Sergio Fiorentino (1927-1998) exceptionally detested any superficial gestures and facial expressions when sitting at his instrument. In that respect and in his general view on making music he was true to pianists like Rachmaninov and Moiseiwitsch. The utmost technical difficulties were executed by his hands, and he showed neither strain nor superfluous movements, also never compromising in tempo. His hands always close to the keys, he exerted wonders of clear articulation and full piano tone. Never did he sacrifice the music to show off his tremendous technical endowments. Rhine Classics' collection will comprehensively represent all the significant "non-commercial" recordings left by Fiorentino (from Master's Private Archive), in top-quality remastered sound.

Cantata Collective, an ensemble “of San Francisco early music luminaries” (San Francisco Chronicle) inaugurates a major series of J. S. Bach’s choral works with a live recording of the composer’s St. John Passion. With celebrated conductor Nicholas McGegan, the toast of today’s new generation of vocal soloists and a three-to-a-part chamber choir, the Cantata Collective conveys the emotional intimacy and dramatic power of this monumental passion in a highly polished performance that led Early Music America to implore: “To the excellent musicians of Cantata Collective: More Bach Please!”

This album is the culmination of an extraordinarily fruitful artistic collaboration that took place at the 2022 Boulder Bach Festival in Boulder, Colorado. The recordings were made immediately after the public concerts concluded. They document four of the many memorable musical interpretations at the Festival, which occurred not just because of the many talented artists, but also thanks to the kindness and generosity of countless members of the community and region. Although many musicians converged on Boulder from all over the globe, the Festival also featured several remarkable local artists. The entire project took place against the backdrop of some of the most majestic natural scenery in the world.

REVIEW:

Under artistic director Mina Gajić, and music director Zachary Carrettin, the Boulder Bach Festival of Colorado has progressed steadily in its artistic aims as well as providing an attractive setting for music lovers. The present recordings, made immediately after the public performances in the 2022 Festival, bear witness to this, in sparkling accounts of two concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach and two choral settings by Johann Christian Bach, an earlier sprig on a very prolific family tree.

-- Audio Video Club of Atalnta (Phil Muse)

After 9CD in memoriam "inédits et introuvables" (RH-019), this is another treasure recording of Ivry Gitlis. From the never published studio recording in Denmark. With Natalia Likhopoi (Great Russian violinist Viktor Tretiakov's wife), Gitlis plays Concerto for 2 Violins in D minor.

The Spanish violinist Pablo Suárez presents the complete collection of the Six sonatas and partitas for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach founded on one of his most profound, ambitious and personal approaches, Sei Solo. Sei Solo is a proposal including not only the performance of the composer’s original music, but also the contributions offered by the researcher Helga Thoene which are based on the discovery of the possible existence, among some of the movements, of chorales by the composer himself. For this, she has counted on the collaboration of the soprano Manon Chauvin, the countertenor Gabriel Díaz, the tenor Fran Braojos, the bass Simón Millán, and the cellist Marco Pannaría.

The delicate textures of the vocal registers, combined with the solemnity of the cello, represent a perfect complement for this original purpose. With this idea, the Madrid-born musician introduces himself into the most intimate, human, introspective and sentimental language of the German composer’s personality, grounding his interpretation on a wide spectrum of colours, essences, nuances and timbres provided both by the placement of gut strings in the instrument used (a Nicola Gagliano violin dated 1780 in Naples) and by the natural acoustics of the environment selected for this project (the interior of the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Paz in the town of Gójar in Granada). The sonority, which has been created taking into consideration characteristics quite similar to those that could be found in 18th century instruments, finds its particular personality in parameters such as luminosity, clarity, definition and direction, through a performance in which excellent technical mastery, together with marvelous control in the development of the music, allow harmonic, melodic, affective and sensorial gestures to predominate at all times.

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.

