“After several decades of debate, it is now firmly established that the Art of Fugue was composed for harpsichord. The notation on four staves could lead to confusion and wrongly suggest that the work was intended for an ensemble of four instruments. But this scheme of notation for a keyboard instrument was not uncommon in the past (e.g. it was used by the Italian Girolamo Frescobaldi in his Fiori Musicali), as it facilitates the visualization and grasp of each individual voice's progression and beauty. I am convinced that played appropriately and with artistic integrity, the piano can serve Bach's music superbly. In this recording I have played entirely without pedal so that the splendour of the contrapuntal lines is fully rendered. In some cases, for instance an appoggiatura, the piano allows for perfect imitation of a form of vocality, like a singer following the tonic accents of a language and pronouncing one syllable more quietly than another. The harpsichord can only imitate this by agogic inflections, by playing in an irregular rhythm. Some vocally inspired passages can therefore sound magnificent on the piano.“ (Eloïse Bella Kohn)

How would have Bach composed if he had had access to modern instrumentarium: a violin with Tourte’s bow that produces a higher volume of sound, a trumpet with an entire chromatic scale or a contemporary grand piano? Would he be inspired by the art of virtuosos of today, such as the Leipzig ensemble of Collegium Musicum, as he was known to have composed for distinguished artists? Would he forgive pop or computer game composers for using his music? How would he judge changes in the key of pieces, which played a vital role in the intellectual and emotional rendition of music according to Baroque rules? Or else, would he adjust to the vibe of our epoch and make use of samples instead of real performers? In any case, he would definitely appreciate the interpretations by Jaroslaw Nadrzycki, Krzysztof Kaczka and L’Appasionata, a Verona-based chamber orchestra. The energy that these young musicians display while playing Bach’s pieces would certainly match the composer’s spirit. If we observe Bach’s portraits for which he would pose in a dignified wig as we listen to his grand music, we might think that Bach was a placid and serious man. Yet not once did his contemporaries have to cope with his fits of anger or turbulent character; on the contrary, he must have also been high-spirited and humorous, which we may deduce from his numerous pieces.

The musicians of the Berlin Baroque Soloists, who for the most part are members of the Berlin Philharmonic, are well known to Radek Baborák from his time as solo horn player of the orchestra from 2003 to 2010. “That is why the recording with the Berlin Baroque Soloists was not such an unusual project,” says Radek Baborák, “but it was a dream of mine to play something by Bach with this ensemble, which plays modern instruments. Some eight years ago, we played together in a program of works by Telemann and Zelenka. That was a thrilling time. What particularly appealed to me about my colleagues was that for all their concentration on the work in hand, they still had a relaxed approach. They were orientated towards historical performance practice, but without the dogmatic rigor that one sometimes finds in specialist ensembles.” To make his dream come true, and drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of Bach, Radek Baborák trawled the composer’s works. He comments: “I am not a musicologist, in the first place I am a musician. When I find something I like, I use it for my purposes. If the material is robust – and it always is with Bach – it doesn’t matter what you play it on: the harpsichord, the organ, with strings, with choir, it will always sound good.”

Following the success of 100 Christmas Classics (Capriccio C7331) comes Christmas Meditation, featuring 100 choral and vocal works from across the centuries. The set encompasses sacred Renaissance treasures including Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Bach/Gounod’s Ave Maria, Handel’s Baroque masterpiece Messiah (‘He shall feed his flock’) and classic Christmas carols such as It Came Upon A Midnight Clear by Richard Storrs Willis and Franz Xaver Gruber’s Stille Nacht (‘Silent Night’). Featuring some of the most renowned choral institutions, Christmas Meditation offers listeners a classical Christmas to remember.

