Reissued for the first time in its entirety and magnificently restored by Christophe Hénault at his Art et Son studio in Annecy from the original soundtracks, this first complete Bach work signed by Marie-Claire Alain is of stunning beauty. Recorded between 1959 and 1967 on various historical instruments in Denmark, Sweden and Germany, this recording, described by the performer herself as "the most instinctive" of the three she recorded, benefits from remarkable sound recordings that perfectly showcase the instruments chosen by the great French organist. Fighting from her youth against the mathematical rigidity with which Bach's music was too often treated, she strove instead to release its vital energy, leaving aside an overly strong dialectic and countering the overly emotional. This great artist was well aware that organ music, and Bach's in particular, had to be modelled on each instrument used, adapting its playing, sound and technique to each occasion. « For each concert I give », she said, « I am obliged to rework each work according to the instrument I have at my disposal.»Disappeared on February 27, 2013 at the age of eighty-six, Marie-Claire Alain had put an end to her career in 2010 after having given more than 2,500 concerts and recorded 250 discs that still retain their great historical value. (Qobuz / François Hudry)Record label note : This very first re-release on CD of Marie-Claire Alain’s first complete recording of Bach’s organ works has benefited from meticulous cleaning up of the original tapes. The very color of analog sound is preserved in all its purity. On a few tracks, it proved impossible to remove some minor noise and extraneous sounds that were captured during the recording sessions and which can still be heard. However, these defects are fortunately very few in number and do not detract in any way from the superb audio quality of these newly restored recordings of some exceptional performances. We will dwell on the poetic and perfectly balanced tones of the Varde organ, probably Marie-Claire Alain's favourite. Marie-Claire Alain plays the following organs (specified in each track) : — Denmark : Marcussen Organ, St.Jacobs Church, Varde (CDs 1, 2, 4, 12, 13, 14, 15) – Frobenius Organ, St.Nicholas Church, Middelfart (CDs 5, 6) – Marcussen Organ, St. Paul Church, Aarhus (CDs 6, 7, 8) – Marcussen Organ, St. Mary’s Church, Sønderborg (CDs 8, 9) – Marcussen Organ, Christians Church, Sønderborg (CDs 8, 9) – Marcussen Organ, Holmens Church, Copenhagen (CDs 9, 10, 11) – Marcussen Organ, St. Nicholas Church, Aabenraa (CD 13)  — Sweden : Marcussen Organ, St. Mary Church, Helsingborg (CDs 2, 3, 5) — Germany : Marcussen Organ, St. Peter's Cathedral (Dom), Schleswig (CD 11)

To mark the 300th anniversary of the publication of Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Julien Libeer had the idea of presenting it in an unusual light: here he initiates a dialogue in which Bach’s major-key prelude-and-fugue pairs "converse" with later pieces (in the corresponding minor keys) by composers who, in their own way, have built upon the advances Johann Sebastian made in his foundational undertaking. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Ligeti, and Schoenberg are all part of the conversation with the Leipzig Cantor in this intricate play of mirrors... © harmonia mundi

Violinist David Grimal has recorded Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin three times. In the interview-format booklet (it is apparently a self-interview), he says that in his first recording, "I was totally reckless, in the surge of youth." This reading isn't exactly reckless, but when it comes to tempo rubato in the dance movements, Grimal still goes farther out onto the edge than most other violinists. Sample the opening Allemande of the Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002. The great Chaconne in the Partita No. 2, BWV 1004, he has good control over the long line, aided by a Baroque bow that enables agility in the complex double- and triple-stopping. He also uses pure gut strings, which have a rich, attractive sheen. The pitch, owing to a detail in the construction of Grimal's 1710 Stradivarius, is a'=440 hz, not a lower Baroque pitch. Perhaps the best way of looking at this reading is that it deftly combines traits from the historical performance movement with those from the golden-age violin tradition. A major attraction is the sound from La Dolce Volta, recorded fairly close-up in an idiomatic abbey space that respects the music's intimate dimensions. Amid a flood of new recordings of these pieces, Grimal's manages distinctive qualities. © James Manheim /TiVo

