Andreas Waldetoft

It's been conventional wisdom for several generations that Solomon, great oratorio though it may be, contains a lot of deadwood; conductors have regularly cut some items and changed the order of others. (Even John Eliot Gardiner's excellent recording cuts about 30 minutes of music.) Leave it to Paul McCreesh to give us the complete score–and demonstrate that Handel's original structure makes plenty of sense and that every number is worthwhile.

This recording is an invitation to immerse ourselves in the musical inner circle of the Bach family. We are familiar with Johann Sebastian Bach as a composer of genius, but we know little about his family life, with the exception of the famous Clavierbüchlein (Little keyboard book) that the forty-year-old composer gave as a present in 1725 to his second wife Anna Magdalena, his junior by sixteen years. This manuscript is a unique document of the music the family played together. It provides us with a point of reference for the 'programmes' of these domestic concerts: it contains short keyboard pieces and songs alongside extended arias taken from the church cantatas, as well as chamber music. Bach and his two eldest sons were not only virtuoso harpsichordists but also excellent violinists, while the composer's son-in-law Bach, J. C. Altnickol, played the cello and was an outstanding double bass player. Anna Magdalena Bach and her oldest stepdaughter both contributed as singers. And the still young children of the second marriage participated by playing easy pieces on their father's various keyboard instruments. The musicians and singers on this recording, all eminent exponents of Bach and of Baroque music in general, have come together here to bring these exceptional moments back to life.

This disc collects a great variety of performances recorded for the Decca label by German-born countertenor Andreas Scholl, who says that the high male voice in which he sings is something he produces naturally, not something he specially cultivates. He makes you believe it. The diverse program is logically organized, with Baroque arias of various kinds surrounding a central core of quieter material, and sonically Decca has made a convincing whole out of material with various producers and recording locales.

The Kreuzleich by Heinrich “Frauenlob” von Meissen is over 700 years old, making it one of the oldest surviving oratorios of the German cultural sphere. Known up to now only as a silent fragment of Meistersinger history, composer Karsten Gundermann, together with the multi-award-winning a cappella ensemble Octavians, brings it to life for our present time: Gundermann has revamped Frauenlob’s notated melodies and fragmentary manuscripts into a fascinating work for soloists, chamber choir, and orchestra, and the result is sensational! With their three countertenors and supported by the Akademische Orchestervereinigung Jena, the Octavians create a lively blend of age-old and new, of archaic sounds and orchestral colors sung and played at the highest level.