As attractive as it is fluent and copious in quantity, the music of Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1682–1765) gave immense pleasure to his courtly French audiences, so lucratively that he was able, unusually for his time, to pursue a career loosened from the ties of aristocratic patronage. He embodied the 18th-century homme du monde, and his music always reflects the conviviality and refined taste that permeated every aspect of the Parisian society of the time. This collection of Boismortier’s chamber music opens with the Ballet de village in G Op.52 No.1, published in 1752. A traditional sequence of dance movements is treated in a subtle and charming manner and concluding with a flamboyant chaconne: a stunning example of the composer’s refinement, grace and virtuoso writing for the flute which was his own instrument. This Italian early-music ensemble then explores a more Italian side to Boismortier’s idiom with sonatas from the Opp. 34, 37 and 91 collections. They alternate with excerpts from the vividly pictorial Pièces de clavecin Op.59, which capture archetypes of contemporary French society with wit and even sympathy in works such as La Valétudinaire. The music fits perfectly under the fingers: for clarity, refinement and expressive power these pieces are comparable in form and inventiveness to the keyboard music of François Couperin. Also wholly French in idiom is the Suite in D Op.31 for viola da gamba and basso continuo: its flowing and sensuous cantabile style may even be heard as a homage to Marin Marais, who had died in 1728. This album is the latest in a series of critically acclaimed recordings made by the recorder and flute player and director Stefano Bagliano. Previous Brilliant Classics albums have included concertos and sonatas by Quantz, praised by MusicWeb International as “an excellent recording to become acquainted with Quantz…one might consider getting hold of other recordings of Bagliano after having been left spellbound by his rendering.”

Luigi Boccherini is now best known for his chamber music, which is handsomely represented on Brilliant Classics in recordings by period-instrument ensembles. However, as part of his duties to the royal courts of Europe in which he made his long and distinguished career, Boccherini also wrote operas and zarzuelas – popular Spanish musical theatre – of which few examples survive. There are 18 extant, standalone concert arias, of unknown date, though probably composed between 1786 and 1792. Six of them are presented here, all composed for soprano, and all bold and technically challenging works which would fit within the opera seria genre. The texts are by Metastasio, prolific librettist of the period, whose classically-themed dramas were set by Salieri and Mozart, among many other composers. Sung texts are included in the booklet. The soloist on this recording is the Spanish soprano Sandra Pastrana, who has appeared in all the major Italian opera houses.

20th-century composer Ernest Bloch forged a unique path, firmly establishing his Jewish identity through his music and thereby creating many works of great spiritual expression. Born in Geneva in 1880, he studied in Belgium and Germany before moving to America. Although he returned to Europe, he eventually became a US citizen, abandoning Switzerland forever due to the encroaching threat of Nazism. It was in the States that his music was truly appreciated for the first time; in New York, he conducted renowned orchestral concerts of his own works and became known as the “Jewish Composer”, winning the Coolidge Prize for his Viola Suite. It was around this time that he began to compose for the violin.

Spanning the 1920s, most of the works on this release came to fruition soon after the composer began to compose for the violin on a solo level. Bloch was a composer who harnessed many of the musical tendencies of the time to create highly original works, never tying himself to a particular style, and the authenticity and invention for which he is remembered permeates the entire compilation – starting with Violin Sonata No.1 (1920), a work deeply rooted in tonality and requiring great technical skill. Suite No.1, written nearly 40 years later, brings the neo-Classical aspect of Bloch’s music to the fore through its use of partita form. The Jewish influence is of course also strong: the famous and exotic Baal Shem which narrates three aspects of Chassidic life is included, together with Abodah – or ‘God’s Worship’ – dedicated to the world-famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who described the composer as “one of the Seven Wonders […] cast by the gods in a superhuman mould.”

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was trained as a violinist, taking lessons from the great Eugene Ysaye in Brussels. Under the threat of the Nazi regime he took refuge to the USA, where he stayed the rest of his life. Here he became famous , one of the first “classical” composers to integrate Jewish elements in his music. His works on religious themes express the sorrows and joys of the Jewish people over the centuries.