REVIEWS:

A rather sumptuous collection of seasonal choral works, instrumental pieces and carols. --BBC Music Magazine

After the success of the 5 CD box “100 Christmas classics” (Capriccio C7331), the new 5 CD box “Christmas Meditation” contains 100 choral and instrumental works from past centuries. It contains works from 43(!) composers, including excerpts from Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Bach/Gounod's Ave Maria, Handel's Baroque masterpiece Messiah, and traditional and classical carols such as "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" by American composer Richard Storrs Willis, and Franz Xaver Gruber's "Silent Night”. With some of the most renowned choirs, “Christmas Meditation” offers you an unforgettable Christmas.

In addition to world-famous Christmas music, in this box you will also discover previously unknown but no less beautiful work by Bruch, Rheinberger, Carl Neuner, Wagenseil, Robert Fuchs, Johann Philipp Reichert or Johann von Herbeck. Cannot be missed!

--Stretto

Sony Classical proudly announces an uncommonly attractive new batch of reissues from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor/BMG back catalogues. This latest installment of the popular series showcases the reissue of a path-breaking composer edition as well as recordings by some of the labels’ greatest artists of the last half-century.

Rudolf Serkin is rightly revered for his powerful interpretations of the Austro-German Classical and Romantic piano repertoire, but he was also an outstanding Bach player. In the 1920s he began a decades-long partnership with the great German violinist-conductor Adolf Busch (his future father-in-law) that led to, among countless treasures, a classic set of the Brandenburg Concertos, recorded in London in 1935, and many performances of the Bach Violin Sonatas, including a live recording of No. 3 in E major, BWV 1016, made in Washington in 1943. That performance is now being reissued in a new Sony Classical release containing all of Serkin’s Bach for American Columbia. The new collection contains another famous recording of the Brandenburgs featuring Rudolf Serkin’s magnificent continuo playing on piano (and his son Peter playing harpsichord continuo in No. 6), made in 1965 at the Marlboro Festival in Vermont (founded by Adolf Busch), led by Alexander Schneider and conducted by Pablo Casals. There are also performances of Bach’s two Concertos for 3 Keyboards that Serkin recorded at Marlboro and Casals’s Prades Festival with pianist-colleagues Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Peter Serkin and Ruth Laredo; Serkin père playing solo works including the Chromatic Fantasy and Italian Concerto; and the 14 canons based on the Aria from the Goldberg Variations that was discovered in 1974 in Bach’s own copy of the printed works, with Serkin’s “concentrated, reflective, crystal-clear, and beautifully balanced performance” (Andrew Porter, writing in High Fidelity) of the Aria.

This new release features the rare and hard to find famous recording of the Brandenburg Concertos in 1963 by I Musici together with the most important soloists of the time. I Musici, also known as I Musici di Roma, is an Italian chamber orchestra from Rome formed in 1951. They are well known for their interpretations of Baroque and other works, particularly Antonio Vivaldi and Tomaso Albinoni. Among their engagements, the original chamber orchestra completed acclaimed tours of Southern Africa 1956, and again in 1967, with a few replacement performers. In the 1970s, I Musici recorded the first classical music video and, later, the group was the first to record a compact disc for the Philips label. One of their founding members and first violin, Felix Ayo, was still an active violinist as of 2017.

Aaron Pilsan is only twenty-five years old, but he already has a busy career to his credit, with a solo album devoted to Beethoven and Schubert - very well received by the critics - and another of duo repertory with the cellist Kian Soltani. A student of Lars Vogt, he has also received guidance from András Schiff - Bach has always been at the center of their work together. The young Austrian pianist has been fascinated since childhood by The Well-Tempered Clavier, ‘that musical journey on which Bach embarks with us in Book One: from the seemingly simple and joyful triad of the famous Prelude in C major to the final fugue, of a complexity almost worthy of Schoenberg, on a subject that already includes the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale . . . Ever since I became interested in Bach’s music, I have never ceased to ask myself how to make the modern grand piano - which has a rich fundamental sound but a reduced volume of harmonics compared to the harpsichord - produce an essentially “well-tempered” impression on the listener... But for me it was not a question of instrumental history, but of interpretation.'

