Intriguing piece of music

During today's run the Ipod shuffled past a very strange piece of music. The music was pure classical, at the baroque end of it, and a chap was talking along it (like a spoken aria with gaps) in German, I think, about impending death, something about the wings of death enfolding. At the time I was on a bit of an icy path and not in a position to check it out.

But surely in classical times you wouldn't just have a speaker accompanied by an orchestra?