One of the greatest innovations of Baroque music is undoubtedly the thoroughbass, or basso continuo, of which Bach himself wrote: “Thoroughbass is the entire foundation of music, it is played with both hands, so that the left hand plays the written notes, while the right hand adds consonances and dissonances, creating an agreeable Harmony to the glory of God and to the proper enjoyment of the senses. Because there is basso continuo, the melody can unfold in all its fullness, with that resonant profile that is so characteristic of the Baroque aesthetic. The great majority of the pieces are Preludes, that is to say, they anticipate a continuation: usually a sung chorale, the theme of which is to be found in the Prelude, where it sets the tone for the assembly; these hymns were sung during Lutheran services. And they are lacking because we have concentrated on the instrumental side. Bach and his composing colleagues have made some small contribution to this, by leaving us instrumental works that directly touch the soul and seem to speak for themselves. The pieces on this album are taken principally from two collections of Bach’s works: the third part of the Clavier-Übung and the eighteen great Preludes for organ. Saya Hashino is a virtuosic concert pianist, organist, harpsichordist who brings life to a diverse musical repertoire with finesse and expressivity. Truly versatile and versed in early, chamber, orchestral and contemporary music, she plays her keyboard instruments regularly with highly-acclaimed and established orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Ensemble Contrechamps to name a few. Saya is titular organist of Saint-Germain Church in Geneva, where this recording was also made on an impressive 18-stop organ built by the German organ builder Lukas Fischer.

Johann Sebastian Bach was certainly familiar with the Pantaleon – a large hammered dulcimer with a wide range and full chromatic scale. Bach’s contemporary Pantaleon Hebenstreit had developed the instrument, through which he gained international renown and became one of the best-paid Dresden court musicians. The instrument enjoyed great popularity in the 18th century and was an important precursor of the fortepiano, its younger brother. Bach may have heard Hebenstreit with his Pantaleon himself, as he knew several court musicians of the Dresden orchestra personally and also performed with some of them. While we cannot know if they had met in reality, our imagination has nonetheless been much exercised. What would Bach have put on his famous colleague's music stand? Very little music written for the Pantaleon has survived, although the instrument’s use in the court orchestras of Vienna and Dresden suggests that works for the harpsichord and for the violin in particular could have served for arrangements and improvisations. It is hard to imagine that Bach would have objected to a virtuoso like Hebenstreit adapting his violin sonatas for the Pantaleon.

Johann Sebastian Bach today has a reputation as the Godfather of Western European music, as a fountainhead of classical music theory and the creator of some of the greatest works the world has ever produced. Better known as a keyboard virtuoso, Bach was not regarded as a genius in his day, so how did this headstrong and belligerent but ambitious young musician become so extraordinarily productive? What were his influences? How did he end up in jail and what did he get up to in Café Zimmerman? Discover all of this and more in musicologist Davinia Caddy's fascinating biography of a composer who, to Max Reger, represented ‘the beginning and the end of all music’. The narrative, presented by actor Leighton Pugh, is illustrated with musical excerpts including the Brandenburg Concertos, Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, The Art of Fugue, St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor among many others.

With performances by...

Nils Thilo Krämer | Christian Benda | Petra Morath-Pusinelli | Alexander Jablokov | Robert Hill | Kölner Kammerorchester | Takako Nishizaki | Ariane Pfister | Capella Istropolitana | Andrés Gabetta | Helmut Müller-Brühl | Wolfgang Rübsam | Sebastian Benda | Ralf Otto | Swiss Baroque Soloists | Slovak Philharmonic Chorus | Christian Brembeck | Julia Brown | Luc Beauséjour | Gerhild Romberger | Bachorchester Mainz | Jan Cižmár | Oliver von Dohnányi

There is no better recordings of the strio trio repertoire than those you will find here. - David Hurwitz (ClassicsToday.com)

In 2007 Frank Peter Zimmermann was able to realize his long-cherished dream to establish a string trio, together with Antoine Tamestit and Christian Poltéra. Three individually superb string players do not necessarily add up to a top-flight trio – even if they all play on instruments by Stradivarius, as here – but Trio Zimmermann immediately made a name for itself at international festivals and prestigious concert venues.