The Six Partitas, BWV 825–830 were the first of a series of works for keyboard instruments that Bach published under the general title of Clavierübung (Keyboard Practice). They consist of a set of six harpsichord suites, are amongst the last set of keyboard suites Bach composed and the most technically demanding. In fact, although Bach was age 40 at the time, these were the first of his compositions to see publication. The Partitas follow the basic form of the Baroque dance suite. An elaborate opening movement is followed by four stylized dances: the Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue.

Very little is known about the origin of J. S. Bach’s seven Toccatas (BWV?910–916) or of their use. They are believed to have been written before 1717 or the end of Bach’s Weimar period – but it is quite possible that at least some of them were drafted before he arrived there in 1707, at the age of 22. The Toccatas are usually performed on harpsichord or piano – but even though they are ‘manualiter’ (intended to be played by the hands only) and do not call for pedal parts, they are also occasionally heard on the organ. In terms of style they are examples of the so-called stylus phantasticus – ‘the most free and unfettered method of composition’ – and belong to the North German organ tradition of the late 17th century. Each piece consists of several distinct and contrasting sections, interweaving strict counterpoint and fugal passages with freely rhapsodic material, and as such the toccatas differ from the two-movement prelude-and-fugue format which Bach later would put his own, indelible stamp on. With this disc, Masaaki Suzuki takes on some of the earliest of Bach’s extant harpsichord compositions, after having released acclaimed recordings of a wide range of later works, from the two-part Inventions to the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier. However, he also brings his experience in performing the music of Bach’s North German predecessors to bear, for instance Buxtehude (BIS-1809) and Nicolaus Bruhns.

REVIEW:

Since completing his Bach cantata cycle, conductor and keyboardist Masaaki Suzuki has turned to Bach's keyboard music. The results have been consistently satisfying, as one would expect from this great contemporary Bach interpreter, but even Suzuki fans might have wondered what he would do with these six rarely played toccatas. There are more purely dramatic readings of these works, mostly played on piano, but Suzuki is attuned to this music, and his performances are not in the least colorless. Bach's intense Adagios, like that of the Toccata in E minor, BWV 914, and the irregular structures of the music have snap and surprise. Suzuki's 1982 harpsichord, based on an enlarged Ruckers instrument, is an excellent choice for the music, and anyone whose Bach collection is missing these remarkable works can do well with this choice.

-- ALlMusic.com (James Manheim)

Throughout his life, Bach showed exceptional talent as a pedagogue. As an orphan who had been obliged to learn everything by himself, he retained the deep-rooted urge to teach and pass on his knowledge. His cantatas are spiritual lessons, just as his keyboard works constitute a tutor in the instrument. It was with his children, first and foremost, that he exercised this talent as a born teacher, and particularly with his prodigiously gifted eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. For him he wrote the Two-part Inventions and Three-part Sinfonias; for him too The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Orgel-Buchlein (Little organ book); and this extraordinary method culminated in the Trio Sonatas for organ. The cantata Geist und Seele wird verwirret (Spirit and soul are dumbfounded) BWV 35 is one of the three written for solo alto without choral participation and with reduced instrumental forces. The work comprises two parts, for performance before and after the sermon. Soloist and organ engage in a dialogue charged with the elation of trust in God, brimming with coloratura passages and runs. Also for alto solo, the cantata Vergnugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (Contented repose, beloved heart’s desire) BWV 170 dates from just six weeks before Geist und Seele. It too features a solo organ part, later transcribed by Bach for flute and continuo. The cantata is based on a passage from the Sermon on the Mount in which Christ urges his listeners to live in peace with others.

J.S. Bach copied out and studied Dieupart’s Six Suittes de Clavessin of 1701, the form of which he then replicated in his ‘English’ Suites. Each suite begins with a substantial movement (called ‘Ouverture’ in Dieupart’s case) which is followed by the traditional allemande, courante, sarabande, ‘galanteries’ and a final gigue. The works are presented here by Sophie Yates.