This release presents the works for violin and piano, the substantial and romantic 1rst violin sonata, the neo-classical Suite and the famous Baal Shem (scenes from Chassidic Life) and the “Abodah” (God’s Worship), dedicated to Yehudi Menuhin.

BLACHER Der Großinquisitor • Herbert Kegel, cond; Siegmund Nimsgern (bar); Leipzig R Ch; Dresden PO • BRILLIANT 9437 (59:32 & German only)


This reissue of an Edel recording from 1986 presents Boris Blacher’s wartime (1942) setting of a scene from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. In this oratorio, Jesus returns to earth in 16th-century Seville. Blacher, banned from Germany because he was Jewish, borrowed the plot from Dostoyevsky, yet wrote his own text in which “some hundred heretics were burnt ad majorem gloriam Dei by the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor.” According to the notes, Leo Borchard, who directed the Berlin Philharmonic at war’s end, assisted Blacher in his work by writing a text for the second part. He suggested the inclusion of “the three temptations by the Devil from Matthew 4:1-11 into the Grand Inquisitor’s monologue, which is directed at Jesus.”


Despite the painfulness of the experience that spawned Der Großinquisitor and its seriousness of plot, the music is often quiet, internalizing the composer’s pain and angst in music that is modern in harmony but conventional in rhythm, and also contains singable melodies. Yes, there are dramatic outbursts, but the score is not consistently loud and angry. Jörn Paulini’s notes claim that the score contains “apparently aimless melody,” but I found the melodic strands fairly easy to follow. Compared to some of Stravinsky’s works, they are models of clarity. I’m glad that the brief notes gave some idea of what was in the text, however, because the libretto included in the booklet is only in German, which was of little help to me or any other listener who does not know the language. One thing I noticed was how, in the second half of the cantata, Blacher used variations and inversions of themes from the first half—a very clever and creative way of tying the music together.


The sound quality of the recording tends to be diffuse and swathed in reverb, which takes the edge off some of the loud outbursts and makes the orchestra sound muffled in the quiet passages. I’m not sure if this was Blacher’s intent, but speaking strictly from a personal bias, I don’t like this kind of sound. Despite this, the performance quality is excellent. Kegel keeps things moving without unduly pressuring the music, although a little more pressure now and then might have been welcome. The Leipzig Radio Chorus is, in a word, superb, both in blend and (thankfully!) diction. Baritone Nimsgern, who appears only in the second half of the work, sings very well with his dark-timbred voice in his role as the Grand Inquisitor.


As with so many works written during this awful, angst-ridden period, one must ask the question if the work of art, good as it is, has meaning for listeners beyond its time and place. The suffering of not only individuals but also large masses of people is not only difficult to put into musical terms, but also difficult to make apply to mankind in general at a different period of time. I think, however, that different listeners in different cultures can imagine particular religious or political situations that a work like Der Großinquisitor could apply to in our present day. I found this to be an excellent work, one whose emotional impact was somewhat diffused for me by the clouded sonics, yet which I can imagine it making a tremendous impact in a live performance.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

An unrivalled compendium on disc of the Beethoven’s compositional laboratory, full of experiments that would be refined throughout his career to create the piano’s ‘New Testament’ of 32 sonatas. Under the title of ‘early variations’, Alessandro Commellato has brought together all those theme with variation sets for solo and four hands piano that were not included in the main catalogue of Beethoven's compositions. In fact not all of them are early: the imposing C minor 32 Variations WoO80 are the best-known work here, composed as late as 1806, and the sets on Rule Britannia and God save the King were written a year or two earlier, and perhaps not only for commercially expedient reasons, given Beethoven’s admiration for the British resistance to the proclamation of the French Empire. More common, however, are the variation sets where Beethoven was establishing his voice and refining his technique by exercising his imagination on melodies from popular marches and operas by Grétry, Paisiello and Mozart. The composer used these works to curry favour with patrons such as Prince Lichnowsky; even on occasion as dedicatory gifts in order to make amends for his notoriously obstreperous behaviour, such as the variations on a Dittersdorf arietta, ‘Es war einmal’ (Once upon a time) which he gave in the summer of 1792 to Eleonore von Breuning, daughter of Maria Helena, who had welcomed the young wayward artist into her home. Alessandro Commellato uses an 1823 fortepiano by Joseph Böhm, a Viennese piano-maker whose instruments were known to Beethoven, bestowing on this recording an unusual degree of authenticity. He is a specialist in historically informed performances of Viennese Classicism: previous discs for Brilliant Classics include music by Beethoven’s pupils such as the cello sonatas of Ferdinand Ries and piano concertos by Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

