The importance of Christmas inspired many composers to write music for the occasion, some designed to be performed in church services, others for concert or secular celebration. This 6 album set combines oratorios and concertos by Schütz, Telemann, Bach, Corelli, Rinck, Saint-Saëns, Herzogenberg, Clarke, Nicolai. Some of the finest artists and ensembles in the Hanssler catalog are showcased on these recordings, including Iona Brown, Joachim Held, Hannoversche Hofkapelle, Collegium vocale Siegen, Monteverdi-Orchester Munchen, Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra, and many more.

REVIEWS:

Christmas has inspired many composers to compose magnificent music, on the one hand for church services and on the other hand for festive concerts outside the church. This masterful box with 6 CDs contains oratorios and concertos by Schütz, Telemann, Bach, Corelli, Rinck, Saint-Saëns, Herzogenberg and Clarke, performed by some of the best artists and ensembles in the Hänssler catalogue, including Iona Brown, Joachim Held, Hannoversche Hofkapelle, Collegium vocale Siegen, Monteverdi-Orchester Munchen, and the Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra.

-- Stretto

As Christmas approaches, an avalanche of familiar Christmas tunes rumbles in the distance. Even in the case of large-scale Christmas compositions, the same works seem to be repeated too often, but Hänssler's six-disc box set reminds us that the repertoire is much wider.

The greatest work is Heinrich von Herzogenberg's (1842–1900) idyllic oratorio "The Birth of Christ" (1894), which spreads the event into a spectacle borrowing familiar and lesser-known Christmas carols based on the Old Testament and the Gospel of Luke. Herzogenberg, who was one of Brahms's supporters, represents full Romanticism at its tenderest, sometimes generously sweet. Schütz's "A Christmas Story" is more familiar and would work better as a period-style performance. Arnold Bruckhorst's (c. 1675–c. 1725) twenty-minute "Christmas History" is, on the other hand, a new acquaintance, as is Christian Heinrich Rinck's (1770–1846) even shorter classic Romantic Christmas Cantata. All performances are homely and competent, without causing great artistic tremors. Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio can be found in more sophisticated recordings, but why, for example, Otto Nicolai's charming Christmas Overture is never heard in concerts?

Telemann's big and handsome oratorio Heilig, heilig, Heilig ist Gott (1747) is useless to look for elsewhere. The documentation only includes lists of works and performance information.

-- Rondo Classic

On six albums, this new release features great musical moments for all admirers of Brahms and fans of choral singing at its very best! The program leads the listener through Brahms´ essential vocal works and a splendid set or artists grant highest quality of interpretation. The recordings included are taken from the Haenssler catalog and were recorded over the course of the last few decades. Featured artists include Donna Brown, Ingeborn Danz, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Lioba Braun, Gilles Cachemaille, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Kammerchor Stuttgart, and more.

SET CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), Op. 45 • Liebeslieder Waltzes (18), Op. 52 • Neue Liebeslieder Waltzes (15), Op. 65 • Vier Ernste Gesänge (4 Serious Songs), Op. 121 • Deutsche Volkslieder (49), WoO 33 (excerpts)

This new release features poignant soul music for moments of contemplation. Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Catholic hymn to Mary's suffering as Jesus Christ's mother at his crucifixion and has been set to music by many Western composers. This 4 album box presents timeless interpretations of the most important compositions of Stabat Mater. Soloists featured on the release include Margot Guilleaume, Ingeborg Danz, Marta Benackova, Elisabeth Höngen, James Taylor, Thomas Quasthoff and many more.

