When the name Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1749-1818) is mentioned today, we think above all of the first life story of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, which we owe to the industrious, witty man from Upper Franconia. Experts also recognize him as the "founder of musicology as a modern academic discipline", which, according to a widespread prejudice, would be associated with a lack of any creativity of his own. But far from it: Forkel, who was a professor in Gottingen for many years, left behind an impressive oeuvre, including the four piano concertos recorded here for the first time, which, although they are entirely within the classical genre, contain a great deal of delightful music that is expressively touching in the slow movements. Tobias Koch, one of the outstanding specialists for historical keyboard instruments, and the Kolner Akademie under Michael Alexander Willens perform.
The Kölner Akademie, under the artistic direction of Michael Alexander Willens, presents J. S. Bach: Lutheran Masses BWV 233-236, a monumental exploration of the composer's four Kyrie-Gloria Masses. Written in the 1730s, during a period of profound artistic consolidation, these works reveal Bach at his most resourceful. Drawn largely from his finest cantata music, the Masses showcase his unparalleled ability to transform earlier material through refined counterpoint, enriched orchestration, and deep sensitivity to the Latin Ordinary. Long overshadowed by the Mass in B minor, these so-called "Lutheran Masses" emerge here as brilliant creations in their own right, each shaped with architectural clarity: six movements, impeccably balanced between choral grandeur and intimate arias. In this cycle, Bach fuses theological tradition with inventive musical craft. Whether reworking festive choruses, expanding expressive arias, or integrating older settings with newly imagined timbres, he elevates the transformation of earlier material into a profound creative process - producing music that feels both familiar and entirely renewed. By gathering the four Masses into a unified artistic vision, The Kölner Akademie illuminates their shared structural features, vibrant instrumentation, and emotional breadth.
E.W. Wolf: Four Christmas Cantatas / Willens, Kölner Akademie
CPO
CD
$18.99Nov 18, 2022
Repertoire expansion for the Christmas season In the 18th century, "well-stocked" church music was a natural tradition throughout central Germany: church services were embellished along the ecclesiastical year with cantatas appropriate to the liturgy for the glory of God, but also for the joy and "spiritual edification" of the visitors. From this treasure of hitherto unknown Christmas music, four cantatas by Ernst Wilhelm Wolf are presented for the first time on this recording. Wolf worked as court kapellmeister in Weimar, and the fact that Goethe rejected him as "self-indulgent" should not prevent us from admiring him as a very important composer of the transition. Musically, Wolf was greatly influenced by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in the empfindsamer Stil and by the works of the Berlin Kapellmeister Carl Heinrich Graun. He was also a prolific composer whose works were received with admiration by his contemporaries. The four cantatas show elements of the early classical and sensitive styles; the cantata choruses are often homophonic and songlike, polyphonic sections rather rare. All the cantatas prove to be individually conceived works that testify to the composer's mastery. Beautiful sounding arias, the naturalness of their expression and the dramatic compression in the individual movements are still convincing today. At the same time, the cantatas bear witness to the high quality of Protestant church music in the period after Johann Sebastian Bach and illustrate the high value of music within the liturgy. Today they can be a welcome addition to the repertoire for the Christmas season.