-----

REVIEW:

Commellato’s choice of specific instruments for particular works is a personal one, and it is always well-considered. There are five different fortepianos heard here, each with its own unique sound, with the earliest having very distinctly harpsichord-like characteristics and the latest (dating to 1823) beginning to possess some of the range and tone of the more-familiar instruments created later in the 19th century. All in all, this is a fascinating foray into less-known Beethoven and into a form that the composer used in his piano music throughout his life, right through to the second and concluding movement of his final piano sonata.

– Infodad.com

The first phrase of Reger’s Op.141 Serenade plunges the listener into the world of joyful music-making among friends circa 1780. The immediate modulation to a higher key in the second phrase brings us back to the more knowing world of late-Romanticism, and Reger thereafter moves between the two with great charm and no little skill. Light and effervescent the temper of these serenades may be but they also make considerable demands on their performers to keep up with the composer’s breathless turn of phrase and invention; these Italian musicians are fully up to speed. The Larghetto slow movement of Op.141 is an expressive high-point on the disc and, like much of Reger’s music, it is far too little known given its tender appeal to the general listener. With these two works, Reger was evidently paying homage to a Classical spirit whichfound its fulfilment – at least in this unusual instrumentation – in Beethoven’s Serenade. The six movements find the young Beethoven at his most carefree and effervescent: even the Andante and variations (which would become a conduit for profound thoughts later in his career) is as light as air and bubbling with melody and witty repartee. Anyone who only knows Beethoven from the symphonies, sonatas and concertos has a very pleasant surprise in store with this disc. Andrea Oliva is principal flautist of the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and has made many notable recordings with them and their music director, Sir Antonio Pappano, but he has also enjoyed a successful career as a soloist: according to Sir James Galway, he is ‘one of the best flutists of his generation, a shining star in the world of the flute.’ He has recorded Bach sonatas with Angela Hewitt and the chamber music of Saint-Saëns (BC95165) and Dutilleux (BC94738) with his Santa Cecilia colleagues, both released by Brilliant Classics.

Beethoven's oeuvre only comprises a small collection of works for cello and piano, but that the composer was an accomplished writer for this combination of instruments is evident from the fact that Jean-Louis Duport, one of Frederick II's court cellists and one of the most revered musicians of his day, incorporated many of the techniques found in the Op.5 sonatas into his instruction manual for cello. The two works each contain only two movements, and the absence of a slow movement was probably to avoid the problem of dynamic imbalance between the instruments (which would have been accentuated in adagio passages) -- something that is also the case with the Op.68 sonatas, composed in 1807. Only with the second Op.102 sonata does the composer finally replace the slow introduction, as found in No.1 and all of the above works, with a full-scale slow movement, one that precedes the massive fugal finale that was to form such an intrinsic part of Beethoven's late-period works.

Also featured are the three delightful sets of variations for cello and piano, each modelled on a different aria from Handel's opera Judas Maccabeus and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, and each (just like the sonatas) placing the piano on an equal footing with the cello throughout. The works are an engaging addition to a collection that marks the return of Israeli/Dutch cellist Timora Rosler and Hungarian pianist Klára Würtz, whose previous Brilliant Classics release 'Cello Rhapsody' (9157) was released to critical acclaim, and which provides a snapshot of the composer's stylistic development over a period of nearly 20 years.