Outstanding soloists: Donna Brown (Soprano), Gilles Cachemaille (Bass-Baritone) - A further reference recording of Helmuth Rilling and his Stuttgarter Ensembles Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium belonging to the series “Great Choral Works“ - „Brahms-singing with predictive dimension and forcefullness but in the same way deeply human in each phrase“ Fono Forum This "Requiem" is not based on the familiar text of the Catholic funeral mass, but is instead sensitively and knowledgably assembled from text from the Old and New Testaments by Brahms himself. Indeed, it was not his intention to pattern his Requiem after the Latin mass for the dead, nor to proclaim what he felt were false hopes for resurrection. Instead, “Ein deutsches Requiem” is a work of consolation for those left behind. This aspect is particularly emphasized in Helmuth Rilling’s moving interpretation. Donna Brown (soprano) and Gilles Cachemaille (baritone) are the outstanding vocal soloists, delivering well-profiled performances that are perfectly integrated into the overall balance of sound. Together with his regular collaborators, the Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Rilling delivers a performance full of gravitas that effectively reconciles the themes of death and mourning with a transcendent sense of spiritual consolation with a sense of immediacy seldom encountered in other performances.

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, and SONY Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import editions, smartly-designed and graphically-pleasing, featuring the most sought-after recordings by the world’s preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio.

These works were commissioned by the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart to write works to mark Bach Year 2000. Osvaldo Golijov´s Pasión Según San Marcos is the work of one who moves back and forth between different worlds and can scarcely be pigeonholed as representing a specific culture. His work unites the music of South America, Cuba, the West and Jewish tradition to produce an unconventional conception of a “Passion“ in which Jesus is not a light skinned European, but instead a person of color. Sofia Gubaidulina's response was a St John Passion, and subsequently she added a sequel, St John Easter, which was premiered in Hamburg in March 2002. Both those works originally had Russian words, drawn mostly from St John's gospel and the Book of Revelation, but in 2006, prompted by conductor Helmuth Rilling, Gubaidulina collaborated on a German translation of the text, while also making revisions to the score itself.

This specially priced double CD features a collection of the beautiful and popular music from the Baroque for the Christmas season. Many of the melodies you will hear are familiar seasonal favorites while other lesser-known works will offer you with an enchanting listening experience.

With performances drawn from the Hänssler Classic catalog, featuring the artistry of Helmuth Rilling and his Gächinger Kantorei, the early music specialists Ensemble Musica Poetica Freiburg, Ulrich Stötzel's Collegium Vocale, and several of Europe's most distinguished organ soloists, this beautiful 2-CD collection captures all the moods of the Christmas season – joyous, festive, reflective and spiritual.

Tracks:

1.1 J. S. Bach, Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich 00:45
1.2 J. S. Bach, Jauchzet, ihr Himmel, frohlocket, ihr Engel 03:23
1.3 J. S. Bach, Magnificat anima mea 02:53
1.4 J. S. Bach, Brich an, du schönes Morgenlicht 01:05
1.5 J. S. Bach, Zu Bethlehem geboren 01:01
1.6 A. M. Brunckhorst, Sollen wir uns heut nicht freuen 01:32
1.7 P. Nicolai, Zion, hört die Wächter singen 03:51
1.8 A. Hammerschmidt, Freuet euch, ihr Christen alle 04:01
1.9 J. S. Bach, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland 02:47
1.10 J. S. Bach, Wie soll ich dich empfangen 01:18
1.11 G. Schnitter, Sieh nicht an, was du selber bist 04:06
1.12 Ch. H. Rinck, Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe 01:44
1.13 A. M. Brunckhorst, Fürchtet euch nicht 00:55
1.14 J. S. Bach, Seid froh, dieweil 00:53
1.15 Es ist ein Ros entsprungen 03:00
1.16 J. S. Bach, Vom Himmel hoch 00:34
1.17 Ch. H. Rinck, Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe 00:55
1.18 J. S. Bach, Jauchzet frohlocket 07:25
1.19 P. Gerhardt, Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen 05:05
1.20 A. M. Brunckhorst, Nun zeiget der Himmel die schönsten Gebärden 01:50
1.21 J. S. Bach, Wohl mir, dass ich Jesus habe 03:03
1.22 J. S. Bach, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern 00:46
1.23 Wittenberg, Nun singet and seid froh 03:13
1.24 J. S. Bach, Wir singen dir in deinem Heer 01:11
1.25 J. S. Bach, Uns ist ein Kindlein heut geboren 00:53
1.26 Ch. H. Rinck, Auf, Christen lasst uns unsern Gott 01:31
2.1 A. M. Brunckhorst, Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe 00:43
2.2 J. S. Bach, Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ 04:26
2.3 J. G. Herder, O du fröhliche 02:11
2.4 J. S. Bach, Nun seid ihr wohlgerochen 02:58
2.5 G. Joseph, Dies ist die Nacht, da mir erschienen 02:28
2.6 J. S. Bach, Ach, mein herzliebes Jesulein 01:09
2.7 J. S. Bach, Gottes Sohn ist kommen 02:44
2.8 J. S. Bach, Dein Glanz aller Finsternis 00:55
2.9 P. Gerhardt, Kommt, and lasst uns Christus ehren 03:50
2.10 J. S. Bach, Gloria in excelsis Deo 06:40
2.11 P. Strauch, Du Kind, zu dieser heilgen Zeit 03:38
2.12 J. S. Bach, Jesus richte mein Beginnen 02:01
2.13 Ch. H. Rinck, Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe 04:19
2.14 J. S. Bach, Als der gütige Gott 01:14
2.15 J. S. Bach, Lasst uns nun gehen gen Bethlehem 00:41
2.16 Ch. H. Rinck, Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe 00:50
2.17 J. S. Bach, Zwar ist solche Herzensstube 01:11
2.18 J. S. Bach, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland 04:43
2.19 J. S. Bach, Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich 03:10
2.20 Ch. H. Rinck, Nach seinem gnadenvollen Rat 01:09
2.21 Ch. F. Gellert, Dies ist der Tag, den Gott gemacht 03:23
2.22 J. S. Bach, Ich will dich mit Fleiß bewahren 01:11
2.23 J. S. Bach, Ich steh an deiner Krippe hier 03:45
2.24 J. S. Bach, Nun singet and seid froh 02:19
2.25 J. Mohr, Stille Nacht 02:49

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.

Includes work(s) by various composers.

Classical Music

Schubert worked for three years on this beautiful Mass. The last of his settings of the Catholic liturgy. One of the most perfect Mass-settings in the entire musical literature. The Oregon Bach Festival Chorus & Orchestra led by Helmuth Rilling hit just the right devotional, balanced tone for this devotional composition, while maintaining an aesthetic suitable for the concert hall. Conductor Helmuth Rilling is one of the most esteemed conductors of this music.

HONEGGER Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher • Helmuth Rilling, cond; Sylvie Rohrer ( Jeanne d’Arc ); Eörs Kisfaludy ( Fr. Dominique ); Karen Wierzba ( La Vierge ); Letizia Scherrer ( Marguerite ); Kismara Pessatti ( Cathérine ); Jean-Noël Briend (ten); François Le Roux (bs); Stuttgart College Boys’ Ch; Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart; Stuttgart RSO des SWR • HÄNSSLER 098.636 (2 CDs: 84:30 & French only) Live: Stuttgart 4/2–3/2011


Here is, truly, an unusual release: the little-known but extremely powerful dramatic cantata by Arthur Honegger, Joan of Arc at the Stake, conducted by one of the world’s leading baroque specialists, Helmuth Rilling. This combination, which seems on the surface a mismatch, in fact results in one of the most emotionally powerful and musically atmospheric realizations on record in my entire memory.


