Two very different musicians meet and realize that music is not limited to the genre they happen to perform. They touch the hearts of their listeners and in so doing realize that music is a universal language that transcends everything. (Marcel Ponseele) The three sections of this Triptych can be described as follows: the left-hand panel — Misery — depicts the vale of tears; Transitio on the right-hand panel represents a transformation in everyday life, whilst Transfiguratio, the central panel, portrays the brilliant colors of transcendental bliss. Jean-Paul Estiévenart is a Belgian jazz trumpeter whose career to date is surprisingly dense and diverse. His playing is nourished as much by his passion for the traditions and history of the genre as it is by modern experiments and free improvisation. His meeting with the eminent oboist Marcel Ponseele created no clash of contexts, as they both experience and talk about music in the same way. They have chosen to perform a selection of works — principally by Bach — in which each reacts to the other, altering the music slightly where necessary to allow space for improvisation.

This amazing box celebrates the 50th anniversary of one of the most influential and seminal Baroque ensembles of the recording history: La Petite Bande. The box contains the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Christmas Oratorio and the Mass in b minor. All these works are performed according to the individual and musicologically based criteria elaborated by that great musician, also a great scholar, who goes by the name Sigiswald Kuijken.

"When I look back now, I'm astonished and grateful that this unusual birth of our 'little band' – obviously more the result of happy circumstance than premeditated decision – has continued to define the character and ambience of our collaboration over the entire 50 years of our existence as an 'action group'.

"When you're a musician, or playing in a group of musicians, you need to play every concert as if it were the very first, but at the same time perhaps the very last. This keeps the work mint-fresh and banishes any suffocating routine. The real, deep reason for playing any music at all (even if you play on your own) is your connection to the situation you're transcending, which gives you the most personal, inner satisfaction. If this feeling ever starts to evaporate, where's the fun?

"Yes, this is the breath that keeps us musicians alive, and we've always chosen musicians who can share this same breath with us. The mentality – that common philosophy about the work – is absolutely the most important aspect; it very largely determines the quality that can then be communicated to our audience. In the most literal sense, a musician must always remain an amateur – a dilettante – as only then will the listener share in the enjoyment." -Sigiswald Kuijken

The pure polyphonic quality of J.S. Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias cannot be overstated – they offer an agile introduction to late-baroque musical forms and imitative writing in general, while retaining a cantabile feel. These exquisite miniatures, transcendent of the didactic purpose to which they were relegated for too long, provide an orderly and at once concise and comprehensive survey of Bach’s soundscape. The purity and density of their musical substance, distilled in a sort of abstract and universal language, has naturally encouraged numerous arrangements from the 19th century onwards for vast array of other instruments. Here we have the two-part Inventions arranged for two violins by the performers, Yulia Berinskaya and Valentina Danelon, where Bach’s aim of encouraging ‘a cantabile style of playing’ through the independence of the parts is admirably achieved in the natural expressiveness of the two stringed instruments.

The three-part Sinfonias are given in the existing 19th-century arrangement for two violins and viola by Ferdinand David (1810–73), not only one of the leading violinists of his era but also a musician with very close links to Felix Mendelssohn, a composer who spearheaded a revival of interest in Bach’s music. The pairing of these arrangements of Bach with a similarly-scored string trio by Taneyev is an apt one on a deeper level, too. The Russian composer was affectionately known by his composition teacher, Tchaikovsky, as the ‘Russian Bach’ on account of his deep knowledge and expert application of the art of counterpoint. Taneyev drew on his deep mathematical knowledge to seek out all possible combinations in his compositions, exploring and analyzing areas of polyphony like none other in his day. His Trio for two violins and viola Op.21 (1907) offers an original pairing of classical forms and language with his beloved baroque counterpoint.

Johann Sebastian Bach has always been a fixing point in the musical cosmos of Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande. Over the years, the ensemble recorded the cantatas for an entire church year, the great sacred works, and also Bach's important instrumental works. Nevertheless, there was still a gap that Kuijken wanted to close. The present recording is the first volume (of three) of Bach's harpsichord concertos: In addition to the original concertos, the recording project also includes Bach's own arrangements of violin concertos for harpsichord.