Other information:
- Filling "only" two CD's, the complete works for cello and piano are quintessential and vintage Beethoven. The two youthful Opus 5 sonatas are written in virtuoso concerto style, with an especially glittering role for the piano (Beethoven was a tremendous pianist in his early years), the sonata Op. 69 is in the expansive, sonorous and deep-feeling tonal language of Beethoven's Middle-Period, whereas the two Late sonatas Op. 102 are marvels of originality, experiment, "quirkiness" and humanity.
- The two musicians Timora Rosler and Klára Würtz have been playing together for more than 15 years, having won several chamber music prizes. They performed the Beethoven cycle several times in concert over the years, and their interpretation has ripened to such an extent that the time came to record it. And here it is: every note alive and vibrant, played with gusto and feeling, alternating melancholy and joy, sadness and sheer fun.
- Contains notes on the music and detailed artist biographies.
- Recorded 19--23 January 2013, Sala congressi del Parco naturalistico di Onara, Padua, Italy.

In the generation after Paganini, Antonio Bazzini (1818-1897) sustained a peerless reputation for flying fingerwork and astonishing feats of legerdemain on the violin. As both a virtuoso violinist and composer, he was a product of his time and place, working in a musical culture dominated by opera. His ‘Dance of the Goblins’ has long been a mainstay of the recital repertoire for violinists seeking to send their audiences on their way with gasps of astonishment, but his transcriptions are much more developed and extensive pieces. They rework not only some of the defining passages of 19th-century Italian opera, but many themes and arias that are now less familiar. Bazzini found in the operas of Bellini a particularly fruitful source of inspiration, writing no fewer than three separate fantasias on themes from La sonnambula through the course of his career, as well as pieces based on Norma, I puritani, La straniera, Beatrice di Tenda, Il pirata and (when he was just 16 years old) I Capuleti e i Montecchi: an astonishingly vivid and precocious piece of work, handled here with sovereign mastery by the young Romanian violinist Anca Vasile Caraman. Accompanied here by the Mantovan-born pianist Alessandro Trebeschi, Caraman is equally impressive in Bazzini’s extended, improvisatory reworkings of climactic moments in Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena by Donizetti. Having taken a cold attitude towards the young Verdi, Bazzini was later won over by the genius of La traviata, which resulted in a truly concerto-like fantasia as well as no less technically demanding fantasias on Attila and I masnadieri. In these works, as in the three fantasies on themes from Pacini’s Saffo, Bazzini emulates Franz Liszt in venturing far beyond literal fidelity to the notes, towards an expressive fidelity to the original dramas.

This 2CD set presents a complete survey of Bartók's music for two pianos. The works and arrangements here all stem from Bartók's special artistic collaboration with his wife, the pianist Dittá Pásztory. From 1938, the couple began giving regular public concerts together, and this led the composer to write his version for two pianos of the Suite Op.4, an arrangement of seven of the pieces from Mikrokosmos, and the much-loved Sonata for two pianos and percussion.

The works included here are testimony to Bartók's skilful and remarkably versatile approach to piano-writing. In the Suite Op.4b, for example, Bartók radically revised the original orchestral score of the Suite Op.4 (one of his earliest works, and one of the first to bring to fruition the musical ideas that he explored after researching Hungarian music's rich folk heritage) to create a work that is so idiomatically pianistic that one would never guess it had originally been written for orchestra. By contrast, the transcription of the brilliantly colourful ballet score The Miraculous Mandarin brings the dramatic orchestration of this controversial work to life. The pieces from Mikrokosmos were originally studies for solo piano; in the two-piano arrangement Bartók transforms them into veritable virtuoso showpieces. The Sonata for two pianos and percussion is one of Bartók's most famous works and its striking rhythmic experimentation and consummate assimilation of folk influences mark the culmination of the composer's mature style. Bartók's complete works for two pianos are complemented here by György Ligeti's Three Pieces for two pianos; Ligeti was greatly influenced by Bartók's legacy and went on to become one of the most important Hungarian composers of the twentieth century.

