“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.

The organ loomed large from early on in Bach’s life. The foundations of his multifaceted career as a professional musician were clearly laid in the careful cultivation of Bach’ prodigious talent as an organist whilst he was still a child. - See more at: http://www.signumrecords.com/catalogue/david-goode/johann-sebastian-bach:-the-complete-organ-works/sigcd800.html#sthash.gfLILMva.dpuf

Johann Sebastian Bach's flute sonatas undoubtedly require congenial partners, who play together in an unpretentious, equally important way - in the truest sense of the word, in concert. This is brilliantly fulfilled by Lars Ulrik Mortensen with his hardly surpassable vocal playing on the harpsichord and Linde Brunmayr-Tutz with virtuosity and full sound on the transverse flute. On the 10th anniversary of Gustav Leonhardt's death, the album also contains a unique sound document: it is the first recording of Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt - both play viola da gamba here! - and also of Eduard Melkus. Under the direction of Josef Mertin, doyen of early music in Vienna, they recorded the 6th Brandenburg Concerto on original instruments for the first time in 1950.

This is an album that portrays an imaginary weird audition that took place in Leipzig in 1723. After Johann Kuhnau's death the Thomaskirche was in search of a new Kantor. For different reasons Telemann, Fasch and Graupner declined and the fourth choice happened to be Johann Sebastian Bach. Thomas Triesschijn and his ensemble imagine a dialogue among the four giants through their own compositions for recorder and orchestra. This recording is not only a showcase for a great virtuoso, but a fully enjoyable album with plenty of wonderful music. Triesschijn and Counterpoint previous (and first) release was awarded the Gramophone Editor's Choice: "This debut album is, hands down, some of the best recorded Telemann out there, and I am ready to go fist to fist with anyone who disagrees."

The Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (the original spelling: Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach) is a collection of keyboard music compiled by Johann Sebastian Bach for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, who went on to become one of Europe's greatest improvising composers. The book has a clear didactic purpose. Most of the pieces included are better known as parts of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions and Sinfonias. The pieces in the collection are sequenced by complexity, beginning with the simplest works. The works are for “Keyboard” so they may be played on any instrument of the time: organ, harpsichord, spinet, or clavichord. Bach, however, considered the clavichord the best instrument for personal use, because it is able to express most adequately the cantabile way of playing.

Played on the clavichord by Yuan Sheng, “China’s premier interpreter of Bach” (International Piano Magazine) and a pupil of Solomon Mikowsky and Rosalyn Tureck, Yuan Sheng extensively studied the performance practice of Baroque music. Equally at home at the piano as at the harpsichord, he has an instinctive feeling for the possibilities, sonorities, and touch of the instrument at hand, so that “the listener might easily have imagined the composer at the keyboard” (Boston Intelligencer).

The seven compositions commonly called works for lute by Johann Sebastian Bach, despite more than a century of studies, do not seem to want to completely reveal the mystery of their birth, of their real instrumental destination and of Bach's decidedly abstract concept of the instrument, the lute, which in its latest evolution continued after almost three centuries of glory to attract the attention of the highest musical lineage. The mystery did not distance the interpreters from these compositions, which Bach did not collect in a single cycle, as he did for the works for solo violin and cello, and indeed it has made them perhaps more stimulating, especially if we consider that in the turn of seventy years the lute was destined to disappear from the music scene. There are moments in which, to discover or define who we are, we must confront ourselves with the unknown. Evangelina Mascardi did it with this extraordinary engraving, which in addition to being the first Bach complete lute works recorded by a women, writes a new important interpretative page, the result of artistic maturity, critical rethinking and original instrumental research.

Born in 1994, bassoonist Mathis Stier not only won second prize at the 2019 ARD Competition, but was also awarded the coveted Audience Prize. Mathis Stier has a natural affinity with the music of the 18th century and the three works which he has chosen for his ALPHA debut demonstrate it's principal characteristics: Baroque, Empfindsamkeit / Sturm und Drang and Viennese Classicism. The composers J.S. Bach, Johann Wilhelm Hertel and W.A. Mozart represent three generations: father, son and grandson. The conventions of each previous generation are questioned, musical boundaries are broken down and new paths are taken, until the generational revolt finds it's way back to more conventional channels. This is how Mathis Stier describes the phenomenon: "Musically, the Mozart Concerto represents the classical bassoon and is probably the best-known work in the original literature. Hertel's concerto, on the other hand, is unusual and fairly unknown even among bassoonists. It deserves to be more widely known, however, because it is an exceedingly remarkable and idiosyncratic piece. Finally, the Bach Concerto, while a very well-known work, is extremely rarely performed in this version and thus represents an addition to the repertoire. The adaptation for the bassoon is obvious, since the (reconstructed) original was probably composed for the similar-sounding oboe d'amore. Moreover, setting pieces in a different key was common practice for Bach."

As an organist, harpsichordist, fortepianist, and conductor, Lorenzo Ghielmi has been inspiring for decades with interpretations of music from the Renaissance to the Romantic era in historical performance practice. He is considered one of the world's most renowned specialists and interpreters of historical keyboard instruments such as Gottfried Silbermann's first fortepiano, a sound revolution that found J.S. Bach's "full approval" and sparked his enthusiasm. In 1983 Lorenzo Ghielmi was one of the founders of the legendary Italian baroque orchestra "Il Giardino Armonico;" as its organist/harpsichordist he traveled the world. He now focuses mainly on his work as a soloist and chamber musician. On My Choice Ghielmi presents outstanding masterpieces by composers from Bruhns and Fontana to Bach and his sons, from R. Schumann and Brahms to Hans Kotter and Arvo Pärt.