"Throughout the dozen years I spent in Weimar, one great idea kept me in suspense - the renewal of music through a more intimate connection with poetry," wrote Franz Liszt in an 1860 letter to his close piano student Agnes Street-Klindworth (1825-1906). But Liszt's entire artistic life oscillated even more between art and religion, between freedom of expression and the strictness of dogmatic limitations. This artistic credo becomes clear not least in his piano cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses p.273. This very varied cycle, which dates back to 1835, combines grand concert pieces (such as Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude or Funérailles) with simple and shorter compositions, some of which incorporate Gregorian chants, with reference to a collection of poems by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869). This cross-section of a poetic-religious artistic life inspired the two musicians on this recording, pianist Julia Okruashvili and cellist László Fenyo, to create this CD Harmonies Hongroises, which combines music by Franz Liszt, born in 1811 in the Kingdom of Hungary, with music by Hungarian composers from the first half of the 20th century.

An unobtrusive figure in the British music scene and despite her self-stated lack of ambition, KATHLEEN LONG (1896–1968) was a musician of the highest order. She taught for 44 years at the Royal College of Music and was a major Decca artist for two decades, having recorded for several other labels before that. Her first recording was made in 1928, and her first Decca recordings (of Mozart’s Piano Concertos K449 and K450) were made in 1935. Her first Decca solo recordings are those on this release. On disc, she made premiere recordings of several Mozart concertos and sonatas and was renowned for her Scarlatti and Fauré. For her service to French music, she was made Honorary Member of the Académie de France.

The idea of light and dark, their contrast and their interaction, can be found in the Bible, is found as Yin and Yang in the great Chinese culture as well as in literature and painting. This idea remains relevant throughout the centuries and thus unites the past with the present. It also forms the guiding principle through the programme recorded here: the contrast is expressed both in the works and in the selection and configuration of the programme. The parallels between the second half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 21st century are expressed in the Magnificat BuxWV 203 by Dietrich Buxtehude and the Toccata by Bernard Foccroulle, composed in 2001 as a tribute to Buxtehude. The reference to the so-called "Stylus Fantasticus" (a musical style of the Baroque period originating in Italy and reaching its culmination in the North German organ school of the late 17th century) provides natural coherence within this very contrasting album.

One of the great piano duos of recent decades presents a new CD on GENUIN "in praise of God": musical works based on the "Laudate Dominum" that kept Johann Sebastian Bach preoccupied throughout his life. Volker and Hans-Peter Stenzl span four centuries, from the Baroque era to the present day. Bach's "Jesu bleibet meine Freude" can be found here as well as a rarity by Martin Gustav Nottebohm, Igor Stravinsky and Astor Piazzolla appear alongside each other, and Gyorgy Kurtag and Michael Denhoff take a new look at today's visions of God – an exciting and original combination of moving music performed to the highest standard!

Like all great composers, Bach wrote lively dynamic pieces for
keyboard as well as in his cantatas etc. But he also produced many
wonderful gentle and peaceful works and many of these are collected
by pianist Jonathan Phillips in his new album 'Tranquillity'.
This CD contains music for anyone hoping to gain an overriding sense
of stillness, calm, contemplation and reverence. Bach’s music has
radiance, luminosity, divinity, serenity, and timeless beauty.
Jonathan Phillips ("a musician of real quality and finesse" - The Times) has broadcast for the BBC, Russian and Italian and Swedish
TV and radio, and given recitals all over the UK, Europe and former
Soviet Union. Jonathan was interviewed by John Humphries and
played live on Radio Four’s Today programme following a full-page
feature article in the Guardian Arts Section about the preparation and
performance of the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto he gave in
London in 2003.

The pandemic in 2020-21 brought little to dispel the gloom among performing musicians. But these months also proved to be a time of reflection and artistic rebirth for many, the arts became a breeding ground for spiritual offspring, and so it proved for me; the genesis of the work you can hear on this album. Finally, there was plenty of time to spend many hours every day working on the project against a background of calm, which made Bach's music all the more comforting!