Newly signed to the naïve label, violinist Fabio Biondi, the celebrated founder and director of Europa Galante, here presents his interpretation of one of the major peaks of the solo violin repertoire: the Sonatas and Partitas of J. S. Bach. For many years a passionate devotee of this Holy Grail of violinists, and having performed many of the works individually in the course of his career, Fabio Biondi is now, at the age of sixty, using his maturely ripened art to record the complete set for the very first time: it is the culmination of long and patient study, as well as of a process of personal development. For years Biondi was intimidated by Bach’s writing for solo violin: so intimate, yet so universal, so close to the essence of things – which the music often expresses through silence and pure, untranslateable sound – and so technically demanding as well. To reveal the music’s profound meaning, its vitality and contemporaneity, and to share his findings with others: this is what has impelled him to record this album. To complement his musical presentation, he asked Akira Mizubayashi, a Japanese writer of French novels permeated by a musical sensibility, for a newly written work with which to grace the booklet. Most listeners will be familiar with Bach’s double triptych of Sonatas and Partitas, without necessarily knowing them in detail. All the well-known landmarks are here – the famous Bourrée of the First Partita, the challenging Chaconne of the Second, the lively introductory Preludio and sprightly Gavotte en rondeau of the Third Partita. Fabio Biondi makes these thirty-two dances intensely present in his infinitely nuanced interpretation. He casts a radiant light on each piece, fully honouring its dance-like character while flexibly expanding its often polyphonic lines with poetic strokes of the violin bow. Without any superfluous embellishment, at a single breath his masterful playing sets ablaze the full spectrum of forms, textures and tempi, giving life to the music – the most natural life imaginable. © naive classique

Ever since the days of Andrés Segovia, albums related to Bach's music have come along often enough. This entry by the young French guitarist Thibaut Garcia has much to recommend it, and indeed Segovia seems to have exerted a strong influence on Garcia's tone, self-possessed but sensuous. It doesn't get any better than the opening La catedral of Paraguayan composer Agustín Barrios, whose music is thankfully becoming more widely exposed: Garcia is arresting here. He's also very strong in his duets with soprano Elsa Dreisig, the Ave Maria of Gounod and the Aria from Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 (sample the Gounod, where Dreisig veritably seems suspended above Garcia's guitar clouds). Grouped with these may be the lovely arrangement of the Bach Chaconne from the Partita for solo violin in D minor, an arrangement, like that of the Gounod, by Garcia himself. A good deal of space is given over to Polish-French composer Alexandre Tansman, who wrote music along various interesting neoclassic lines. The Inventions (Hommage à Bach) and Pièce en forme de Passacaille suggested themselves probably because they were written (but never performed) by Segovia; they are less neoclassic pieces than almost Bach knockoffs, and Garcia can do less with them than with the other pieces here. Stronger is the Suite Brève of Dusan Bogdanovic, innovatively expanding the Bach model in both harmonic and rhythmic directions; the return to familiar pieces by Bach at the conclusion after these has a strong impact. Erato's engineers, working in the Salle des concerts de Arras, achieve superb results, and the little-heralded Orchestre Nationale de Montpellier Occitane enters into the spirit of the thing. Photogenic, talented, and original, Garcia is plainly a young guitarist to watch.© TiVo

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The performances on this lovely album of vocal and instrumental music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier make it a recording that should delight the composer's fans and anyone who loves the music of the Baroque. Listeners should be warned that the packaging and even the composer's titles create expectations of music of a very different character from what is actually presented. The three Leçons de Ténèbres of the title, scored for bass and chamber orchestra, refer to baleful texts taken from the Lamentations of Jeremiah describing the fall and abasement of Jerusalem, and were written for services on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of Holy Week, the darkest days in the Christian liturgical calendar. Rather than emphasizing the texts' dire pronouncements of God's wrath, Charpentier's music expresses a gentle compassion for Jerusalem in music that's comfortingly benevolent, full of light rather than darkness. It's a brilliantly counterintuitive but legitimate take on the meaning of the texts. Charpentier was certainly capable expressing profound grief and wrote some of the most wrenching, anguished music of his era, but here he offers a message of hope and reassurance in the darkest season of the Church year. Much of the other music included in the album, all written for liturgical use, is also essentially positive, in major keys and with perky tempos. It complements the tone of the Leçons de Ténèbres, but hardly fulfills the expectations of the album's packaging, which features Caravaggio's dark painting of an emaciated St. Jerome next to a skull. Bass Stephan Macleod is resonant, agile, and warmly expressive in the Leçons and in a very odd unaccompanied motet, Pour plusieurs martyrs, whose music is hardly as somber as its title would imply. Alexis Kossenko, best known as a transverse flute virtuoso, leads the Polish Baroque chamber orchestra Arte dei Suonatori in supple, beautifully nuanced performances. The orchestral sound is sweet and mellow, thanks in part to the prominent use of recorders and transverse flutes and the warm but focused string tone. The sound is clean and present with an expansive cathedral-like ambience, marred only by too-close miking of the winds, which makes gulping intakes of air distractingly prominent.© TiVo