There is a wealth of legends about great composers and famous musicians, among them examples of musical duels such as that between the young Georg Friedrich Händel and Domenico Scarlatti in Rome in 1709 or Wolfgang Amadéus Mozart and Muzio Clementi in Vienna in 1781. The contenders were expected to rival one another in the art of improvisation or display their musical skills in an appropriate manner. The present program relates to a keyboard competition between the two keyboard virtuosos and composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Louis Marchand, which was apparently to have taken place in Dresden in 1717. Several sources mention this planned challenge, even if all of them originate in the German-speaking territories. A total of 21 texts dated between 1739 and 1802 mention the proposed encounter between Bach and Marchand. However, all these surviving sources are to be approached with caution and many of them are undoubtedly intended as glorification of Bach, asserting his superiority over his French challenger. The starting-point and prime source of this story is Johann Sebastian Bach in person

Bach’s four Lutheran Masses feature almost no Lutheran material at all. Sometimes called ‘Missa brevis’, musically they are almost entirely made up of movements borrowed from Bach’s Cantatas. While often overshadowed by the more famous Mass in B minor, the beauty of these short Masses is that they represent Bach’s own choice of his finest Cantata movements. Despite their exquisite beauty, featuring splendid choruses and deeply moving arias, there are relatively few recordings of the Masses. This collection combines The Sixteen’s recordings into one collection. Just eight singers join The Sixteen’s orchestra to perform the Masses, allowing the beauty of the virtuosic vocal lines to be heard with absolute clarity.

German viola player Nadine Henrichs presents an exquisite collection of original works and arrangements for viola from the 18th century. Most pieces are soloistic, while two sonatas by Flackton and Bach are for small chamber ensemble. With this album, Nadien Henrichs has fulfilled a long-standing dream of hers: starting an attempt to elevate the baroque viola from its ridiculed niche existence. Since her first studies, Nadine has always played the viola with great passion in various chamber music projects. She plays as guest and member in several ensembles. Nadine plays her own baroque viola, built in Vienna in 1775 by Johann Georg Thir.

A one-off in Bach’s output, Amore traditore is a model in style and structure of the Italian chamber cantata and although the surviving manuscript score is not in Bach’s own hand, careful stylistic analysis has proved the piece is his. Far less familiar to the general public is Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739) who played a determining role in early 18th century German music. The cantata L’occaso di Titone all’Aurora oriente evokes the Greek myth of Eos (Dawn), daughter of Titan, sister of the Sun and Moon and mother of the four winds from the four points of the compass. Like Keiser, Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729) trained at the Thomasschule in Leipzig and is particularly well-known to harpsichordists for his two valuable treatises on basso continuo performance. A particularly fine example is Luci voi siete quelle, the text of which is Arcadian-style poetry. Händel’s Roman cantatas certainly have the usual arcadian settings and pathos-laden themes of pastoral love affairs with allegorical reflections concerning love and beauty. Francesco Antonio Pistocchi (Palermo 1659 - Bologna 1756) is known today only to specialists although in his time he was celebrated as a great countertenor and composer by Charles Burney. In Germany, he composed the cantata Il Polifemo, the sixth in his collection Scherzi musicali op.2.

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.

An eminent interpreter of Vivaldi, Giuliano Carmignola has always had a great affinity with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, as can be heard in his landmark recordings of the Violin Sonatas with Andrea Marcon (2002), the Violin Concertos with Concerto Köln (2014, Diapason d'or), and the Sonatas & Partitas (2018), which Gramophone judged to be "a first-rate choice among the recordings of these works on period instruments, despite the competition”. Carmignola’s latest project took shape during the Covid lockdowns of 2020 and offers a new and sometimes experimental reading of Bach’s Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso, in which he highlights new details and exalts the choreatic character and the brilliance of many of the suites’ movements. Having already assured the success of Sonar in Ottava (A472) with his long-time friend Mario Brunello, this recording is the first of a series of solo projects that Carmignola will realize for Arcana.

On Synergy, flautist Sharon Bezaly and her musician friends demonstrate that one plus one can be much greater than two. Featuring works that celebrate the coming together of like-minded musicians, this project is a reminder, after more than two years of a pandemic that has affected all of us, that true musical synergy can only be achieved 'face-to-face’, rather than ‘remotely’. With his Concerto for flute and recorder, Telemann not only creates a fusion of different musical styles of his time – namely Italian, German and French – but also shows a gift for borrowing elements from popular music. Saint-Saëns brings swirling colors and energy with a Tarentelle for flute, clarinet and orchestra, that at times displays obsessive, even threatening undertones. From the same period, Doppler’s Concerto for two flutes is not far from the world of opera, providing the two soloists with ample opportunity to shine like two singers in front of an orchestra. In addition to celebrating the synergy created between musicians, the last two works featured on this disc, Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6 and Suite from the Orchestral Works, are telling examples of synergy between composers: it is as if Villa-Lobos and Mahler were shaking hands with Johann Sebastian Bach across distances of thousands of miles and hundreds of years.