The drawback, of course, is that the libretto is in French only. Certainly one is aware enough of Joan’s story to be able to follow what is going on in generalizations, yet the highly literate subtleties of Paul Claudel’s libretto are lost on the non-French speaker. Thus we must rely on the few words we can pick out of the booklet and rely on the emotional and dramatic power of the speakers, singers, chorus, and orchestra. Even within those parameters, this is pretty powerful music. Behind the spoken dialogue, at one point, the chorus enters singing strophic lines in almost Stravinsky-like neoclassicism, which then leads directly into a baritone solo with choral interjections. Honegger’s orchestra slashes and burns throughout: sometimes as an undercurrent, at other times in the foreground, moving from staccato brass chords to stabbing or swirling figures, underlining the drama of the situation—confined to the time of Joan’s trial and execution—in the most dramatic terms possible.


Conductor Marin Alsop has given us this synopsis of the oratorio at npr.org/2011/11/05/142021891/arthur-honeggers-joan-of-arc-for-the-ages:


“Claudel wanted to look at Joan’s life in a series of flashbacks—starting at the end. The piece opens with darkness setting over all of France. Is this the France of 1400 or the France of 1935? Perhaps that’s the point. Joan meets Frère Dominic in the afterlife and recognizes him, at which point they look back on what led to her trial and death. When Joan asks, ‘How did this happen?,’ Frère Dominic replies, ‘It was a game of cards that decided your fate,’ alluding to the political quagmire in which Joan, an illiterate peasant teenager, found herself immersed. The adjudicator at Joan’s trial was aptly named Cauchon (pig), and Claudel goes wild with the possibilities. The assessors are all depicted as animals, with the ass leading the pack and sheep commenting on the proceedings. And then there’s Honegger’s instrumentation, which creates a vibrant and unique sound world. He includes three saxophones plus an ondes martenot —a spooky-sounding instrument, invented in 1928, that sounds like its cousin the theremin. Honegger and Claudel’s collaboration brings Joan to life in a vivid and emotional drama that concludes with the line, ‘There is no greater love than the person who gives his life for a friend.’”


Alsop, as well as other commentators, allude to the “cinematic” quality of this opera-oratorio, mentioning that Honegger was also a film music composer. But if this is film music, it is extremely dominant in mood and structure, which to my ears is far too aggressive a composition to work well in that mode. Yet there is a certain “cinematic” structure to the work, which in effect makes it a “movie for the ears.” (One constantly hears nowadays that we “listen with our eyes,” so why not at least one piece where we “see with our ears”?) Alsop conducted a live performance of this work at the Barbican in 2011, but according to one online commentator the program notes for that performance were also spotty and indistinct.


I’ve been unable to track down an English translation of the text anywhere online. From what I can judge, between the French-only text and my slight grasp of the language, the actors in this recording are all extremely good, bringing out Joan’s combination of confusion, defiance, and fear perfectly. Much of the credit for this goes to Sylvie Rohrer, whose reading of the text is both dramatic and natural-sounding—a rare combination indeed. The singers are all excellent in both vocal quality and—more importantly—diction, as is the chorus itself. Despite being German, Rilling is to be highly commended for his persistence in bringing out the proper idiomatic Frenchness of the music as well as his insistence on clarity of pronunciation.


Particular credit for the success of this recording goes to engineer Friedemann Trumpp for capturing such incredible 3D sound.


There appear to be three other recordings available on CD: Supraphon 11 0557/58 featuring narrators Nelly Borgeaud and Michel Favory, sopranos Christiane Château and Anne-Marie Rodde, alto Huguette Brachet, and the Kühn Children’s Chorus, Czech Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Serge Baudo; a single-disc version (meaning under 80 minutes) with narrators Anne-Marie Ferrière, René Piloy, and Madeleine Joris, sopranos Marthe Dugard and Ria Lenssens, tenor Frédéric Anspach, and conductor Louis de Vocht (Opera d’Oro 1223); and another one-disc version conducted by Siegfried Heinrich (VMS Musical Treasures 152), none of which I’ve heard. I have, however, heard the recording by Sonia Petrovna, Michaël Lonsdale, Christian Papis, Anne-Marie Blanzat, other soloists, the Choeur de Rouen-Haute-Normande, and Orchestre Symphonique Français conducted by Laurent Petitgirard on Cascavelle OSF 49008/09. This was also a live performance, given on June 26 and 27, 1992 at the Salle Wagram in Paris. I could only find references to this recording on French CD sites like Price Minister and Amazon.fr. The sound quality is also excellent, and this performance, too, is wonderfully atmospheric, but none of the actors are recorded particularly well—they sound like they’re behind the choir. The actress playing Joan (Petrovna) is good, but does not declaim her text with as much feeling (perhaps she was an excellent actress visually, but on CDs you can’t see her). A very good performance, then, but this new Hänssler release is just as fine musically, better in the placement of the actors, and of course much easier to obtain, making it well worth getting. With the odd running time of this work, one could possibly combine it with the equally excellent but seldom-heard L’Amore de tre re of Montemezzi for a superb evening of dramatic works that will challenge and not just entertain you.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

REVIEWS:
Fanfare (5-6/00, p.115) - "...The choral sound, consistently pleasing, is...attentive, flexible, and exquisitely blended....Rilling uses six full-voiced soloists - none of whom is averse to using a vibrato....There's no weak link in the team..."

"Since Helmuth Rilling has undoubtedly recorded more of Bach's music than anyone else, one may wonder why it's taken him so long to get around to these most popular of the master's scores, and why he did so in Oregon, rather than in his hometown and with his Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, which he founded thirty years ago and has conducted ever since. But Rilling has been associated with the Oregon Bach Festival for nearly as many years, and he made a fine recording of Bach's overtures (orchestral suites) with the Festival Orchestral in 1992 (see Fanfare 16:6). While Rilling has never apologized for using of modern instruments in Bach's music and continues that practice here, he does retain the recorders in Concertos 2 and 4 and a viola da gamba in No. 6. For the present recording, Rilling has assembled a distinguished group of soloists, headed by violinist Kathleen Lenski and including Jeffrey Kahane, harpsichord, Elizabeth Baker, violin (in Concerto No. 2), Judith Lisenberg, recorder, Allan Vogel, oboe, Carol Wincenc, flute, Cynthia Phelps, viola, and far from least, Stephen Burns, trumpet. Contending that Bach would not have inserted a whole piece between the first and last movements of the third concerto, Rilling simply decorates the two chords that make up the second movement with a brief harpsichord flourish. (The timings for the second and third movements are transposed in the booklet.)

As with his overtures, Rilling's Brandenburgs are comfortably familiar in their broad outline and offer a minimum of controversial details. The playing is always accomplished and sometimes much better than that. The Second Concerto—the best of the lot—is an unqualified success."
Review of original release of this recording, Hänssler 98927

"If ever there was a family in which an extraordinary disposition for the same art seemed to be hereditary, it was certainly the family of Bach; through six successive generations there were scarcely two or three members of it who had not received from nature the gifts of a very distinguished talent for music and who did not make the practice of this art the main occupation of their lives." Thus begins On Johan Sebastian Bach's Life, Genius and Works (1802) y Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach's first biographer. The phenomenon of the "Bach Family" was a source of wonderment to contemporaries, who marveled at this proliferation of musical talent from generation to generation. And it has not lost any of its fascination to this day.

The aim of this recording is to present a panorama of the sacred vocal music of the Bach family.

The Bach family was the largest and most incredibly talented musical families of all time. Even before Johann Sebastian began composing, his uncles Johann Ludwig and Georg Christoph Bach, and children, C.P.E., Wilhelm Friedemann after him, and still later Johann Christian, Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst - to name but a few members of the famous Bach family, were all accomplished musicians and composers. For nearly two hundred years, the Bach family dedicated themselves to singing God's praises in music. Helmuth Rilling, who has made the works of the great Johann Sebsatian and his family his life work, performs these pieces with delicacy, energy and intelligence - providing an overview of the astounding diversity of musical language of the Bach family.