A re-release of his critically accalaimed recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach´s Secular Cantatas. Recordings from 1994 - 2000, part of the project The Complete Bach on 172 CDs. hänssler CLASSIC is proud to present Helmuth Rilling's landmark recording of the Secular Cantatas in a new collector's edition. Rilling was the first conductor to ever record the complete Bach cantatas and still, 25 years after they were first released in celebration of the Bach tercentennial in 1985, they remain the standard by which all other interpretations are judged. This box set includes timeless performances featuring many of Europe's finest singers at the height of their careers.

You don't have to like every composer - but there's no getting around J. S. Bach. The successful series of BR-KLASSIK audio biographies is now devoted to this central star of the musical firmament. His sparsely documented life leaves plenty of room for the imagination in works of fiction, but the authentic sources – well narrated – are just as captivating in every way. "If ever a tone artist brought the hidden secrets of harmony into the most artistic execution, it was undoubtedly our Bach.” (from the Necrology published by C.P.E. Bach in 1754). Son of a town piper, organist, concertmaster, Kapellmeister, then Thomaskantor in Leipzig for 27 years. Married twice, 20 children. Active in Thuringia and Saxony. When compared with the spectacular biography of Handel (BR-KLASSIK 900911), this one seems rather short on excitement – yet Bach's biography also provides a fascinating insight into an age that is very distant and foreign to us today. An age of proud, aspiring cities, magnificent courts, simple-minded town councillors, music-loving but unpredictable princes, church music that was already somewhat antiquated, and fashionable instrumental music from France and Italy. Bach moves confidently in the field of tension created by these opposing worlds – while creating music that surpasses that of all his contemporaries in terms of its artistry, depth and expressiveness. In Leipzig, Bach intends to raise church music to a completely new level and place it on a par with theology; he wants it to be multi-layered and speak directly to the faithful. Only a few years later, however, this initial enthusiasm wanes. Headstrong and uncompromising by nature, he now becomes restless and dissatisfied due to his frustrating battles with the petty town authorities. He composes a lot of secular music once again, seeks contact with the Dresden court, and finally retreats into his very own world to fathom the final "secrets of harmony". For all its modesty, therefore, the story of Bach's life is nevertheless magnificent, moving, and sometimes even shocking. This audio biography gets as close to the protagonist as the sources allow, also bringing his environment to life – the princes, churchmen and town councillors, and his friends and adversaries. In addition, we are introduced to the frequently bizarre everyday world of the 18th century: not always edifying church services, terrible transportation, lavish dining and drinking, or the horrors of an eye operation. At the centre of it all, however, is the music. "He should not be called brook (in German: Bach) but sea," Beethoven once apparently said, "because of his infinite inexhaustible wealth of tone combinations and harmonies." The numerous musical examples in this audio biography are densely interwoven with the narrative, and literally immerse the listener in this boundless abundance. Famed as an actor in the popular German detective series “Tatort”, Udo Wachtveitl is also a music lover and long-time narrator of the BR audio biographies. He regards the "structure behind music" as highly important, so Bach's life and work are a special source of inspiration to him. The Jena-born and currently highly regarded actor Albrecht Schuch ("All Quiet on the Western Front” plays the role of Johann Sebastian Bach, and several other outstanding BR narrators also shine in a wide variety of roles – making this audio biography a real treat!

This CD box set features interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach's cantatas by three outstanding choirs and orchestras. In collaboration with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, one of the world's leading orchestras specializing in historical performance practice, Michael Volle presents a recording of Bach's cantatas for solo bass. Hans-Christoph Rademann and the Gaechinger Cantorey contrast the dramatic works BWV 19 & 149 with the peaceful and intimate cantatas BWV 169 & 158 in their Naumburg recording. In a third recording, the Saxon Baroque Orchestra and the St. Thomas Choir Leipzig, conducted by 17th Thomaskantor Gotthold Schwarz, interpret the well-known choral cantatas BWV 33, 17 & 99 from Bach's time in Leipzig.