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Red Hot + Bach

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

$11.99

Jun 17, 2014

1 Minuet Rob Moose / Chris Thile 1:45

2 Minim Dustin O'Halloran 2:31

3 Jardim Do Amor Mia Doi Todd Mia Doi Todd 4:16

4 Time Drinks Three Shots (From You Us We All) Shara Worden Shara Worden 1:40

5 Number Man Paul de Jong 3:23

6 The Watchmaker Stuart Bogie / Grey McMurray 5:30

7 Very Own Julianna Barwick 4:04

8 Minim Victor Axelrod / Dustin O'Halloran 3:07

9 Passacaglia Amiina 4:05

10 Contrapunctus I Max Richter 4:20

11 Arioso Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Miguel Atwood-Ferguson 4:15

12 Air Daniel Hope 5:04

13 Cello Suite No.1 Gary Bartz / Ron Carter 3:23

14 Ave Maria Pia Ercole / Fhloston Paradigm 3:08

15 Ludepre Carl Craig / Francesco Tristano 8:07

16 Contrapunctus II Jeff Mills / Kronos Quartet 4:45

17 Contrapunctus II Kronos Quartet 2:29

18 Concerto No.5 Om'Mas Keith 5:40

19 Dear Goldberg Gabriel Kahane Gabriel Kahane 3:58

Red Hot + Bach

$11.99
CD

Sony Masterworks

Jun 17, 2014

88843029332

DISCOVER BACH

Berlin Classics

Available as CD

$16.99

May 27, 2016

Discover Bach includes some of this great Baroque composer’s best known works, such as Ave Maria, Air, Brandenburg Concerto, Cello Suites, Goldberg Variations, and many more.; The Discover Series from Berlin Classic aims to make classics popular, firing people up about the music presented, regardless of musical taste.; Rather than focusing on complete works, this series focuses on individual pieces that have rewritten our musical history.

DISCOVER BACH

$16.99
CD

Berlin Classics

May 27, 2016

0300690BC

Bach: Solo Works for Marimba / Kuniko

Linn Records

Available as CD

~~$29.99~~ $22.99

Jun 23, 2017

The Japanese percussionst Kuniko turns to the cello suites and violin sonatas of J.S. Bach for her fourth solo studio recording with Linn. Arranged for solo marimba, Kuniko gives unique perspective of these hugely famous and intellectually challenging works. Her trademark is her highly sensitive touch, particularly with wooden instruments such as marimba, which gives these interpretations an extremely stripped-down yet natural, organic feel. The beautiful acoustic of the medieval Jaani Kirik in Estonia creates the ideal sound space for Kuniko's arrangements. Kuniko is a solost who is recognized around the world for her astonishing virtuosity, exquisite musical insight and expressive yet elegant performance style. She is renowned for her flawless technique when playing both keyboard and percussion instruments, which blends seamlessly with her profound musical intelligence.

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Bach: Solo Works for Marimba / Kuniko

~~$29.99~~ $22.99
CD

Linn Records

Jun 23, 2017

CKD585

SUITES BWV 1007-1012

Challenge Classics

Available as SACD

$26.99

Mar 02, 2018

Raaf Hekkema writes of his new release: "Since I started teaching at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, I have become more conscious of my self-chosen mission: to create a place for the saxophone within the classical music tradition. One way to do this is to forge a stronger bond between the players and the classical tradition, in the knowledge that the saxophone repertoire too is indebted to the great composers of the past. The most influential of them all is, without a doubt, Johann Sebastian Bach. The path to this recording was long, windy and fascinating. It started with the awareness that the cello suites provide exceptional playing material for saxophonists. But I long felt that for playing Bach on the saxophone, only the light-sounding soprano saxophone would do- which was, I believed, incompatible with the instrument for which the suites were written. During preparations for my previous recording of Bach's partitas for violin, I discovered that the alto sax- fitted with an old-style mouthpiece- could reproduce the refined articulation of the violin. Vintage mouthpieces represent the sound ideal of days gone by. Then came the idea to play the suites on six different saxophones, each of which holds a unique place in the history of the instrument. After that, much time went into working out a usable assignment of transpositions and an appropriate choice of instruments, the resulting sound character being the deciding factor.

SUITES BWV 1007-1012

$26.99
SACD

Challenge Classics

Mar 02, 2018

CC 72769

J.S. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin, Vol. 2

Rewind

Available as CD

~~$11.99~~ $8.99

Jun 24, 2014

Bach composed these and other famous works, including the Brandenburg Concerti and the Cello Suites, during his Capellmeister years in Anhalt-Cöthen, Saxony, 1717-23. Violinist Hélène Schmitt, a fixture on European stages, mostly plays the solo violin repertoire of the 17th - early 19th century. She shows a special interest in and affinity for Italian and German music and culture. The international critics always receive her concerts and recordings enthusiastically.

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J.S. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin, Vol. 2

~~$11.99~~ $8.99
CD

Rewind

Jun 24, 2014

REW515

V 2: Works For Cello & Piano

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

~~$13.99~~ $10.99

Jan 29, 2013

Combining communicative performances with engaging programming, this release is dedicated to Schumann's music for cello and piano - works that were written after a period devoted almost exclusively to the piano, and whose aim it was to extend musical knowledge and practice. Teaming up once again to deliver consummate readings of these works are the seasoned Duo Dillon-Torquati, both of whom enjoy busy international careers. The release is a worthy follow-up to their previous two for Brilliant Classics (Gr�tzmacher's transcriptions of Schumann's piano and vocal music, 94060; Liszt's complete works for cello and piano, 94150) and provides a fascinating insight into the esteem with which composers and performers have responded to each other's music. Recorded 23-24 July 2012, Fondazione Spinola Banna per l'arte, Banna, Italy. An original program featuring works for cello and piano by Schumann, arrangements of works written originally for other instruments. Schumann himself left the choice of instrument open for some of his works: the clarinet, oboe and cello often changed roles. The Romanzen Op. 94 were originally for oboe and piano, but work very well played on the cello, as arranged by the famous 19th century cellist Gr�tzmacher. Also the violin sonata Op. 105 fares excellently through the golden, melancholy sonorities of the cello. Schumann lived his whole life under the spell of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, and as a tribute to Bach's genius Schumann added a piano part to the famous Cello Suites. This is the second issue of Schumann transcriptions for cello by the duo Francesco Dillon/Emanuele Torquati.

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V 2: Works For Cello & Piano

~~$13.99~~ $10.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

Jan 29, 2013

BRI94328

Bach: Transcriptions

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

~~$74.99~~ $56.99

Sep 18, 2020

This fascinating set provides a refreshing window onto a much studied, much idolized, and oft performed master of composition, allowing many of his familiar works to appear in a new light, recognizable and yet transformed. Bach’s music is often described as indestructible, in the sense that no matter how it is performed, or in whichever arrangement, its essential spirit survives. Many of the transcriptions included here represent the work of contemporary, world-class performers bringing Bach’s masterpieces into the repertoire of their own instruments or ensembles, thereby giving new timbres to the genius of Bach’s contrapuntal lines. The much-loved Goldberg Variations, for example, are given not one, but two new arrangements, as the interwoven voices for keyboard are divided between the members of a string trio and a recorder quintet. Others are scholarly reconstructions of concertos for what might well have been Bach’s originally intended instruments – versions that were subsequently lost to future generations.

From 1729 Bach directed the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, an association consisting of students and musical citizens, and for his performances with them Bach needed to provide secular works. But his time was largely absorbed with writing sacred music for St Thomas’s Church in his role as Kantor. So Bach devised harpsichord concertos by adapting concertos he had originally written for other instruments. Musicologists believe that the seven works known today as Bach’s concertos for solo harpsichord were initially composed as violin or oboe concertos. A third category included here might be called Bach transcriptions by 20th-century “giants”. The great Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt arranged for the harpsichord various major works by Bach – five from solo violin works, three from solo cello suites and two movements from a partita for solo flute and a suite for solo lute respectively. These are classics of the arranger’s art, refined and thoroughly idiomatic.

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Bach: Transcriptions

~~$74.99~~ $56.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

Sep 18, 2020

BRI95943

C.P.E. Bach & Graun: Viola Concertos

CPO

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $13.99

Apr 05, 2024

For some time, writes viola virtuoso Mathis Rochat in the preface of this new release, he had been thinking to adapt Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Cello Concerto in B-flat Major for his own use. He calls it a "somewhat audacious transcription", but the range of the solo part is well-suited for the viola and can be performed on the instrument with great ease. Which had to be proven first! Indeed, the young Swiss artist lends the "higher-pitched" composition a power of momentum and elasticity from which the already supple, melodious music can only benefit. All the more, since it is a superb "overture" to both of the following works, which Johann Gottlieb Graun, eleven years Bach's senior, had intended for the viola. Sometimes flanked by its little sister, as in the quiet Sturm und Drang C Minor concerto, then alone in sole competition with the string orchestra, this under-appreciated instrument shows in the music of the Berlin Court a wealth of expression that need not hide behind its higher and lower rivals.

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C.P.E. Bach & Graun: Viola Concertos

~~$18.99~~ $13.99
CD

CPO

Apr 05, 2024

555613-2

Bach: Six Cello Suites / Richard Hartshorne

Centaur Records

Available as CD

$48.99

Feb 01, 1998

REVIEWS:
Fanfare (7-8/98, pp.81-82) - "..Hartshorne managed, through sheer Yankee ingenuity, to play the suites in the original keys and to preserve not only double, triple, and quadruple stops that traditional tunings render impossible but even resonant pedals based on the cello's open strings....Recommended with reverential urgency."

Bach: Six Cello Suites / Richard Hartshorne

$48.99
CD

Centaur Records

Feb 01, 1998

CRC2348-50

Bram van Sambeek plays Bach on the Bassoon

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $15.99

Sep 02, 2022

Following a rock/metal album recorded with his band ORBI [BIS-2297], Bram van Sambeek returns with his own idea of a dance album. For it he has selected four works by Johann Sebastian Bach that consist mainly of typical baroque dances – but just as van Sambeek’s metal album wasn’t made for headbanging, Bach’s dances weren’t meant for dancing, but rather to be listened to. The album opens with van Sambeek’s own arrangement of the celebrated Partita in C minor for keyboard which he describes in his liner notes as one of his favorite works to listen to. The arrangement includes every note of the original keyboard part and is for no less than eight bassoons – all played by van Sambeek using multitrack recording technique. The idea for this came from having spent months in lockdown due to the pandemic: even though musicians were unable to play together, the urge to play actual harmonies persisted. Four movements from another keyboard work – the French Suite No. 5 – are also included on the disc, but as these are melodic rather than contrapuntal they have lent themselves to be arranged for a single voice. The remaining two works are the Flute Partita in A minor and Cello Suite No. 1, adding to an overall result which allows a new look on well-known works, with new nuances and colors.

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Bram van Sambeek plays Bach on the Bassoon

~~$21.99~~ $15.99
SACD

BIS

Sep 02, 2022

BIS-2637

J.S. Bach: 6 English Suites, BWV 806-811

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

$14.99

Feb 07, 2025

A veteran Bach specialist continues his Bach odyssey on Brilliant Classics with a new recording of the English Suites. Previous volumes in this series have met with wide critical acclaim. Of the French Suites, Jed Distler wrote in Classics Today: 'a splendid new recording... these lovely performances memorably showcase Rubsam's sensitive and poetic side.' While Rubsam has been playing and recording Bach's music for over half a century, he brings a fresh perspective, both to the works themselves and his approach to them, by performing on a lute-harpsichord, known in German as a lautenwerk. Of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, the Gramophone reviewer remarked: 'Like his other Bach recordings using the Lautenwerk, including the French Suites, the so-called Lute Suites and beautiful arrangements of the Cello Suites and Violin Sonatas and Partitas, these are revelatory... one thing's for certain: you'll never listen to any of Bach's music in the same way again.' Bach himself owned a pair of Lautenwerk, and so Rubsam is returning this music to the scale on which it was conceived: more intimate than nearly all the competition on record, perfectly suited to close studio recording and domestic listening. The Suites themselves are hardly English in character (Bach probably wrote them for an English patron) but rather French, more developed in scale and expression than the earlier French Suites, especially in the Third and Sixth of the set. Movements such as the Overture to No.2 and the Sarabande of No.3 have inspired some of the greatest keyboard musicians - on various instruments - to sound the depths of their artistry. Wolfgang Rubsam does so here, yet with a humility that draws the ear back to Bach himself, to the wondrous intricacy of his polyphony, and his particular genius for embodying the character of a dance through the natural shape of his melodies. - The complete 6 English Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), played on the lute-harpsichord by Wolfgang Rubsam. - There is little "English" about these suites. Their name might have been given as a tribute to Charles Diepart, whose 6 English Suites were very popular at the time. Bach's English Suites follow the traditional sequence of dance movements of the Suite. The writing is mature and technically demanding. The English Suites, along with the French Suites and Partitas, are part of the standard keyboard repertoire. - Wolfgang Rubsam is internationally known as an authoritative Bach interpreter, from recordings of the organ and harpsichord on several different labels. This new recording is played on a lute-harpsichord, an instrument that Bach would have had at home for both music-making in the family and for teaching. The touch required and the sonority produced is delicate, subtly shaded and closely related in it's effect to the music of Bach's French contemporaries, whose music he knew well, such as Francois Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Louis Marchand. The sound is warmer, as it has gut strings and no dampers.

J.S. Bach: 6 English Suites, BWV 806-811

$14.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

Feb 07, 2025

BRI97554

Schumann: The Roots & The Flower - Counterpoint in Bloom / Christensen

OUR Recordings

Available as CD

~~$21.99~~ $10.99

Sep 03, 2021

Although Robert Schumann’s public role in the Bach revival is less well known than that of Felix Mendelssohn, Bach’s music would play an influential effect throughout his life. Schumann would in turn, arrange and perform many of Bach’s works including adding piano parts to the Solo Violin Sonatas and Cellos Suites and trumpets to the St. John Passion! In 1843 he and Clara rented a custom-made pedalflügel - a dreadnought of an instrument combining a Friedrich Wieck grand piano with a pedal keyboard that enabled Schumann’s to play Bach’s organ music at home. During one of his periodic bouts of depression, Schumann became gripped by what he called Fugenpassion and shortly thereafter his obsession with Bach would blossom in the Canons and Fugues of Opp. 56 and 58. The curious name of this album references Carl Nielsen’s advice to fellow composer Ture Rangström, namely, to get down to the roots of a piece so that it would truly flower. And so following Nielsen’s advice, acclaimed organist Jens E. Christensen, a master of styles ancient and modern, dug deep to uncover the roots of Schumann’s imagination for this truly extraordinary program, a lovingly cultivated German-Danish, Piano-Organ, Baroque-Romantic hybrid, that will no doubt become a perennial favorite for fans of Schumann’s most florid contrapuntal creations.

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Schumann: The Roots & The Flower - Counterpoint in Bloom / Christensen

~~$21.99~~ $10.99
CD

OUR Recordings

Sep 03, 2021

6220675

Cello Solo Journey / Luciano Tarantino

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

~~$13.99~~ $6.99

Aug 02, 2019

When the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals revived the solo suites of Bach in the first decades of the last century, he reminded both audiences and composers of the huge potential of his instrument to hold the stage in its own right, no less than a violin or a piano. Inspired by his charisma, and that of his successors such as Tortelier and Rostropovich, many modern composers have followed Bach’s example. The Italian cellist presents music by ten of them on this exciting debut album for Brilliant Classics. Tortelier and Rostropovich are represented by their own, little-known but highly imaginative works – a Circus Suite and an innocently titled but fearsomely challenging study respectively. Carter Brey, the principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, has also written for the instrument with inside knowledge, in a tango of big, seductive gestures preceded on Tarantino’s album by Latin-themed showpieces from Albeniz, Piazzolla and Rogerio y Taguell. Each half of the album is brought to a reflective close with a soliloquy by the modern Italian composer Giovanni Sollima. The cello’s melancholy moods are further explored by Ilse de Ziah and Sebastian Diezig, but Tarantino has chosen and ordered his repertoire to display the cello’s expressive range to its fullest. Mixing familiar and little-known composers, it’s a perfect introduction to the ever-expanding universe of solo cello music beyond Bach. Born in 1977, Luciano Tarantino is a performer and teacher with his origins in Puglia, in the far south of Italy. He has played with many of today’s greatest conductors and founded a music festival in the region of his birth. On this recording he plays a fine 1736 cello by Antonio Testore.

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Cello Solo Journey / Luciano Tarantino

~~$13.99~~ $6.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

Aug 02, 2019

BRI95964

J.S. Bach: Toccata, Partita & Suites for Solo Violin - Metam

Arcana

Available as CD

~~$20.99~~ $15.99

Apr 04, 2025

Though naturally closely associated with the organ and harpsichord, Bach had a special relationship with the violin, his father's instrument, throughout his life. Moreover, we know that he was a highly skilled player, performing regularly at the court of Weimar, and probably also at Kothen and Leipzig. He wrote and transcribed concertos and sonatas for violin, but above all created the unprecedented collection of Sonatas and Partitas for solo instrument. And it is precisely for this vehicle of pure virtuosity that Marco Serino's new project offers four masterpieces, only one of which - the Partita No. 2, the most ambitious work in the group - has survived in a version for violin. Both the first two Suites for cello and the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565, however, already boast an important tradition of violin transcriptions. Pervaded by the virtual polyphony so characteristic of the celebrated Sei solo, these extraordinary pieces, which are presented from a different perspective than usual, celebrate this art of transformation pursued by the artists of the Baroque as an ideal of continuous and fruitful metamorphosis.

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J.S. Bach: Toccata, Partita & Suites for Solo Violin - Metam

~~$20.99~~ $15.99
CD

Arcana

Apr 04, 2025

A577

J.S. Bach Complete Edition

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

~~$246.99~~ $185.99

Apr 25, 2025

Johann Sebastian Bach's stature as a composer of extraordinary talent and widespread influence is so firmly established in Western culture that it is difficult to believe that only 150 years ago his works lay in veritable obscurity, unknown to all but a small group of scholars. It is largely thanks to ohn, who essentially effected a revival of the composer's music through his rediscovery and promulgation of the St Matthew Passion, besides other pieces, that his works are today regarded as pinnacles of music expression. That they are among the most performed and widely attended is in no doubt; in Holland alone, thousands of singers and musicians are involved in dozens of performances of the St Matthew Passion in Holy Week, with hundreds of thousands listening in churches and concert halls, or gathered around the radio, to what has been described as 'the Gospel according to Bach'. Bringing together all of his works, this dynamic 142-CD set offers a resounding impression of this great spirit of our Western culture, presenting dynamic performances - many period-based, many acclaimed by the international press - that are divided according to genre, thus making for a highly user-friendly compendium. The set draws on all periods of his career, tracing the development of a style that was much influenced by contemporary and past fashions but which was always adapted to Bach's own purpose, often far surpassing the models on which he drew. The German composer travelled a great deal from city to city, and the different circumstances of his various positions are reflected in the great range of works comprising his output: while his early years are dominated by much keyboard music, on account of the numerous organist posts he held during this period, later positions at various courts accorded him more personal and artistic freedom - in Cothen, for example, Prince Leopold's passion for music-making and his renowned resident orchestra resulted in a string of unforgettable works including the Brandenburg Concertos, the Solo Cello Suites and the Well-Tempered Clavier Part 1, beside many others. Bach was a master of all genres, whether sacred, secular, instrumental or vocal, and his oeuvre is a rich mixture of severe Baroque craftsmanship and expressive Romanticism. Thomas Zehetmair, Kristof Barati, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Rene Jacobs, Peter Schreier and Lucia Popp are just a handful of the first-class performers and ensembles gracing this set. At the bargain price of �100, it is a collection not to be passed up. Other information: - 142 CDs representing the entirety of Johann Sebastian Bach's oeuvre in historically informed performances. This includes all 200 sacred cantatas recorded for Brilliant Classics on period instruments and sung by the Holland Boys Choir. - For reasons of completeness, pure musical enjoyment, scholarly research, attractive, spacesaving design and price, you cannot afford to be without Brilliant Classics' Complete Bach Edition. - Extensive liner notes, sungs texts and complete tracklisting with performers available for download, by clicking on 'Download booklet' below the cover.

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J.S. Bach Complete Edition

~~$246.99~~ $185.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

Apr 25, 2025

BRI97509

Bach, Cassadó, Fabregas, Marais & Migo: The Voice of Casals / Morelló Ros

IBS Classical

Available as CD

~~$17.99~~ $13.99

May 19, 2023

The cellist Roger Morelló has intercalated three sarabands from the Suites for Cello Solo by Johann Sebastian Bach. The first is the one included in the Suite No. 1, whose prelude served as primary material for the work by Marc Migó. The second saraband that appears is the one from the Suite No. 2, which is in the key of D minor, and the third is the E flat major saraband. Along with these pieces, we encounter the Suite for Cello Solo by Gaspar Cassadó – a renowned Casals pupil and one of the most legendary violoncellists of the twentieth century as well as a composer. Along with this piece, Morelló has added his cello arrangement of an original work for viola da gamba from Les voix humaines by Marin Marais, which is the piece that lends this album its title. Side by side with these historical references that have become timeless, Roger Morelló includes two contemporary works. One of them is formed by the Variations on the name of Casals by Marc Migó, a work commissioned by Morelló himself, to whom it is also dedicated. The other contemporary composition that Morelló wanted to include on this album is a work that he commissioned from Elisenda Fábregas, who in turn dedicated it to him. It has Catalan dances as its title and consists of four dances.

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Bach, Cassadó, Fabregas, Marais & Migo: The Voice of Casals / Morelló Ros

~~$17.99~~ $13.99
CD

IBS Classical

May 19, 2023

IBS-22023

Bach: Mein Geist

Alpha

Available as CD

$20.99

Apr 10, 2026

Following the departure (of his own accord) of it's founder Damien Guillon, Le Banquet C�leste has reinvented itself as a collective of musicians and singers, all committed to continuing to explore the Baroque repertoire with the stylistic rigour that has established the ensemble's reputation. For this first recording by the "new" Banquet, Bach is in the spotlight, with Cantatas BWV 85 and 115 featuring violoncello piccolo obbligato: "Smaller in size, the violoncello piccolo has a truly special timbre that can be grave and passionate, but also wiry and sensitive. In the arias where it engages in concertante dialogue with the vocal soloist, it most often embodies the voice of tenderness and consolation, and the confident promise of the hereafter," writes musicologist Corinne Schneider. The Sixth Suite for Cello, BWV 1012, completes the programme: "Radiant and joyful, it sounds like a deliverance, in perfect accord with the themes developed in these two cantatas," she concludes. C�line Scheen, Alexander Chance, Thomas Hobbs and Beno�t Arnould are the vocal soloists, and Julien Barre plays the piccolo cello.

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Bach: Mein Geist

$20.99
CD

Alpha

Apr 10, 2026

ALPHA1190

Bach: Sonatas For Viola Da Gamba / Bylsma, Van Asperen

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

$17.99

Jul 09, 2009

Bylsma draws a ravishing sound from his instrument often with profoundly affecting results. He is a veritable poet and van Asperen provides a sensitive, tasteful partnership

For many years Bach's three sonatas for viola da gamba and concertante harpsichord have been regarded by cellists as fair game. Now, the Dutch virtuoso cellist Anner Bylsma takes up the challenge not with a baroque or modern instrument but with a violoncello piccolo, an instrument for which Bach showed some fondness in his Leipzig cantatas. There was probably no standard violoncello piccolo in Bach's day but we might say that in general it was smaller than a cello with a fifth string which widened upwards its tessitura. Bylsma's instrument dates from c. 1700. Banished, too, in these interesting experiments is the harpsichord for which a pleasingly bright chamber organ has been substituted.

So far, so good, perhaps, but I am much less happy with some of the arguments put forward by Bylsma to justify his approach. One such is simply that Bach "ceased writing works explicitly for the gamba in the second half of his life, specifying other instruments instead"—a poor argument at the best of times but in this case without substance since it is very likely that at least one of the gamba sonatas does belong to the second part of Bach's life. Furthermore, the categorical assertion given here that the three works were written in COthen in 1720 has long been invalid. Bylsma's belief that Bach's versions for gamba and harpsichord— admittedly only one of them has survived in autograph—work less well than the solution offered here is, at least questionable. In addition, he adds, "compared to the gamba, the cello piccolo is better suited to play sonatas, as it is a member of the violin family". At that point I decided to close the booklet and just listen to the performances. They are, as we might expect from such an accomplished artist, very good indeed. Bylsma draws a ravishing sound from his instrument often with profoundly affecting results. They are, however, quite at variance with those which Bach intended, for not only is the instrumentation different but so, too, is the pitch. Little of the eloquence in Bach's writing in point of fact is lost but the colours are brighter and our senses respond accordingly. Not everything comes over with equal conviction and I found, for example, the beautiful opening Adagio of the too often underrated D major Sonata disappointing in its jerky, almost perfunctory progress.

Having so far done little but protest I am inclined to end on a positive note. These experiments, and that is what they are, have considerable charm in the hands of such gifted players as these; and, in addition a recording of one of J.C.F. Bach's two cello sonatas is welcome. It is lightweight but effectively written and delightfully performed music. Bylsma is a veritable poet and I know I shall want to hear the sound of his playing on this disc from time to time. Bob van Asperen provides a sensitive, tasteful partnership and the recorded sound is excellent. An unusual issue.

-- Gramophone [3/1991]

Bach: Sonatas For Viola Da Gamba / Bylsma, Van Asperen

$17.99
CD

Sony Masterworks

Jul 09, 2009

SONY45945

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, Orchestral Suites / Suzuki

BIS

Available as SACD

$42.99

Aug 01, 2009

Bach Collegium Japan was first noticed internationally for undertaking the huge project of recording the complete church cantatas of J. S. Bach. Although the ensemble's discography consists of predominately vocal works, the participating instrumentalists have attracted acclaim ever since the outset. On the present offering, it is Bach's two great sets of orchestral works that form the programme and the choir of the BCJ is silent. Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki first recorded the Brandenburg Concertos in 2000, but now return to these great works. The new recording took place in the recently completed MUZA Kawasaki Hall, a venue that is highly suitable to an approach focussing on the chamber music qualities of this music.

In four of the concertos Masaaki Suzuki has chosen to replace the traditional cello with the violoncello da spalla - a smaller instrument played horizontally on the shoulder or held against the breast. The instrument has already featured in the BCJ Cantata series, and opens for new possibilities in timbre, for instance in Concerto No. 6, where the violoncello da spalla blends particularly well with the two solo violas and the viola da gambas. Making a new recording also provided the opportunity to record these in many ways multidimensional works in 5.0 Surround Sound, releasing them as hybrid SACDs. This is also the format of the included recordings of the Orchestral Suites, originally released in 2005 to great and universal acclaim.

The German website klassik.com called the 2-CD set 'incredibly perfect Bach!' and named it one of the reference recordings of these oft-recorded works, while the Financial Times (UK) listed it as one of the outstanding classical discs of 2005, remarking that 'Suzuki's traversal of the Bach orchestral suites combine scholarship and style without compromising the music's expressiveness.' In the Brandenburg Concertos and the Suites, Bach explored an Italian and a French genre respectively, and in his inimitable way transcended the boundaries of both. This attractive box at a very advantageous price combines both sets performed by one of the leading Baroque ensembles in high fidelity recordings - not to be missed! Please note: The music on this Hybrid Super Audio CD can be played back in Stereo (CD and SACD) as well as in 5.0 Surround sound (SACD).

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, Orchestral Suites / Suzuki

$42.99
SACD

BIS

Aug 01, 2009

BIS-SACD-1721-22

Various: Christoph Croisé - The Solo Album / Croisé

Avie Records

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $9.99

Aug 27, 2021

Modernism. Multiculturism. Multi-tuning. Lockdown. These are among the elements that bind the works on The Solo Album by award winning cellist Christoph Croisé, who took the opportunity of 2020’s coronavirus isolation to work intensively on a variety of solo works and also turn his hand to composition. At the heart of the album is Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály’s epic Sonata, the first major work for solo cello after the suites by Johann Sebastian Bach which were written two centuries earlier. The virtuosity demands of the soloist re-tuning two of the cello’s strings, double-stop trills and simultaneous bowed and plucked passages, all of which Christoph dispatches with aplomb. Framing Kodály’s Sonata are works by two compatriots, György Ligeti’s two-movement Sonata which draws inspiration from Béla Bartók, and the more recent Stonehenge by cellist, composer and pop-music producer Péter Pejtsik which includes intimations of electric guitar. A “sandwich filler” is Christophe’s first composition for solo cello, Spring Promenade, which is infused with boogie-woogie, reggae, swing and techno. He took inspiration from Sicilian composer-cello virtuoso Giovanni Sollima whose Concerto Rotondo incorporates electronics and extended techniques. Closing out the album, Sollima’s short work Alone gives way to the album’s “encore”, the exuberant Some like to show it off by Croatian cellist-composer Thomas Buritch.

On Sale

Various: Christoph Croisé - The Solo Album / Croisé

~~$19.99~~ $9.99
CD

Avie Records

Aug 27, 2021

AV2466