Bernhard Forck
German violinist Bernhard Forck has been an important figure in Berlin's early music scene since the early 1980s. He has also played contemporary music in chamber groups.
Forck was born in Altdöbern, in the former East Germany, in 1963. He started violin lessons at age five and soon settled on the violin as a career choice. Forck entered the Musikhochschule Berlin (now the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler) in East Berlin, studying with Eberhard Feltz. At the university he encountered the Baroque violin, not at the time common in Communist-ruled countries, and other historical violins. Immediately fascinated, he took courses with Baroque players and conductors including Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Ingrid Seifert. In 1984, even before his 1986 graduation, he joined the new Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (founded in 1982), and rose through the ranks to become the group's concertmaster. Forck has been a key contributor to the group's sound over the years, conducting research into historical performance practices relevant to the music performed. He has performed with the Akademie not only across Europe and the Americas, but in Japan, the Middle East, and southeast Asia and Australia as it became, thanks in part to his work, one of continental Europe's most popular early music groups. He has also played with the Barocksolisten Berlin (Berlin Baroque Soloists).
Forck has also been active as a player of the modern violin. From 1986 to 1991, he was a member of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (now the Konzerthausorchester), and in 1994 he founded the Manon Quartett Berlin, which has been devoted to the performance of contemporary music, specifically that of the Second Viennese School. The group spent a season as quartet-in-residence at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts.
In later life, Forck has devoted more of his energies to conducting. In 2007, he became music director of the Handel Festival Orchestra in Halle, Germany, and he has conducted the orchestra in productions of Handel's operas Alcina and Orlando there. In 2019, Forck joined German violinist Isabelle Faust and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin in recordings of multiple-violin concertos of Bach, released on the Harmonia Mundi label.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography
19 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Bach : Violin Concertos
Isabelle Faust, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck, Xenia Loeffler
Violin Concertos - Released by harmonia mundi on 15 Mar 2019
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Paris & Haffner Symphonies & Oboe Concerto
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Xenia Löffler, Bernhard Forck
Symphonies - Released by PentaTone on 6 Oct 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6 Nos. 7-12
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 1 Jan 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 'Pastoral'
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 21 Feb 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Georg Philipp Telemann: Viola Concertos - Overtures - Fantasias
Antoine Tamestit, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Sabine Fehlandt, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 7 Jan 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Concerti Grossi Op. 6, part 1
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on 1 Jul 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Ino & Late Works
Christina Landshamer, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 8 Mar 2024
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Violin Concertos
Isabelle Faust, Bernhard Forck, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Concertos - Released by harmonia mundi on 15 Mar 2019
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 - C.P.E. Bach: Symphonies, Wq 175 & 183/17
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 3 Jul 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Haydn: L'isola disabitata, Hob. XXVIII:9
Bernhard Forck, André Morsch, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Anett Fritsch, Sunhae Im, Krystian Adam
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 8 Jun 2021
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Haydn: L'isola disabitata
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck, Christina Landshamer
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 8 Jun 2021
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 8 - Méhul: Symphony No. 1 - Cherubini: Lodoïska Overture
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Symphonies - Released by harmonia mundi on 9 Sep 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Gluck: Italian Arias
Cecilia Bartoli, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
La Passione
Christina Landshamer, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Symphonies - Released by PENTATONE on 19 Aug 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Telemann: Overture in D Major, TWV 55:D21: II. Plainte
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 16 Feb 2024
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Telemann: Sinfonia melodica in C Major, TWV 50:2: II. Sarabande
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 16 Feb 2024
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
George Frideric Handel: Apollo e Dafne, Dafne Suites & Concerto grosso
Myrsini Margariti, Nikolay Borchev, Händelfestspielorchester Halle, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin on 10 Feb 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, part 2
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 1 Jan 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Cantata: Yet Can I Hear
Bejun Mehta, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
Cantatas (secular) - Released by PENTATONE on 16 Mar 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo