This CD illustrates how present-day musicians can arrange Bach's compositions in accordance to his teachings, beyond the narrow limits set by the ideal of fidelity to the score. With good criteria, Il Maniatico Ensemble has arranged the six sonatas BWV 525 to 530, originally intended for organ, adapting them to an ensemble consisting of oboe, keyboard (harpsichord or organ), and cello. Johann Sebastian Bach himself is a good example of this conception of the musical work, far from the conceptual changes introduced by Romantic aesthetics. His arrangements of pieces by others and by himself are well known. He arranged concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello, and Telemann for organ; he turned oboe and violin concertos into harpsichord concertos; he transformed movements of concertos into cantata choruses; he reused and adapted vocal compositions in order to include them in other vocal compositions, etc. The present recording includes one of these arrangements by Bach himself. It is a version of the BWV 1030 sonata in B minor for flute and obbligato harpsichord, a work that is central to the flute players' repertoire canon. An autograph score by Bach himself of the sonata BVW 1030 for flute and harpsichord is preserved, and presumably he wrote it around 1736/37, during Bach's last years as conductor of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig.

Johann Sebastian Bach took the opportunity to enhance the previously mediocre inventory of string instruments in Leipzig's two main churches in 1729 by purchasing four violins, two violas and two cellos from the workshop of Johann Christian Hoffmann (Leipzig 1683-1750). Three of these eight instruments, two violins and a viola, are still owned by the Thomaskirche. They could only be admired in a display case for decades, but here they can be heard in a recording for the first time. The Art of Fugue is framed by Bach's first and last Leipzig chorale arrangements, recorded on the Hildebrandt organ in Stormthal near Leipzig, which Bach had examined and inaugurated. Hearing these emblematic works on instruments that the Cantor himself had played is an extraordinary experience that provides direct historical testimony to the sound world of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Since 2017, violinist Emmanuelle Dauvin plays whilst accompanying herself on the organ pedalboard - recalling the musical technique of Nicolaus Bruhns at the end of the seventeenth century. This is OVNI Baroque : a spectacular yet forgotten musical practice. Alongside soprano Heather Newhouse, she created Cantata a 2 : a concert programme of arias and instrumental pieces, for soprano, violin and bass, by J.S. Bach, presented here in an innovative arrangement. The arias bring a consolidating balance to the sonata trio in which the text unfolds from the vocal line. From the purity of the trio by two, emerges a bounteous expression.

With�Marimba, David Moliner presents an extraordinary album that places this unique instrument and it's manifold colors and sounds at it's core. Moliner's masterful arrangements and two original works composed specifically for the instrument take listeners on a sonic journey through the centuries, combining both technical skill and creative expression. The album brings together works from various epochs and styles. Particularly notable is his arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites, which he transforms into new, polyphonic textures using his four Marimba mallets. Moliner successfully combines Bach's rhythmic pulse and musical complexity with the Marimba's unique tonal color. In addition to the Baroque works, the album also features pieces by Claude Debussy and Franz Schubert. Moliner brings a new dimension to Debussy's impressionistic�Arabesques, allowing the Marimba to bloom in a delicate, almost pictorial soundscape. Schubert's romantic�Impromptu, transcribed by Moliner for Marimba, unfolds in it's poetic beauty and gains expressive depth through the instrument's distinct timbre. Another highlight is the composition�Jalak Suren�by contemporary composer Alexander Liebermann, inspired by the bird songs of Indonesia. Moliner brings the subtle melodies and rhythmic structures of this music to life, allowing the Marimba to shine as a sensitive storyteller of a musical nature portrait. The album concludes with Moliner's own Marimba composition, making a powerful statement: the Marimba is not just an exotic instrument but a full-fledged member of the classical music scene, capable of interpreting the entire spectrum of the repertoire from Baroque to Modern. A must for lovers of sophisticated percussion and for all those who want to experience classical music in a new, captivating sonic dimension. Recorded at Kloster Lankwitz, Berlin October 2024

After listening for a while (to orchestral music on the radio) Idil would detect the main melody and then play it on the piano with one finger. Afterwards, when she reached the age of four, she would play these with two hands and with the correct harmony. Bach preludes and fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier, for example, which even the talented musicians took considerable time to study and memorise, were mastered by Idil in only a few days after listening once or twice, after which she would play these without a single wrong note. (Leman Biret, 1988)

It is a mammoth project that the Stuttgart International Bach Academy has undertaken: All sixty cantatas from Johann Sebastian Bach's first year in office as St. Thomas Cantor will be performed in a total of 23 concerts and recorded on CDs. Vol. 7 is now available should convince even skeptics. For what Hans-Christoph Rademann, his Gaechinger Cantorey and hand-picked soloists reveal here in terms of vocal-instrumental coordination, tonal differentiation and rhetorically trained creative artistry probably marks the pinnacle of historically informed performance practice at present. The choir presents itself extremely agile in fugal passages, but also with sufficient sonorous warmth in the chorales, and the orchestra with it's excellent soloists (trumpet!) matches this level. We can look forward to further releases in this series.

