Analog Algorithm Christoph

Einer der Höhepunkte des Bachfestes Leipzig 2014 im 300. Geburtsjahr Carl Philip Emanuel Bachs war die Aufführung und Einspielung seines Oratoriums "Die Israeliten in der Wüste" mit den Experten für historische Aufführungspraxis des Neuen Orchesters & Chorus Musicus Köln unter der Leitung von Christoph Spering.

Christoph Eschenbach goes into raptures when he speaks about recording Brahms with his Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin:” They were the ideal partner for the Brahms cycle! A lot of ideas, which I was happy to incorporate into my overall concept, derived from the musicians themselves. And they in turn were interested in my approach.” Eschenbach sees the musicians of the orchestra as the perfect counterpart to his love of Brahms. “The Konzerthaus Orchestra has fabulous soloists, especially in the woodwinds and the horn department. Furthermore, their string sound is very ‘Brahmsian’. We very quickly came to an agreement as to how Brahms should sound.”

Silvestrov wrote the pieces recorded here, scored for piano solo, string orchestra, and piano and strings, between 1996 and 2005, and they are all representative of his late, meditative, song-like style. After an early career as an experimentalist, Silvestrov embraced the radical simplicity – a style of tonal, melodic, and rhythmic transparency – that has won him many admirers in the general public, but little recognition by the academic community. It would be easy to hear his music as derivative, given the limited tonal palette to which he restricts himself; his apparently naïve and artless approach, however, has an integrity and a genuinely lyrical impulse that make it hard to dismiss.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach thought highly of the art of his father, Johann Sebastian. However, this did not prevent him from pursuing his own path. Even when Carl Philipp Emanuel made himself a candidate for the position of Thomaskantor as Johann Sebastian’s successor, he did not reverently demonstrate his artistic ties to his father. Instead, he accentuated his compositional independence in one of his first choral works and confidently presented himself with a Magnificat. In Leipzig, this would inevitably subject him to direct comparison with his father, who, at the age of 38, as the newly appointed Thomaskantor, had also presented a Magnificat as his first major work on July 2, 1723. To this day, Carl Philipp Emanuel’s Magnificat is measured against that of his father. In December 2020, the Gaechinger Cantorey chorus and orchestra under the musical direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann and together with an excellent ensemble of soloists performed both magnificent works together in concert – unfortunately in front of an empty hall but reaching their audience via livestream and recording it for this extraordinary release.

The four chamber works by Austrian Thomas Larcher recorded here show that's he's a composer to watch out for. His compositional voice is strikingly unencumbered by adherence to any orthodoxy, and his work is direct in its emotional and intellectual communication. My Illness Is the Medicine I Need, for soprano, violin, cello, and piano, is particularly effective; its aphoristic texts come from a Benetton "Colors" magazine that included photographs of psychiatric hospitals and quotations from their patients. Larcher's understated text setting allows the voices of the patients to be heard with unaffected bleakness and it is strongly moving. Even though it uses a contemporary harmonic language, the string quartet Ixxu (1998-2004) is old-fashioned in its emotional clarity. Its last movement, "ruhig," is genuinely peaceful and brings to mind the serenity of Arvo Pärt's Fratres. His 1990 quartet Cold Farmer is similarly direct and generous in inviting the listener in, and here again the slow movement is especially deeply felt and engaging.

A total of four organs group themselves around the listener inthree dimensions in St. Michael's Church in Hamburg, and all fourinstruments are spectacularly employed on this Super Audio CD. Churchmusic director Christoph Schoener has designed a very special programfor the organs in his workplace: music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdythat has never been heard before in just this way. Schoener pullsall the stops on the central console and covers a spectrum rangingfrom the complete late-romantic forces of the entire organ systemto the filigree murmuring of individual tone colors. A special treat:a solo for the echo organ installed high above in the ceiling sphere!