When he died, Nicolaus Bruhns was just 31 years old, and only twelve of his vocal works and five organ compositions have survived. On the strength of these, he is nevertheless considered one of the most prominent North German composers of the generation between Buxtehude and Bach.

Buxtehude was in fact Bruhns's teacher, and thought so highly of him that he recommended him for a position in Copenhagen. There he worked as a violin virtuoso and composer until 1689, when he returned to Northern Germany to become organist in the main church of Husum. It was here that most if not all of the extant works were performed. According to Bach's obituary, Bruhns was one of the composers that he took ‘as a model’, and he is therefore naturally of interest to Bach specialist Masaaki Suzuki.

On this first of two discs made in collaboration with the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Suzuki directs – from the organ – a group of singers and musicians, in six of the vocal works: so-called ‘sacred concertos’ scored for 1-3 soloists and various combinations of strings with basso continuo. Suzuki’s performances of two organ pieces by Bruhns – the larger of the two preludes in E minor, and the fantasia on the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland – appear here as well.

REVIEWS:

These performances by famed Bach conductor Masaaki Suzuki were recorded in 2016 and 2017 at Yale University in the U.S. but not released until 2022. Bruhns is closer to Buxtehude (and there's even the flavor of Heinrich Schütz) in these chamber cantatas than he is to Bach. Suzuki directs these pieces from the organ and gets wonderful results from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music choir; if it originally had an American sound, Suzuki smooths it out. His soloists are not quite the equal of those he assembled in Japan, but they are idiomatic and fully equal to the music, perhaps consistent with what the composer would have heard. A wonderful Baroque release commended to anyone with the slightest interest in Bach and his world.

-- AllMusic.com

In musical notation in Germany, the letter ‘h’ is used to represent the note b natural. So, the name ‘Bach’ forms an elegant phrase of two pairs of falling semitones. This proved an inspiration to Johann Sebastian, whose musical ‘signature’ appears again and again throughout his extensive output. Two shining examples are included on this album – the ‘unfinished fugue’ Contrapunctus XIV à 4 from Die Kunst der Fuge (as completed by Lionel Rogg) and the exquisite Ricercar à 6 from Musikalisches Opfer. Bach’s signature – as well as musical invention – has directly influenced scores of other composers down the years, as evidenced by the works included here, from Mendelssohn to Karg-Elert. The organist and, from 2008 until 2021, Assistant Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral, Simon Johnson has used his knowledge and insight to construct this program to demonstrate the extraordinary range and scope of the cathedral’s organ. Expertly recorded by the Chandos technical team, this album provides an outstanding testament to this fine instrument and to the unique acoustic of the world-renowned cathedral in which it sits.

REVIEWS:

As Simon Johnson admits, presenting two hours of music based on just four notes doesn’t sound a tantalizing prospect, but this double album is full of revelations… Altogether, this is a remarkable survey, brilliantly executed.

-- BBC Music Magazine

The listener is quickly drawn into a sonic and musical feast...An outstandingly good release and a perfect combination of repertory, player and organ.

-- Gramophone

Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" is one of the greatest evergreens of all time. The sound painting of the Venetian violin virtuoso simply casts a spell over everyone. David Gorol and Theophil Heinke go one better: Their arrangement for violin and organ makes use of the richness of sound of the queen of instruments and adds a whole new dimension to Vivaldi's already broad palette. In addition, there is the A minor Concerto, which Bach had already transferred to the organ. The fact that a historical jewel, the famous Trost organ in Waltershausen, can also be heard in its original sound makes this brand-new Super Audio album a triple listening pleasure. Above all, Vivaldi's sound extremes are considerably expanded with the organ: it thunders and flashes in the summer thunderstorm, it's a joy; the horns blow cheerfully for the hunt, and at the latest when the birds warble in spring, one no longer wants to miss the flute stops of the listed instrument.