In 2010 the trio released its first album – with Mozart's seminal Divertimento – to critical acclaim. (More than 10 years later, that recording was the top recommendation in the Record Review series Building a Library on BBC Radio 3.) On following offerings, the ensemble explored the later repertoire for string trio: two discs with Beethoven's contributions to the genre, and a third with works by Hindemith and Schoenberg which have garnered distinctions such as Diapason de l’Année, the Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine and a ‘Jahrespreis’ from the German Record Critics’ Award association. For their fifth disc to date the trio went back in time, however, as the three members together prepared a performing version of Bach's Goldberg Variations, described as ‘a triumph of combined technical ingenuity and musical insight’ in The Strad. These five discs have now been collected into a boxed-set retrospective, offering lovers of chamber music more than 5 hours of glorious music-making, in top-notch sound and including the original booklets with full documentation.

Past praise for previously released albums included in this set:

Bach: Goldberg Variations

The expertise and fluency of the Zimmermann's playing is evident. Their approach to dynamics is refreshingly flexible, and all three players bring a graceful approach to ornamentation.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Beethoven: String Trios, Op. 9, Nos. 1-3

These musicians are in command of the meticulously written extremes in expression, sforzandos not indiscriminately stabbed at but gauged according to the contexts in which they appear. Tempi are gauged to a nicety too. In sum, they do Beethoven proud throughout this exceptionally fine disc.

-- Gramophone

Hindemith & Schoenberg: String Trios

The Trio Zimmermann play them both Hindemith works with such energy, panache, and attention to the minutest detail that they are totally convincing and make a perfect foil to the rigors of the Schoenberg that follows.

-- The Guardian

Trio Zimmermann play Mozart & Schubert

The Zimmerman Trio plays with remarkably accurate intonation and a ravishing tone that’s also mindful of the Classical style. In other words, they don’t lay it on too thick, but they aren’t afraid to let the melodic lines sing. Schubert’s single-movement trio makes the perfect coupling.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Beethoven: String Trios, Op. 3; Serenade, Op. 8

The Zimmermann Trio offers what must be the finest recording of Beethoven's Op. 3 since the classic mono Heifetz/Primrose/Piatigorsky version. They bring out all of the first movement’s requisite brio, paying heed to the syncopated rhythmic underpinnings that support the scampering triplet passages. The ensemble lightens its sonority for the Andante without sacrificing body and definition, while they articulate the Menuetto’s two-note phrase groups and subito dynamics in strict tempo yet in a way that’s oblivious to the bar lines. While the Finale is a model of controlled ferocity, the musicians are not afraid to let the lyrical sections sing out sweetly (never cloyingly).

Power and delicacy effortlessly coexist in the Serenade’s opening March, while subtle dynamic gradations distinguish the Menuetto’s loud arpeggiatted tuttis. The Adagio’s long unison lines offer cogent proof that one can employ minimum vibrato and still retain a focused and alive sonority. The March returns da capo at the end of the piece, with slightly more emphatic fortes and lighter pianos this time around. The warmth, clarity, and ambient realism of BIS’s surround-sound engineering holds equal appeal when experienced in conventional stereo playback mode. This release is not just a worthy follow-up to the Zimmermann Trio’s magnificent Mozart K. 563 and Beethoven Op. 9 Trio traversals, but a reference disc in its own right. Bravo!

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Jed Distler)

Anne Akiko Meyers has amassed a multitude of fans and admirers for her exquisitely curated recordings, often exploring her passion for new music, and old music in new guises. Her quest for creative collaborations has inspired countless commissions and world-premieres, with the results infusing Shining Night, an album that embraces themes of love, poetry, and nature.

Anne’s fruitful association with composer Morten Lauridsen led to the arrangement of his popular choral work Sure on this Shining Night, for violin and piano, lending its name to the album’s title. From there springs forth an album imbued with music of light and hope, spanning the history of music through Baroque, Romantic, Popular, and current genres. J.S.Bach’s beautiful Air in G and Corelli’s colorful La Folia – arranged for violin and guitar – rub shoulders with Latin-tinged Estrellita (Little Star) by Manuel Ponce, the Aria from Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, and Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango. Two of the 20th century’s most iconic songs appear in intimate and tender new arrangements: Duke Ellington’s (In My) Solitude, and Can’t Help Falling in Love, famously crooned by The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. Anne’s collaborators are eminent Italian pianist Fabio Bidini and Grammy Award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux.

