral movements, recitatives and arias with orchestral accompaniment, and tells the story of the Passion in the same way as was done in churches all over Germany in the 18th century. However, Homilius uses many more short sections with recitative (a total of 89 pieces altogether - most less than one minute long), but his arias are generally much longer than those in Bach's passions and cantatas.

As the organist of the Dresden Frauenkirche, the composing of chorale preludes was one of the main activities of Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785). In addition to the classical chorale prelude for solo organ, Homilius also cultivated a remarkably unique form: the arranging of a chorale with the use of an obbligato melody instrument. Like no other composer, Homilius concerned himself with this genre. The majority of the twenty-eight known chorale preludes of this type survive in a Dresden manuscript which is preserved in a library in Northampton, Massachusetts.

The Messiah by Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785) was performed by the Sächsisches Vocalensemble and the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle under the conductor Matthias Jung at St Anne’s Church in Dresden on the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of the composer’s birth on 5 June 2014, and is now being released on CD by cpo. Homilius is regarded as one of the most significant church composers during the transition between the baroque and classical eras.