These challenging works are performed by acclaimed pianists Matteo Fossi and Marco Gaggini, who formed a piano duo while studying together in Florence in 2004. Their pioneering 'Two Pianos Project' aims to extend the scope of the piano far beyond the confines of its traditional repertoire and has given rise to many warmly received recordings.

Other information:
- Recorded in January 2013 in Perugia, Italy.
- A Béla Bartók’s works for two pianos were inspired by the collaboration with his wife, pianist Ditta Pasztory, with whom he gave many concerts.
- The famous Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion (a masterpiece) is an original work, the other works are arrangements of his own orchestral works: the colourful early Suite Op.4, in which he uses many folk song elements which he collected during his years of field research in Hungry and Transylvania, the 7 Pieces from Mikrokosmos, originally study pieces for piano solo, and the brutal and exuberant ballet The Miraculous Mandarin. Bartók, himself one of the best pianists of his time, didn’t write mere “orchestral reductions for piano”, but extremely well-crafted and pianistic works, masterful in their own right, making use of the many pianistic innovations of Bartók the pianist/composer.
- Played with total command and conviction by the Italian duo Matteo Fossi and Marco Gaggini.
- As a “bonus” the duo plays Ligeti’s Three Pieces for Two Pianos, a tribute of one Hungarian master to another.
- Booklet includes detailed liner notes and biographies of the artists.

A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month

This set of discs is quite interesting: it brings together two French composers from the first half of the 18th century who are little known. That is to say: Jean-Baptiste Barrière is fairly well known, but almost exclusively as a pioneer of the cello in France. It is remarkable that the two collections which Luca Quintavalle has recorded were published at about the same time, but are stylistically very different.

Barrière was from Bordeaux and worked in Paris in 1730 as Musicien ordinaire de notre Académie Royale de Musique. In 1733 he was granted a privilege to publish sonatas and other instrumental works. He studied for some time in Italy, but there are different opinions on exactly when he was there. It is not that relevant from a musical point of view, because right from the start the Italian influence in his compositions is clearly discernible. His first two books with six sonatas each were printed in Paris in 1733 and 1735 respectively; these were followed in 1739 and 1740 by the third and fourth book. These collections show an increase in technical complexity and the last two books attest to Barrière's full embracing of the Italian style.

In 1739 he also published a book - as Livre V - for the pardessus de viole, the descant viol. It comprises six sonatas, the first five of which were also included in the book of harpsichord music which was published in the same year. These are not merely transcriptions but reworkings for a completely different instrument, including additional ornamentation, elaboration and idiomatic runs. These sonatas follow the Corellian trio sonata model: they comprise four movements in the order slow - fast - slow - fast. Barrière added a sixth sonata in three movements: andante - largetto (sic) - aria amoroso.

Their Italian character not only comes to the fore in the use of the form of the sonata. In fact, Barrière was the first French composer to write sonatas for keyboard. A further Italian trait is that the movements have exclusively Italian titles: adagio, allegro, andante, grave, largo, aria. The only dance included here is a sarabanda in the Sonata No. 2 in D. However, the most important token of Italian influence is the music itself. There are Neapolitan influences, but also references to the music of Vivaldi and Domenico Scarlatti. Some movements are quite dramatic; one of the most notable examples is the adagio which opens the Sonata No. 4 in G.

Barrière's harpsichord sonatas have little to do with tradition. Only one part of the Sonates et pièces can be connected to the French harpsichord school. The six pièces are character pieces as we know them from the oeuvre of, for instance, François Couperin. However, stylistically they are much closer to such pieces by the likes of Forqueray and especially his contemporary Joseph Nicolas Pancrace Royer (1705 - 1755). In the preface to his Premier Livre de pièces pour clavecin of 1746 Royer stated that "[the] pieces are open to great variety, passing from the tender to the lively, from the simple to the tumultuous, often successively within the same piece". That is the case with Barrière's character pieces as well; some indeed can be counted among the 'tumultuous', such as La Casamajor.

It is remarkable that the harpsichord pieces of the younger Bernard de Bury are more conservative than Barrière's. Much more than in the pieces by the latter we notice François Couperin's influence. His Premier livre de pièces de clavecin which dates from around 1736 includes several pieces whose titles are identical or almost identical with titles in the four harpsichord books of Couperin.