Mozart not only left this Mass incomplete in 1783, with the scoring unfinished and lacking the last half of the Credo and the entire Agnus Dei, but he effectively abandoned it by reworking the Kyrie and Gloria for the cantata Davidde penitente, K 469, two years later. In 1901, Alois Schmitt published the Mass with the missing sections filled in from several earlier Mozart Masses and the Agnus Dei fitted to the music of the Kyrie. It has usually been recorded in its incomplete form, although Bernhard Paumgartner drew on the Mass, K 262, to complete the Credo and followed Schmitt’s example for the Agnus Dei, an edition that Rudolf Moralt recorded (Epic SC 6009). John Eliot Gardiner revised Schmitt’s orchestration of parts of the Credo but omitted the missing movements (12:4). Richard Maunder simply edited what Mozart left in sketchy form for Christopher Hogwood’s version (14:2), as H. C. Robbins Landon had done earlier for Neville Marriner’s recording issued in 1979 and Raymond Leppard (or someone else) had done for his recording issued in 1974.

Rilling has already recorded the Mass in a score “reconstructed and completed” by Helmut Edel, but that “completion” did not go beyond filling out the scoring of the movements sketched by Mozart, as Maunder and Robbins Landon had done. Rilling coupled it with the first recording of Robert D. Levin’s reconstruction of the Requiem (16:2). Now Rilling has tackled the Mass again, and for this version Levin has completed the entire Mass. In a detailed description of his study of Mozart’s sketches of the period, he provides an account of his approach to an admittedly daunting effort. The result is far removed from any previous “reconstruction/completion” that we have heard. It is Levin’s idea of what Mozart might have intended for a complete Mass, and it goes far beyond any previous editor’s modifications. It is a totally new way of understanding Mozart’s intentions, and it requires a good deal of faith in Levin’s admittedly keen grasp of Mozartean style.

The soloists that Rilling has chosen are superb, and the chorus and orchestra that he founded (in 1954 and 1965 respectively) respond with the assurance that we have heard many times before. While Rilling and Levin each furnish a note for the booklet, a Web address is given for further information. The recording was made during a pair of performances in Stuttgart last spring. While Levin will admit that this is a hypothetical realization of what might have been Mozart’s intentions, based on fragments of sketches, it is well worth hearing. Since most other recordings fill in Mozart’s incomplete scoring of the Credo and Sanctus, Levin’s attempt to do this and more is at least as worthy of attention as any of them. Listen for yourself.

FANFARE: J. F. Weber

"...one would have to be extremely inflexible not to find Mozart's tinkering fascinating on its own terms. Those terms include a German text, a version of "The Trumpet Shall Sound" that features the French horn, a quartet setting of "And He Shall Purify" and the deletion of a few arias and choruses.

But Mozart's wind and brass additions -- in the Sinfonia, "All We Like Sheep" and "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth," for example -- give his version a wonderful, distinct character. Mozart's voice hardly drowns out Handel's, but his commentary makes for an enlivening alternative to the standard "Messiah." Helmuth Rilling's lively, warm-toned reading is both inviting and persuasive." - Alan Kozinn, New York Times

Helmuth Rilling conducts Mozart's 1789 arrangement of that "Grand Musical Entertainment." According to Rilling, it is due to the details that this arrangement is so fascinating: dynamic changes, a different segmentation of solo & chorus parts, and the instrumentation modulated to the tone characteristic of Mozart's time, "Actually," says Rilling, "this Messiah is a new work, more colorful and ver interesting!"

Classical Music

Throughout Bach's treasure of church cantatas, there are many works that sing the praises of God and thank him for his grace. This six CD specially priced collection brings together the finest of Bach's glorius cantatas of praise and thanksgiving, such as "Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König", "Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen" and "Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes."

Few musicians have the intimate experience of performing these works as have Helmuth Rilling, his Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach Collegium Stuttgart and each performance reverbrates with joy and spiritual encouragement.