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Bach, J.S.: Cantatas, Vol. 17 - Bwv 16, 41, 58, 143, 153, 171
Ruth Holton
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released January 1, 2008 | SDG
The Bach Cantata Tour of conductor John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists began on Christmas Day 1999 and continued through the year 2000. Its intent was to perform all of Bach's cantatas in their proper places in the liturgical year, at various musically significant locations around Europe. When multiple cantatas for a specific liturgical event survive, the group performed all of them at the concert and was a rich source of insights. Accompanied by excerpts from Gardiner's tour diaries in the handsomely designed booklets, the recordings of the concerts (enhanced only lightly with material from recorded rehearsals) capture the immediacy of live performances; they have a few blemishes and a lot of high points. The set has a cumulative impact, but collecting the whole thing is an expensive proposition. This double disc, capturing performances from Berlin's Gethsemanekirche from New Year's Day and January 2, 2000 (the beginning of the new millennium, if you agree to that way of counting it), may not be the best place to start sampling. The problem is the church's acoustics. Gardiner was asked about them by German interviewers and dutifully reports his retort that Berlin isn't exactly overflowing with suitable churches, and that anyway he liked the church's history of protest (it played a key role at the time of the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and continues to host peace activism). The engineers do very well, considering; the soloists are easy to hear and understand. But the overall sound is muddy. Even so, the excitement of the millennium-opening concert comes through well, and the remarkable set of soloists Gardiner assembled for the event was in fine form. The standout is tenor James Gilchrist, in the gloriously long aria "Woferne du die edlen Frieden" (track 11), from the Cantata No. 41, Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, BWV 41. Gardiner's booklet notes are almost reason enough to purchase these discs in themselves, and his warm, humanistic interpretations in print are perfect counterparts to his music-making. Recommended, although not the first release to buy from this series.
© TiVo
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J. S. Bach: Cantates BWV 180, 49 & 115
Christoph Prégardien
Classical - Released January 1, 1994 | naïve classique
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Mendelssohn: Elijah, Op. 70, MWV A 25
Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Classical - Released September 15, 2023 | Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings
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The labels lately established by performing organizations have mostly been devoted to new releases, but there is a lot to be said for using them to resurrect historical performances and recordings. These tend to be ones that have hung in people's memories for years, well after newer recordings have become available. There couldn't be a better example than this, the first historical release from the Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings label. It reproduces a 1984 live performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah, Op. 70 (as Elias, in the original German) from the Nationaltheater München, with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Chor des städtischen Musikvereins zu Düsseldorf. (The latter got involved because the Bayerischer Staatsopernchor was unavailable, but the choir acquits itself very well, unsurprisingly inasmuch as Mendelssohn himself was one of its former directors.) Sawallisch was noted for his way with Mendelssohn, to which he brought a noble Germanic tinge that makes a nice contrast with the usual English performances. He never did better than here, and upon hearing that tapes of this performance had been preserved, he is said to have exclaimed, "Thank God they're safe!" The soloists, led by baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role and tenor Peter Schreier as Obadiah, are superb. Another attraction is the hardbound booklet, delving deep into Mendelssohn's philosophical place in German society (really philosophical -- Hegel and his dialectic come into it). The live sound from 1984 is impressive indeed, with crowd noise kept to an absolute minimum in a superb display of discipline. A wonderful historical reissue that catches the intense drama in Mendelssohn's oratorio.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Bach, J.S.: Cantatas, Vol. 5 - Bwv 45, 46, 101, 102, 136, 178
Robin Tyson
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released September 1, 2008 | SDG
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Bach. Praise : Cantatas BWV 26, 41, 95, 115, 137, 140
Christoph Spering
Classical - Released February 14, 2020 | deutsche harmonia mundi
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Famous Cantatas Vol. 1
Johann Sebastian Bach
Classical - Released October 8, 2021 | Challenge Classics
The first volume in a series devoted to Bach's famous Cantatas with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir. The project is chronologically structured, so this first volume includes Cantatas composed at Mulhausen in the years 1707 and 1708. It contains four great and well-known masterpieces which convey the mastery and maturity of the young Bach, aged 22 at that time. Bach's sacred music written before he went to Leipzig, including all the works from the Weimar period, are often lumped together as "early" cantatas. This is misleading and ultimately inaccurate, since Bach was already 38 years old when he moved from his post as Kapellmeister at Kothen in 1723 to take up his duties as Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. In fact most of Bach's church cantatas date from the Leipzig years, as does the consolidation of the stylistic, structural and technical features of his vocal works, but even the repertoire composed before 1714 can hardly be termed "early". The works composed at Mühlhausen, demonstrating a striking sureness of touch in their conception, placed the 22-year-old among the finest contemporary cantata composers. Bach's earliest church cantatas are still clearly marked by 17th-century traditions. As well as the influences of older members of the Bach family, those of Buxtehude and Pachelbel the Elder, and Italian and French masters are evident, technically, structurally and stylistically. A particularly characteristic feature of the pre-Leipzig cantatas is Bach's exceptional delight in experimental and complex handling of an extremely wide range of instruments, with refined sound effects (such as the use of the bassoon) and poly- and homophonic settings and forms. © Challenge Records