REVIEW:

The principal attraction of this SACD, as good as the performances are, is the uniqueness of the program. Sharon Bezaly, one of the outstanding flutists of our time, has brought together composers not particularly associated with each other, and from different eras. While each performance is enjoyable, the real success of the disc is how the imaginative program flows in such a lovely way.

On Telemann’s Concerto in E Minor for Recorder, Flute, and Strings with harpsichord continuo. Bezaly is joined by one of the world’s premier recordists, Michala Petri, and their interplay is delightful. The final Presto is particularly inventive and sparkling in the way the two soloists play off each other.

Michael Collins and Bezaly play Saint-Saëns’s Tarantelle with total communication, lingering lightly over lyrical passages while clearly enjoying their virtuoso moments as well.

The big surprise for me was the Concerto in D Minor for Two Flutes by the flute virtuoso and composer Franz Doppler (1821–1883). The music is almost vocal in its melodic shape, but the remarkable aspect of the score, surprisingly, are the passages where the two flutes must play in unison. Bezaly and Walter Auer come close to making us believe that they are a single flute.

Next comes the one work without orchestra, Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No. 6, scored for flute and bassoon. Bram van Sambeek is a brilliant technician, but more importantly he produces a rich sound from his bassoon and provides harmonic support for Bezaly’s flute.

Her combination of rich tone and rhythmic precision is just right for The Mahler-orchestrated selections from the Second and Third Orchestral Suites. While no one would mistake this for an historically informed performance, it is an extremely stylish one. Michael Collins and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra bring elegance to the Air and energy to the Gavotte from the Third Suite. As an encore Bezaly give us a repeat of the Badinerie from the Second Suite.

BIS’s usual high standards of engineering and informative program notes round out a truly lovely disc.

-- Fanfare (Henry Fogel)

The topics of death, mourning and consolation move people more than ever. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this theme has come upon us in a cruel and numbing way. The music and lyrics of this new album from Elena Margolina and Boris Hait want to be a support for all those who are confronted with the often paralyzing reality of war in processing their grief. Music and literature have an effect on people as a contact with the beautiful, as a mediator of true values. They are thus a unique means of providing comfort, of overcoming powerlessness, of regaining hope.

Timothy Hopkins is a German/American cellist living in Leipzig, Germany. He has a special fascination with performing arrangements and transcriptions of other instruments' literature for the cello. These include, for example, his own arrangements of the Chaconne from the 2nd Partita for Violin by Johann Sebastian Bach, the 24th Caprice by Nicolò Paganini, Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns, or, for example, the famous Violin Sonata by César Franck, which he performs in his own version on the cello. Timothy is a passionate chamber musician and has performed several times as a member of the Lipsia String Quartet and the Max Klinger Piano Trio at the HARMOS Chamber Music Festival in Portugal and at Rice University Houston/Texas. He also forms the Cello Duo Grancelli with his fellow student Moritz Klauk from Leipzig. Solo and chamber music performances have taken him to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the USA. As a soloist he has played several times with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, the MDR Symphony Orchestra as well as the Castello Symphony Orchestra (Spain) and is a prize winner of national and international competitions.

Also available on Blu-ray

Johann Sebastian Bach
ST MATTHEW PASSION, BWV 244

Christina Landshamer, soprano
Stefan Kahle, alto
Wolfram Lattke, tenor
Martin Lattke, tenor
Klaus Mertens, bass
Gotthold Schwarz, bass

Leipzig St Thomas Boys Choir
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Georg Christophe Biller, conductor

Recorded live from the St Thomas Church, Leipzig, 5 and 6 April 2012

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Korean
Running time: 164 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Johann Sebastian Bach
ST MATTHEW PASSION, BWV 244
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Christina Landshamer, soprano
Stefan Kahle, alto
Wolfram Lattke, tenor
Martin Lattke, tenor
Klaus Mertens, bass
Gotthold Schwarz, bass

Leipzig St Thomas Boys Choir
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Georg Christophe Biller, conductor

Recorded live from the St Thomas Church, Leipzig, 5 and 6 April 2012

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Korean
Running time: 164 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)