There is little doubt that Helmschrott’s Sonate da chiesa only bear a fleeting resemblance to their namesakes from the 17th and 18th centuries, which, emerging from Northern Italy, quickly rose to great popularity in Baroque Europe. Among the resemblances is their bipartite structure with slow and fast movement and, of course, the use of an organ. Far from expressing formal dependence, the archaic names of the movements lend the twelve pieces a Mediterranean superstructure, as it were. The manifold musical references range from Jewish Old Testament psalms to French vocal genres and music from the times of classical antiquity. The instrumentation is equally diverse, from the duo sonatas in the beginning to the septet in the climactic 12th sonata. Helmschrott pits the organ against the „melodic instruments“, thereby creating sharp contrasts that alternate with almost ruminant dialogues. In particular the solo passages are enormously buoyant. In his cycle of Sonate da chiesa, central in his oeuvre, Helmschrott does not just breathe new life into an ancient form. He, in fact, creates the form anew. The present recordings produced by the Bavarian Broadcasting Cooperation are flawless and simply exemplary.