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Bach: Cantates pour l'Épiphanie: BWV 72, 81, 155 & 156
Montreal Baroque
Classical - Released November 1, 2013 | ATMA Classique
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Graupner: Bassoon Cantatas
Sergio Azzolini
Classical - Released October 30, 2020 | CPO
Booklet
Spirited bassoon Cantatas. During the eighteenth century the knowledge that the bassoon could very well rise up to the virtuosic spheres was reserved for only rather small circles of hearers. After all, the employment of this instrument depended directly on the particular musician’s capabilities in playing technique. In April 1736 a new bassoon star in the person of Johann Christian Klotsch came from Zerbst to Darmstadt. Christoph Graupner must have been extremely delighted to work with this talented musician; Klotsch had only recently been under contract in Darmstadt when he was given multiple opportunities to demonstrate his bassoonist’s skill in the Sunday cantatas. Since Graupner loved to experiment with innovative tone colors, he increasingly placed the bassoon in the spotlight in his cantatas. This development reached its height in 1741 with bassoon parts of concerto character in sixteen different cantatas. Sergio Azzolini is currently a star of today’s Baroque scene. When he plays his bassoon, the music is brought to life, and on this album with vocal soloists and the Kirchheim BachConsort he has “revived” (in the truest sense of the term) church cantatas with obbligato bassoon by Graupner. Sergio Azzolini comments: “The Baroque bassoon is fragile. And this fits this music because the music too is fragile. The Baroque bassoon is one part, and the player has to do the rest, that is, our body. For this reason we are also very close to the singer. And I believe that Graupner understood that, and it was precisely this that he celebrated”. © CPO
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Cantates Profanes - volume 1
Violons du Roy, Les
Classical - Released January 1, 1994 | Dorian
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Bach: Was mein Gott will - Cantatas BWV 5, 33, 94, 111, 113, 135, 178
Christoph Spering
Classical - Released November 17, 2023 | deutsche harmonia mundi
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Booklet
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Bach : The Complete Organ Works
André Isoir
Classical - Released January 1, 1991 | La Dolce Volta
Booklet
Distinctions
Diapason d'or -
4F de Télérama -
Le Choix de France Musique -
Choc de Classica
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Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 7: Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599-644 (with choir)
Benjamin Alard
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released October 14, 2022 | harmonia mundi
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Booklet
With its forty-five chorale preludes, the Orgelbüchlein bears witness to a mastery of the art of improvisation on the organ, as the congregation heard it at the time before singing the hymn in its turn. It was a tempting experiment to revive this primary function: by collaborating with the combined forces of the Ensemble Vocal Bergamasque and the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, Benjamin Alard gives the "little organ book" its full significance and expressive power. © harmonia mundi
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J.S. Bach : Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244 (Passion selon saint Matthieu)
Philippe Herreweghe
Classical - Released July 31, 2007 | harmonia mundi
Booklet
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J.S. Bach: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244
Bach Collegium Japan
Classical - Released February 7, 2020 | BIS
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Booklet
“A great joy”: this is how Masaaki Suzuki considers this, his second recording of the St. Matthew’s Passion, made twenty years after the first one, in the Saitama Arts Theatre in Japan in April 2019 for the BIS label. A great opportunity to revisit the work, as in the elapsed time, the conductor and his orchestra have nearly completely recorded Bach’s choral music, including the complete masses and secular and sacred cantatas. As is his custom, Suzuki works with European soloists for this new recording, like the splendid young German tenor Benjamin Bruns, playing the stupendous part of the Evangelist. There are other familiar soloists that feature here, such as Carolyn Sampson, Damien Guillon, Makoto Sakurada and Christian Immler. There is nothing monumental about this new intimate and refined version, which follows the fateful narrative with great sobriety. There is nevertheless a fervent level of impulse, as well as a certain innocence within this resolutely pared back Lutheran perspective - there is never any real search for theatricality. The exceptional instrumental quality of the soloists of the Bach Collegium Japan and the soft touches of the two choral ensembles is also worth highlighting. © François Hudry / Qobuz
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Bach Cantatas, BWV 82 and 199
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Classical - Released June 1, 2003 | Nonesuch - Warner Records
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Mendelssohn & Bach: Matthäus-Passion
The Bach Choir Of Bethlehem
Classical - Released March 22, 2024 | Les Productions Analekta Inc.
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Bach, J.S.: Cantatas, Vol. 21 - Bwv 1, 22, 23, 54, 127, 159, 182
Ruth Holton
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released January 1, 2000 | SDG
This two-disc set is volume 21 in conductor John Eliot Gardiner's series of recordings of Bach's complete sacred cantatas -- a project dubbed "The Bach Cantata Pilgrimage" because each disc preserves a complete concert given at different locations around the world. On the first disc, recorded at King's College Chapel in Cambridge on March 5, 2000, Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir and his period instrument English Baroque Soloists present four cantatas composed for Quinquagestima Sunday. On the second disc, recorded at Walpole St. Peter in Norfolk on March 26, 2000, Gardiner and his forces present three cantatas composed for the Annunciation and Palm Sunday.
For fans of the conductor, his return to Bach's music after years of exploring more recent repertoire -- remember his recording of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances? -- will be a return to the music he does best. And it's true that Gardiner's Bach performances have a lightness of touch and a depth of feeling that few of his recordings of later music can match. But the greatest virtue of Gardiner's Bach performances is their wholly devotional character. Whatever the cantata and whomever the vocal soloists, Gardiner's Bach is performed, as it were, on its knees with hands folded and head bent. So while those disinclined to credit the conductor with much feeling for later music may be tempted to dismiss his Bach for the same flaw, they will find little to object to here where, as the notes indicate, everything is done Soli Deo Gloria (For the sole glory of God). Monteverdi Production's sound is full, warm, deep, and detailed.
© TiVo
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J.S. Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 1 - The Young Heir - Le Jeune héritier
Benjamin Alard
Classical - Released December 15, 2017 | harmonia mundi
Hi-Res
Booklet
Organ player and harpsichordist, titular player of the Aubertin organ of the Saint-Louis-en l'Île church in Paris, where he regularly plays Bach in concert, Benjamin Alard is an unstoppable talent. Passionate about the world of Johann Sebastian Bach, this young man, "reserved, with an understated sense of humour", has undertaken a complete recording of the Cantor's keyboard works for harmonia mundi. The project is vast, and has never before been completed by a single musician. Benjamin Alard's very original approach is based on the idea of taking on this vast catalogue split into fourteen chapters, following the timeline of the composer's life, describing his influences, his travels and his professional choices. Every volume is to be thought of as a series of episodes retracing the life and works of the Cantor of Leipzig. This first volume paints a picture of "the young heir", whose music is still very much a tribute to his predecessors, such as Georg Böhm, Johann Kuhnau, Tomaso Albinoni, Johann Pachelbel, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Louis Marchand and Johann Jakob Froberger. The instruments used for this complete recording have been selected, thankfully, with great care. Recorded in May 2017, this first volume uses the Silberman organ in Sainte-Aurélie in Strasbourg, a superb instrument built in 2017, which benefited from a magnificent restoration in 2015, to mark its tricentenary. As for the harpsichord, it is a modern instrument produced by manufacturer Émile Jobin, inspired by models from Ruckers and Dulcken. A young man of his times, Benjamin Alard accompanies this complete works with an original idea: every work is recorded and published separately on streaming and download sites (like Qobuz), along with videos on social media. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Bach: Weihnachts-Oratorium, BWV 248
Bachchor Mainz
Classical - Released October 12, 2018 | Naxos
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Bach : The Complete Works for keyboard, Vol. 2 / Part 2 (& Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Reinken)
Benjamin Alard
Classical - Released April 12, 2019 | harmonia mundi
Hi-Res
Booklet
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5 étoiles de Classica
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