REVIEW:

Few violinists would have had the idea to ask the quintessential choral composer Morton Lauridsen, as Meyers did, to arrange two of his choral works for duo with violin. Fewer would have juxtaposed Lauridsen with Elvis Presley, and fewer still would have been able to make this marvelously varied program hang together. Meyers transforms the basic violin encore type of program into something new and fresh. She has made a specialty of bold, original, and immediate programming, but has outdone herself this time.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

In building the organ for Zurich’s Grossmünster in 1960, the firm of Metzler Orgelbau set a benchmark. Every well known organist wanted to play on this instrument. Hans Vollenweider, organist at the Grossmünster from 1970 to 1986, recorded the works of Bach over several years. The unique musicality and masterly technique of Vollenweider's interpretations are delightful. The spontaneity, immediacy and vividness of his recordings, available for the first time in this format, remain compelling. The present release features five of Bach's organ sonatas (BWV 525-528 and 530) in Triosonate form.

In building the organ for Zurich’s Grossmünster in 1960, the firm of Metzler Orgelbau set a benchmark. Every well known organist wanted to play on this instrument. Hans Vollenweider, organist at the Grossmünster from 1970 to 1986, recorded the works of Bach over several years. The unique musicality and masterly technique of Vollenweider's interpretations are delightful. The spontaneity, immediacy and vividness of his recordings, available for the first time in this format, remain compelling. The present release features J.S. Bach’s Preludes and Fugues BWV 539, 541, 543, and 545-548.

Gramophone Award-nominated artist Martin Fröst uses every recording as an opportunity to look at repertoire and performance through fresh eyes. His latest album for Sony Classical brings the extraordinary alchemy of a specially formed ensemble to the public with highly original arrangements for the first time on record.

With acclaimed pianist Roland Pöntinen and legendary bassist Sébastien Dubé, Fröst’s new album Night Passages charts a nocturnal journey through the mystical and the melancholic, the playful and the profound.

Reimagining favorites from the Baroque, while touching on jazz and folk music the album’s atmosphere carries with it the vibe of late-night improvisation and deep conversation between friends. From Rameau to Richard Rodgers, it invites listeners to eavesdrop on a musical union.

All nineteen tracks on the album were arranged by Fröst and his fellow trio members for their own instrumental lineup of clarinet, piano and bass. Scintillating Scarlatti keyboard mingling with touching Handel, virile Purcell, aerated Bach and works by Rameau that sound with new exotic allure.

Despite the quiet intimacy in works such as Richard Rodgers It Never Entered my Mind and Bach’s Jesu, meine Freunde, there is virtuosity, stamina and athleticism on display too, not least in a strident arrangement of Vallflickans Dans by the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén – a piece close to the heart of any Swede.

The album further includes the trio’s light-footed take on Chick Corea’s Armando’s Rhumba and Fröst’s own cadenza-like Prelude to the traditional Swedish polka Dorotea, which is full of his trademark improvisatory fluidity. The same qualities appear to stop time in a heart-rending take on Purcell’s Music for a While. The result is a unique fusion of music past and present, and a snapshot of a three-way musical friendship like none other.

Includes:

Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata in D Minor, K. 32
Chick Corea: Children’s Song: No. 15
Johann Sebastian Bach: Jesus bleibet meine Freude BWV 147
Henry Purcell: "Music for a While" Z. 583 (from Oedipus)       
Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: "It Never Entered My Mind"
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Air pour les Sauvages
Antonio Cesti: "Intorno all'idol mio"       
Johann Sebastian Bach: Sinfonia No. 5 in E-Flat Major, BWV 791  
Chick Corea: Armando's Rhumba
Henry Purcell: Hornpipe in E Minor, Z. 685
George Frideric Handel: Suite in B-Flat Major, HWV 434: IV. Menuet
Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata in D minor Kk.1
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Musette tendre en rondeau
Hugo Alfvén: Vallflickans Dans
Johann Sebastian Bach: Sinfonia No. 15 in B Minor, BWV 801
Martin Fröst: Prelude to Dorotea
Traditional: Polska from Dorotea
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Tambourin en rondeau
Gordon Jenkins: "Goodbye"

Martin Fröst, clarinet
Sébastien Dubé, bass
Roland Pöntinen, piano

At the end of his journey with the suites for violoncello solo by Johann Sebastian Bach, Francesco Galligioni has arrived at the cheerful and fresh Suite No. 6. As an appendix, so to speak, the internationally renowned baroque cellist from Padua offers chamber music for violoncello by the Bach family. In addition to two sonatas by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, famously called "Bückeburg Bach", the album offers a world premiere recording of an "Aria Scotese con variazzioni" - a Scottish song with variations by Johann Philipp Bach, who was court painter and organist of Saxe-Meiningen.

