Classical Uplifting
751 products
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SaleBach: Concertos for Recorder / Bosgraaf, Ensemble Cordevento
Brilliant Classics · Nov 2025Vinyl$37.99$28.99 -
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Wilhelm Backhaus - The Complete Acoustic & Selected Early Electric Recordings
APR · Nov 2023CD$32.99 -
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SaleSalvation - Bach & Shostakovich: Vocal & Instrumental Music / Mields, G.A.P. Ensemble
Brilliant Classics · Mar 2024CD$14.99$7.49 -
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- trad.: She moved through the fair
- Satie: Gymnopédie No. 1
- Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
- Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
- Rutter: Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace
- Grieg: Symphonic Dance, Op. 64 No. 2
- Bach: Bist du bei mir [When you are with me]
- Ravel: Sonatine: Mouvement de Menuet
- Debussy: Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune
- Handel: Semele: Where’er you walk
- Rutter: Sheep may safely graze
Pergolesi: La Serva Padrona; Livietta e Tracollo
Cremona 2 - Violin Concertos
J.S. Bach: Friede auf Erden - Rekonstruierte Kantaten, BWV 1
Zaytoun
J.S. Bach: Cello Suites, Vol. 2 (arr. for theorbo)
J.S. Bach: Cello Suites, Vol. 1 (arr. for theorbo)
J.S. Bach: Cantatas
Bach: Concertos for Recorder / Bosgraaf, Ensemble Cordevento
A high-grade LP transfer for a superbly engineered album of Bach at his most life-enhancing. JS Bach may not have composed any concertos specifically for recorder – none have survived, at any rate – but he scored for the instrument elsewhere in his output, most unforgettably so in his earliest surviving cantata, the ‘Actus tragicus’. In any case the uniquely adaptable nature of his inspiration lends itself to the kind of sympathetic adaptation undertaken here by Erik Bosgraaf in partnership with the musicologist and art historian Thiemo Wind. Three of the concertos here have beenadapted from pieces which survive in a scoring for solo harpsichord and string orchestra: BWV 1053, 1055 and 1059. A fourth concerto has been constructed by Wind from transcriptions of cantata arias, adapted from the secular cantata Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen BWV215 and Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen BWV32. The idea is humble but ingenious, answering the question: what might Bach have done, or could he have done, if he had written concertos for the recorder? In doing so, Bosgraaf and his colleagues are following good precedents: after all, Bach himself created and performed many such transcriptions. His oeuvre demonstrates that a composition wasnot regarded as an unchanging work of art, and during his lifetime it was standard procedure to make quite radical adaptations according to the relevant circumstances. In any case, Bosgraaf and the one-per-part musicians of Cordevento perform these concertos with an unfailing sensitivity to the momentum and poetry of Bach’s originals. Now, on 180-gram vinyl, these recordings gain a special warmth and depth while losing none of their pin-point clarity. ‘Erik Bosgraaf’s recorder-playing is fluent and lively in fast music, and his five colleagues provide accompaniments that are lean, stylish and precise.’ (Gramophone)
Schonheit & Staatsversagen
Wilhelm Backhaus - The Complete Acoustic & Selected Early Electric Recordings
As one of the great pianists of the 20th century, WILHELM BACKHAUS (1884–1969) needs no introduction. He recorded almost continuously from 1908 until his death, but this set, focusing on his earliest recordings, completes APR’s coverage (see also APR 6026, APR 6027 and APR 5637) of all his solo and concerto output for The Gramophone Company/HMV, except the electrically recorded Brahms titles, which are available elsewhere. These early discs reveal Backhaus as an exciting young virtuoso, rather than the sober purveyor of German classics he was to become.
J.S. Bach: The English Suites
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Orchestral Works
Trance & Rhythm
J.S. Bach: The Art of Fugue
Olga Samaroff & Frank La Forge - Complete solo recordings
Jusqu'a la nuit - Le bleu
Dove: On the streets & in the sky
J.S. Bach, Buxtehude & Bruhns
Salvation - Bach & Shostakovich: Vocal & Instrumental Music / Mields, G.A.P. Ensemble
‘I play Bach every day,’ said Shostakovich in 1950, at an event to mark the bicentenary of Bach’s death. ‘For us, Bach's legacy is an embodiment of flaming emotion, soulful humanity and true humanism, which stands in contrast to the dark world of raw evil and contempt for humanity.’
Taking their inspiration from these words, and from the palpable influence of Bach on the solid forms and fluent counterpoint of Shostakovich’s own music, this quartet of musicians presents an entirely original pairing of the two composers, in which cantata arias and a major song-cycle are linked and interspersed by instrumental interludes.
The German soprano Dorothee Mields is renowned for her piercing musicianship and luminous tone in the music of Bach, working with such illustrious conductors as Rene Jacobs and Philippe Herreweghe. Her contributions to recent recordings in this field have been called ‘sensational’ and ‘ravishing’ by Gramophone.
Here she sings recitatives and arias from seven cantatas, including the meditative opening movement of ‘Ich bin in mir vergnügt BWV204’. The trio-sonata accompaniment brings her expressive handling of the text to the fore, and prefaces the arias with the G major Sonata BWV1021 for violin and continuo, while Luca Quintavalle contributes the sixth Prelude and Fugue from Book 2 of ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’. Switching to piano for Shostakovich, Quintavalle plays the D major Prelude and Fugue from the Russian composer’s counterpart to the WTC. The early Piano Trio No.1 makes a Romantically yearning preface to the late settings of Alexander Blok which Shostakovich composed alongside the song-cycle Fourteenth Symphony. These songs find the composer at his most introspective, unsparing and yet rewarding of the subtlety which Mields brings to them. The idioms of Bach and Shostakovich complement as much as they contrast, and they are drawn together here by performances of powerful eloquence.
Classical Tranquillity / Rutter, Manchester Camerata
John Rutter writes: Tranquillity is a state of mind. You might be more likely to describe a favorite countryside scene rather than a person as ‘tranquil’, but you are really describing the effect it has on you. You feel calm, serene, still, at peace, relaxed, untroubled, chilled-out . . . perhaps we have so many different words for this state of mind because it is so important, and yet so elusive in an often noisy, frantic world.
Music has an extraordinary power to evoke tranquillity – as is revealed in the eleven pieces I have chosen to make up this collection. Ten of them happen to be among my personal favorites, drawn from the music of seven composers, plus the treasure trove of anonymous folk music, and I have added an orchestral version of my choral setting of Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace, a text formerly believed to be by St Francis of Assisi.
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