Bury came from a musical family; his father was ordinaire de la musique du roi. He spent his entire life and career in Versailles. He took several positions at the court; as maître de chapelle he succeeded his teacher Colin de Blamont, to whom he dedicated his harpsichord book. In 1785 he was ennobled by Louis XVI, five months before his death. In addition to his harpsichord works he composed music for the stage which found a positive reception.

Despite some Italian traits in his harpsichord music - just like in Couperin's ordres - his keyboard music is very French. The book comprises four suites of different lengths which include almost exclusively character pieces. The only exception is the loure in the 3e Suite in G. The chaconne which closes the 4e Suite in E and the entire collection, is one of the most telling tokens of this book's being part of the French tradition: hardly an opera was written without a chaconne and virtually every suite for keyboard or for an instrumental ensemble included a chaconne. There is no watershed between dances and character pieces: several of the latter were written in the form of a dance, or perhaps we should say that dances were given titles to indicate an extra-musical meaning. In the 1e Suite in A, for instance, we find a sarabande with the title Les Regrets. A form which Bury frequently uses is the rondeau, which was becoming increasingly popular in France around the mid-18th century.

Bury's harpsichord works have been recorded before, but are hardly known; they also seldom appear on programmes of recitals. As far as I know only a couple of pieces from Barrière's collection are available on disc; this is probably the first complete recording. I find that rather surprising, considering their quality and their historical importance. That makes this set a significant addition to the discography. This repertoire is served very well by Luca Quintavalle who delivers energetic and stylish performances. The brilliance of Barrières pieces and the different features of Bury's harpsichord works is convincingly conveyed. He plays a splendid instrument: a copy of a harpsichord by Pierre Donzelague of 1711. The miking is just right: it reveals enough details without losing the overall picture.

There is just one issue I need to mention. There is too little space between the pieces: the first movement of a sonata or a suite follows the last movement of the previous work almost attacca. That is an unlucky negligence on the side of the production team.

Considering the importance of the repertoire and the quality of music and interpretation this production deserves the label of Recording of the Month.

– MusicWeb International (Johan van Veen)

The reissue of a glorious recording of Bach�s sacred masterwork, the St. Matthew Passion! This performance from the 70ties brings together two of the most esteemed choirs of Germany: the Thomanerchor Leipzig and the Dresdner Kreuzchor, both with traditions going back to the times of the great Cantor Johann Sebastian. The Leipzig Gewandhausorchester and the choirs are conducted by the two brothers Mauersberger, Rudolf and Erhard, both famous for their deep understanding of the Baroque musical language. An excellent line up of soloists: Peter Schreier, Theo Adam, Hermann Christian Polter, Hans Joachim Rotsch. �Deeply moving�, the Gramophone wrote of this performance at the time of release, indeed a set to treasure as the testimony of a deeply felthistorical tradition of Bach performance.

The flowering of the German Lied tradition may be most closely associated with Schubert, but in fact the genre has much deeper roots than that. Already in the 18th century, composers such as C.P.E. Bach were forming a musical language that would set the stage for its extensive development 100 years later. At this point, they made a distinction between the 'Lied', 'Ode' and 'Hymne'; Bach strongly preferred the Lied (or song), which was composed in verses, and required an accompaniment, unlike the ode. Indeed, Bach's keyboard accompaniments were so wonderfully florid that they could be performed without the singer – as 'Handstücke', as he marked in the score. This new recording includes versions of each Lied for fortepiano solo alone alongside the standard version with the soprano, giving the listener a unique chance to experience Bach's Lieder in two different but equally authentic ways. Soprano Mariví Blasco has performed at prestigious venues across Spain, in roles as varied as Mozart (Despina in Così fan tutte at the Teatro Arenal) and Poulenc (in Dialogues des Carmélites at the Teatro Real). This is her first collaboration with renowned keyboardist Yago Mahúgo, already a prominent recording artist with Brilliant Classics, whose CDs have previously garnered high praise. A specialist in historical performance practice, Mahúgo performs on a fortepiano by Keith Hill, modelled after Anton Walter (1796).

