In 2005, Thomas Gropper founded vocal ensemble Arcis Vocalists. Today the group consists of 50 singers who are actively engaged in the Bavarian and Munich concert scene. Following their debut album of Cantatas BWV 131 and 182, they now present Cantatas BWZ 12 and BWV 147.
Franz Schubert's 'Die schone Mullerin' receives a deeply personal and strikingly intimate new interpretation in this recording by tenor Markus Miesenberger and guitarist Christian Haimel. Based on Wilhelm Muller's timeless poems, the cycle follows the emotional journey of a young miller's apprentice consumed by love, longing, jealousy and despair. Rather than presenting another traditional version of this beloved masterpiece, the artists return to the sound world of Schubert's Vienna through the use of a gut-strung Biedermeier guitar, revealing the songs with extraordinary transparency, fragility and emotional immediacy. In this setting, the famous cycle becomes what Miesenberger calls 'an authentic reflection of the soul of a broken man,' where voice and guitar move together with breathtaking lightness between hope and heartbreak. An essential part of this album's unique atmosphere is the remarkable recording environment itself: in sound engineer and producer Bert van der Wolf's celebrated High Street Studio in Heerewaarden, the Netherlands. Housed in a church renowned for it's natural acoustics, profound silence and immersive sound quality, the studio offered the perfect space to 'open new spaces' within Schubert's music. Combined with Van der Wolf's visionary engineering and the warmth of historical instrumentation, the recording creates a vivid new sonic perspective - intimate yet modern, pure yet expansive - allowing listeners to experience 'Die schone Mullerin' with a sense of immediacy and emotional depth rarely heard before.
Anyone familiar with Bruckner, his symphonic architectures reaching for the stars as well as his later Missas from the 1860s, may well be amazed at how deep his Missa Solemnis is still rooted in the solid tradition of Viennese Classicism. In this recording, this rarely heard and recently re-edited and newly published gem is put into the context of the inauguration service of collegiate provost Friedrich Mayr on 14 September 1854 in St. Florian, for which it was written. It is interspersed with the original Proper settings by Robert Fuhrer, Joseph Eybler, and Johann Baptist Gansbacher. This brilliantly mastered album was recorded at the Konzerthaus Berlin in June 2017 as a coproduction with Deutschlandfunk Kultur.
J.S. Bach: Musikalisches Opfer / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan
BIS
SACD
$21.99Nov 03, 2017
Hybrid SACD: This SACD will play on standard CD players as well as SACD players.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s appearance on 7th May 1747 at the court of Frederick the Great is the best documented event in the composer’s otherwise unglamorous career. During the proceedings, Frederick provided Bach with an exceptionally difficult theme on which to improvise a fugue. The King is said to have been impressed with the improvisation, but Bach himself was less so, and announced that he intended to set the theme to paper "in a regular fugue". Several months later, the Musical Offering appeared in print – a collection of 13 pieces in diverse genres: fugues, canons and a trio sonata, all exploiting the "Royal Theme" in various intricate ways. Bach’s published score gives no firm idea about a playing order for the pieces, and in most cases no instrumentation is specified. Furthermore, some of the canons – the so-called "riddle canons" – are very sketchily notated, with just a few notes and some enigmatic clues in Latin. The performers are thus left with an unusual degree of freedom when it comes to the interpretation of the work – a freedom which Masaaki Suzuki, with his colleagues from Bach Collegium Japan, is singularly well-placed to explore. Following the Offering on this disc is another collection of riddle canons by Bach: the 14 Canons on the Goldberg Ground, which were discovered as late as 1974, in the form of a hand-written addendum to the composer’s own printed copy of the Goldberg Variations. The canons are all based on the first eight bass notes of the celebrated Aria from the Goldberg Variations, and are performed here as harpsichord solos, along with the Aria. The disc closes with another chamber work – the Sonata in G Major for Flute, Violin and Continuo, BWV 1038.
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REVIEW:
Suzuki’s readings of the ricercars find a workable balance between forward momentum and textural lucidity, the trio sonata is tasteful if cool, and the canons are played with exemplary clarity. BIS’s recorded acoustic is perhaps a little ‘big’ for such intimate music, though at no cost to transparency or attractiveness.