Elena Denisova is recognised as one of the most charismatic personalities of the international violin elite and sees herself as an ambassador of the magic of sound. She realises this as a passionate motto in all her interpretations of classical and 21st century works. It also applies to Bach's three sonatas for solo violin, which she performs here entirely in this spirit.

After his brilliant take on the Partitas, the renowned Francesco Tristano now tackles Bach's English Suites in a double album that blends baroque mastery with striking modernity.

Rarely recorded on disc, Johann Sebastian Bach's concertos for three and four harpsichords illustrate the art of writing for keyboard and strings of which the composer was a pioneer. These emblematic works, characterised by a balance between strong themes and abundant internal energy, are performed by virtuoso harpsichordists from the new generation of Baroque musicians: Violaine Cochard, Olivier Fortin, Pierre Gallon, Jean-Luc Ho and, for the first time, the young Croatian harpsichordist Davor Krkljus, accompanied by the strings of Le Caravanserail under the direction of Bertrand Cuiller on harpsichord. The album also includes a previously unreleased transcription for four harpsichords of the famous Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, by Bertrand Cuiller.

Two years after her acclaimed complete Mozart Sonatas, Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son immerses herself, alongside the musicians of the Hague Residence Orchestra and their musical director Anja Bihlmaier, in Ravel's two equally dark Concertos. This intimate, personal vision is complemented by four pieces by J. S. Bach, played in very rare arrangements by Paul Wittgenstein, the famous commissioner of the Concerto for the Left Hand.

The harpsichord from 1745 by Joannes Daniel Dulcken bearing the inventory number SAM 726 not only is an instrument with a beautiful and most distinctive sound: it also commands admiration as a visually magnificent exhibition piece. Nothing is known about the original owners, but over the course of a century and a half it found it's way from the production site in Antwerp to Vienna, where it was added to the collection of Historic Musical Instruments at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1921. In the following decades, it's playability was restored in several stages, with it's sound now documented for the first time on this CD. The internationally acclaimed Austrian organist and harpsichordist Stefan Donner presents the Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach, one of the most famous variation cycles in music history, which is also an ideal choice of program due to the immediate proximity of it's publication in 1741 to the time of the instrument's creation

Klara Wurtz Celebration

In the 18th century, the term "clavier" was used to refer to almost all keyboard instruments. For this Bach recital, the Austrian harpsichordist Johannes Maria Bogner has taken precisely this into account and uses the harpsichord and the clavichord for his interpretations, whereby he performs the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV 903 here on both the harpsichord and the clavichord for direct comparison.

The large-scale Bach Organ Landscapes project featuring J.S. Bach's entire organ oeuvre recorded on a range of instruments aims to provide an overview of organ-playing and organ-building traditions that were key to Bach's composing. With a keen eye to the unique cultural organ legacy of the places associated with Bach, Halubek has placed Bach's original sound at the heart of his project. The recordings are accompanied by digital material that offer an almost tactile access to the great composer's sound universe.

Bach published during his lifetime four volumes of keyboard pieces under the title Clavierubung which began with a set of six Partitas, published between 1726 and 1731. The first of the set was the Partita No. 1 in B flat major. The Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, was apparently written during Bach's time at Cothen, probably about 1720, and revised in Leipzig about 1730. The six English Suites, the 3rd being included here, have nothing particularly English about them, except their title. They were written perhaps in Weimar in about 1715 or possibly during Bach's period at Cothen. Bach brought together a set of five French Suites, of which the 5th is Biret's favourite, later augmented to six and forming part of the Clavierbuchlein for Anna Magdalena, his second wife. The Italian Concerto in F major was published in 1735 in the second volume of the Clavierubungen, with the original title Concerto nach Italienischen Gusto. It reflects the style of the Venetian solo concertos by Vivaldi.