Johann Sebastian Bach, hero of the Baroque, has many masterpieces to his name. Among them is the Weihnachts-Oratorium BWV248, also known as the Christmas Oratorio. The work was written in 1734 to be performed at several services spanning Christmas Day to Epiphany in Leipzig. A re-telling of the Christmas story, the work has become one of the most popular choral compositions of all time and is a regular fixture in the church and concert calendars all over the world.

In a manner of parody, as was popular at the time, Bach repurposed sections of his other cantatas, particularly the secular ‘Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen’ BWV213, ‘Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten!’ BWV214 and ‘Preise dein Glück, gesegnetes Sachsen’ BWV215; if you recognise the melody, you’ve probably heard it before! In addition to these sections, passages of the Gospel were newly composed, along with the Chorale settings. While the soloists enact the details of the story and play the parts of different characters along the way, the Chorales represent the congregation – an affirmation of their trust in God. This recording, originally released in 1974, features several world-renowned soloists at the top of their game: Arleen Augér, Peter Schreier and Theo Adam, playing the Angel, the Evangelist and Herod respectively.

Other information:
- Recorded in 1974.
- A classic performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, featuring the superb voices of Arleen Augér, Peter Schreier, Annelies Burmeister, Theo Adam and the famous Dresdner Kreuzchor and Dresdner Philharmonie, conducted by Martin Flämig.
- The traditional performance style gives full due to the jubilant character and the deep feeling of wonder about the mystery of the Nativitas, here expressed by the unique voice of the much lamented Arleen Auger.
- From the rich archives of Berlin Classics.
- Sung texts available (on release) by clicking on 'Download Booklet' below the cover.

Brilliant's 2006 recordings of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, performed by Pieter-Jan Belder and the Netherlandish original instruments ensemble Musica Amphion, have been reissued several times as two separate discs, though the original release containing all six concertos maintains a separate existence as a budget release. This volume contains the Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049, the Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050, and the Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, BWV 1051, all played in clean and colorful period style and recorded in a resonant church acoustic that gives the music a fresh, lustrous ambience. Because this, like other titles in Brilliant's catalog, has the drab appearance of a poorly produced cost-cutter release, some collectors may pass it by, but that would be a mistake since these are exceptional performances that can give many of the better-known authentic renditions a run for the money. As leader of the group and performer on recorder and harpsichord, Belder offers intelligent and expressive interpretations that closely follow accepted Baroque practices, and though he and his fellow musicians aren't widely known outside the circle of listeners interested in early music, they can be respected for their musicianship and scholarly credentials. While these Brandenburgs may not be everyone's favorite performances in the end, they deserve attention from experienced listeners and newcomers alike.

-- Blair Sanderson, AllMusic.com

The Antegnatis were a family of organ builders who produced some of the best-known instruments of the 16th century, many of which can be found in churches across northern Italy. In total, they constructed an estimated 400 organs. Costanzo Antegnati was perhaps the most influential member of the family, and his set of 12 ricercars – the centrepiece of this recording – was published alongside his treatise on organ tuning and registration. The compositions were of such high quality and popularity that they were subsequently included in the Intavolatura d’organo tedesca, the most extensive manuscript source of keyboard works known today, containing a good 1,770 pieces by composers from Italy and Northern Europe. Interwoven between Antegnati's pieces are works by other composers of the same period. Notable among these is Anton Holzer's three canzoni, of which this is the first complete recording, and Agostino Soderini's Canzon La Ducalina, a fascinating short piece in which the keyboard writing closely follows the pronunciation of a virtual text and at times sounds like poetry being recited. Federico Del Sordo is a renowned continuo player who has devoted himself for more than 15 years to the study of the alternatim repertoire. For this recording, he performs primarily on a 17th-century organ installed in a Brescia church by Graziadio Antegnati III; variety is added to the set by the inclusion of harpsichord and clavichord performances.