The adaptation is by no means trivial: the highly virtuosic violin part, which David Gorol presents on a modern instrument with somnambulistic certainty and a fine feeling for the drama of the score, remains untouched. In favor of a brilliant expression, a retuning to the historical pitch of the organ was dispensed with - a challenge for Heinke, who thus has to orchestrate in extremely unusual keys. As an encore, Gorol and Heinke also offer the distinctively arranged A minor Double Concerto. Here, the violin performs directly with the second soloists part played by the organ.

Andris Poga and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra plunge into Keninš’ challenging idiom with a vengeance, turning in bracing, invigorating performances of both symphonies.

This third album release in the first complete Tālivaldis Ķeniņš (1919–2008) symphony cycle includes the composer’s final symphonic creation, Symphony No. 8, with a remarkable organ solo part performed by the award-winning organist Iveta Apkalna, alongside the composer’s dramatic and concise 5th Symphony, both conducted by Andris Poga and performed by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra.

Tālivaldis Ķeniņš (1919–2008) wrote an impressive cycle of eight numbered symphonies. Especially the 1970s and the 1980s were fruitful years to Ķeniņš as a symphonist: both Ķeniņš’ 5th and 8th Symphonies were premiered in Toronto, the previous in 1976 and the latter in 1986. Ķeniņš 5th Symphony starts with a powerful orchestral climax and itis a work with dark undercurrents. However, here the composer balances with two different opposite materials: the robust, contemporary world meets a fairy tale landscape glittering with the magic of dusk in the Latvian countryside. The Symphony No. 8 lends itself to analysis but not to description. In this work, Ķeniņš has quite possibly attained his highest metaphysical peak. From the storms of the first part and some longed for unattainability, through the second part’s luminous chorale to the finale of the third part with its eight double and triple beats, concluding with a single beat and transcendence. This symphony-concerto for organ and orchestra calls for a combination of masterful solo organ skills. In addition to excellent technique and a deep understanding of complex forms, a fine sense of the organ’s registers is also required, so that the organ part can both blend and shine in a surprising balance of musical pattern and orchestral instrumentation.

REVIEW:

Tālivaldis Keninš (1919-2008) was born in Latvia, but spent the largest portion of his life in Canada, and his name turns up on recordings dedicated to the music of both countries. He was educated, however, in France, and his music definitely reveals the influence of his main source of inspiration, Arthur Honegger. There is that same seriousness of purpose, amounting to grimness, and a similar rugged, dissonant, vigorous idiom—only more so. Compared to his model, Keninš’ music is more percussive, less anchored in tonality, but still fundamentally melodic and at heart, lyrical. It definitely takes some getting used to, but many listeners will find it worth the effort.

The Fifth Symphony (1976) starts with a bang, and the tension scarcely lets up through four connected movements lasting about twenty minutes. Give Keninš credit for not overstaying his welcome and fatiguing his listeners with an excess of relentless, grinding turmoil. The Eighth Symphony (1986-his last) has a concertante part for organ, making for some truly scarifying climaxes alongside meditative passages of a more brooding, quasi-liturgical character. The Aria for strings impressed me least, being simply glum and grey.

However, I have to say that Andris Poga and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra plunge into Keninš’ challenging idiom with a vengeance, turning in bracing, invigorating performances of both symphonies, very well-recorded. Iveta Apkaina presides over an appropriately forbidding sounding organ, and the ultimate impression is that of a kind of purgative tantrum. You may not want to hear it every day, but there are circumstances when this sort of thing might be just the ticket.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Dsvid Hurwitz)

Flores de Musica pera o instrumento de tecla & harpa is the only known work of Portugese composer Manuel Rodrigues Coelho. Printed in Lisbon in 1620 and boasting more than five hundred pages, Coelho’s Flores de Musica is one of the largest music works printed in the seventeenth century. Celebrating the 400th anniversary of its original publication, a new edition in three volumes has been published with the research being used to inform this major new recording series. Organist André Ferreira is joined by Ars Lusitana, an early music ensemble founded in 2011 by Maria Bayley, dedicated to the research and performance of Portuguese music.