Founded by Philippe Herreweghe at a time when the Baroque revival was still a matter for specialists, Collegium Vocale Gent has been at the heart of the rediscovery of Bach's sacred music. This ten-album set brings together some of his finest sacred vocal works, from a selection of Leipzig cantatas (Gramophone Editor’s Choice, Choc de Classica etc.) to the St John Passion (Gramophone Editor’s Choice, Trophée Radio Classique) by way of the Mass in B minor. Collegium Vocale Gent was one of the first ensembles to use new ideas about baroque performance practice in vocal music. Their authentic, text-oriented and rhetorical approach gave the ensemble the transparent sound with which it would acquire world fame. In recent years, Collegium Vocale Gent has grown organically into an extremely flexible ensemble whose wide repertoire encompasses the full range of different stylistic periods from Renaissance up to contemporary music. Besides its own baroque orchestra, Collegium Vocale Gent works together with several historically informed ensembles, including the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Freiburger Barockorchester and Akademie fü r Alte Musik Berlin. It also works with prominent symphony orchestras such as the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouworkest. Since 2017 the ensemble runs its own summer festival, Collegium Vocale Crete Senesi, in Tuscany, Italy. Collegium Vocale Gent enjoys the financial support of the Flemish Community and the city of Ghent.

Incantati brings together three instrumental timbres which were used in the baroque period to represent enchantment or otherworldliness, whether it be the touch of the supernatural, the moment of falling in love or the departure into the next world. The recorder’s sweet tone was associated with pastoral and amorous scenes, while the viola d’amore’s ethereal quality enhances moments of spirituality in both religious music and opera. In the Passions by J.S. Bach, the viola da gamba’s delicate sound accompanies the departure of Christ from life on earth. These three sonorities come together in incantati to create a uniquely charming sound, with each of the instruments clearly distinguishable, yet complementing each other.

This record is the second part of both the Sonatas and Partitas, recorded by Linus Roth. Not only did Roth’s teachers and the interpretations of great violinists have a huge influence on how he plays Bach, but also his preoccupation with the original text and with what is known as historically informed performance practice, in particular the experience of playing with the type of convex Baroque bow that was used in Bach’s time. Linus Roth, who received the ECHO KLASSIK Award as 'Best Newcomer' 2006 for his début album on the label EMI, was awarded his second ECHO award in 2017 for his recording of the violin concertos by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky with the London Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Sanderling. Linus Roth has made a name for himself internationally, not just with his acclaimed work in core repertoire, but also with his discovery / rediscovery of works that have undeservedly fallen into oblivion.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, otherwise known as Part Four of his Clavier-Übung “consisting of an Aria and Diverse Variations” intended to “refresh the spirits of connoisseurs”, is an impressive example of the art of variation. During the pandemic, the pianist Ragna Schirmer performed it for a small audience, mentally dedicating each variation to a different audience member. The result is a magnificent achievement that affords masterly proof of her passion for this work, a passion that has evolved over several decades.

Géza Anda performed regularly at the Lucerne International Music Festival from 1955-1969. Only from this period three recordings have survived, which are published here for the first time in their entirety. These are the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra BWV 1061 by Johann Sebastian Bach from the festival year 1955 and the 3rd Piano Concerto by Béla Bartók from 1965. Clara Haskil and Herbert von Karajan were Anda's partners for Bach, and Ernest Ansermet for Bartók, who was heard here for the last time in Lucerne. Also featured is Bartók's 2nd Piano Concerto, which Anda played with his favorite conductor Ferenc Fricsay before an enthusiastic audience. audite presents this important gap in the Anda discography in cooperation with the Géza Anda Foundation Zurich, Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), Salzburg's Eliette and Herbert von Karajan Institute, and Lucerne Festival.

Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertoire included Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well known for his interpretations of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, recording the complete sonatas of both composers. Wilhelm Kempff’s 78-rpm recordings were very much focused on Beethoven, as can be heard on seven previously issued APR discs, but this release presents everything by other composers he set down from the start of electrical recording until the war. Notable among the titles are four of his own Bach transcriptions and, revealing the pianist in an unexpected light, his own virtuosic elaboration of the Schubert/Liszt ‘Hark, Hark! The Lark’ transcription.

REVIEW:

There's something special about these recordings, something quite miraculous. In spite of the relatively primitive technology involved in these early electrical recordings, I had no trouble at all forgetting sonic imperfections, and zeroing in on a great master channeling great composers. The French Suite no. 5 of Bach, recorded in 1935, is the highlight of the disc; it's a masterful interpretation. I was in awe of this from the first time I heard it, since I had the strong feeling that Kempff was communicating his own awe.

-- Music for Several Instruments

With this debut album, cellist Julia MacLaine expresses both her roots in classical music and her enthusiasm for contemporary music by creating a dialogue between Bach's preludes and responses crafted by six Canadian composers with styles as diverse as they are rich: Airat Ichmouratov, Gabriel Dharmoo, Carmen Braden, Nicole Lizée, Cris Derksen and Roy Johnstone.

Assistant principal cello of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 2014, Julia MacLaine performs worldwide as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician in music ranging from classical to contemporary and from “world” to her own arrangements and compositions. When not onstage with NACO, she performs regularly with her string quartet, Ironwood. Their programs combine classical warhorses (Beethoven, Ravel, Debussy) with very new music (works by Ana Sokolovic, Nicole Lizée, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, Esa‐Pekka Salonen) and occasionally veer off into their own arrangements of original songs and folk music.