The Dutch violinist Jeroen de Groot (1961) studied with Herman Krebbers at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Among many other prizes he won, one stood out: in 1985 he was the winner of the National Violin Competition Oskar Back Competition. As a result, he received a scholarship, which enabled him to continue his studies with Sándor Végh in Salzburg and with Ivry Gitlis in Paris. On this album he performs solo works by Bach and Ysaÿe, recorded during live concerts in Foligno (Italy) and Middelburg (NL). Very special is the performance of Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in A minor, BWV 565, which is widely known as organ work, but here transcribed for solo violin by Bruce Lefriche. The Belgian violinist/composer and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was one of the most famous violinists of his time. The six solo violin sonatas opus 27, are Eugène Ysaÿe's most famous, performed and recorded works. He has dedicated all these six sonatas to a violinist that was famous at the time and adapted them to their special style. Ysaÿe was also inspired by Bach, completing the circle of the chosen repertoire.

You can’t say A without saying B: pianist Marcel Worms took up the challenge, to record the second book after his double album with the complete first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (2020). Bach completed the second book twenty years after the first, and in those two decades his composing has deepened even further. The Preludes have emancipated and are sometimes longer than the accompanying Fugues, the complexity of the music has increased, and the work as a whole is more abstract and spiritual. Add to that the length of the work (about half an hour longer than book I) and the assignment for the pianist is clear.

For this programme, Duo Diversitas has selected or created sophisticated arrangements that embody virtuosity and musical expression. In focusing on great composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, Marisa Minder and Evgeniya Spalinger explore the artistic refinement, lyrical grace and technical sophistication of the guitar and flute. The one original work for this combination is Hans Haug's Capriccio, a modern classic that alludes to Baroque procedure but within the context of exciting contemporary harmonies.

Il Gusto Barocco approaches Johann Sebastian Bach's suites and concertos from a contemporary and at the same time historically informed perspective. On their new album "Suite & Concertos", Jörg Halubek and the early music specialists of Il Gusto Barocco take a look at Bach's activities in the Zimmermann coffee house in Leipzig. They are not reconstructing an actual programme, but testing how the spirit of the musical gatherings in the circle of family, relatives and students can be transferred to our modern times. "We want to take a more modern look at Bach, who today is mainly seen as a strict church composer. For us, it's about the communicative side turned towards people," says ensemble leader and harpsichordist Jörg Halubek. The cello, which is slowly emerging from its basso continuo shadow in Baroque music, leads the way through the program with Bach's third cello suite. The solo concertos inserted between the suite movements extend the individual focus to the group. The tendency in concert practice to preserve the inviolability of such a cherished work is here afforded a historically-informed approach accessed simultaneously through the eyes and ears of a modern musician. We do after all know, from contemporary sources from Bach’s time, that instrumental works were not always played in their entirety. The forthcoming albums in this series, featuring new recordings and released to mark Bach’s birthday, which began last year with the recording of the Brandenburg Concertos, should be afforded a musical presenter. The aim is to spotlight the soloistic qualities of the individual musicians who together form the ensemble overall, while also maintaining their individuality. In the concertos chosen for this program the orchestra plays more than just an accompanying role.

“Like no other, Bach’s music carries within itself movement and dance, managing to combine the greatest abstraction with a concrete, physical and, subsequently, even transcendental dimension.” (Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker) During her 1980 stay in New York, in which she first rehearsed her celebrated Violin Phase to the music of Steve Reich, the only other recording playing in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s studio was the Brandenburg Concertos by J.S. Bach. Thirty-five years later, De Keersmaeker continues her work with the piece. The Brandenburg Concertos consist of six concerti grossi, in which Bach deploys the instruments from the baroque orchestra in different, often audacious constellations. Against this backdrop, De Keersmaeker sets sixteen dancers originating in different Rosas generations. Following her usual method, and as she did in Rain (after Steve Reich), she approaches the music as if it were a ready-made score for a dance piece, embodying Bach’s polyphonic mastery. The concertos are played live by the baroque ensemble B’Rock, conducted by violinist Amandine Beyer.

David Goode continues his new series of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, played on the Metzler Söhne organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge.