Bach

Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (Dearest Jesus, my desire), BWV 32, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed the dialogue cantata (Concerto in Dialogo) in Leipzig for the first Sunday after Epiphany and first performed it on 13 January 1726 as part of his third cantata cycle.

Bach's first biographer, Forkel, noted that the violin writing of the Sonatas, BWV1014-19 required a master to play it. Bach, he said, knew all the possibilities of the instrument sparing it as little as he spared the harpsichord. Tie significant departure from baroque custom in these six sonatas is Bach's treatment of the harpsichord as an obbligato instrument, thereby making both players responsible for the thematic development. John Holloway and Davitt Moroney have set up a musically rewarding partnership in these brilliantly inventive works, furthermore adding to their programme the two lovely sonatas for violin and continuo long attributed to Bach, and justly so. In both of them they are joined by Susan Sheppard (continuo cello).

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.

It was not always easy in the 18th century for a composer to remain true to himself on compositional, aesthetic and formal grounds, while at the same time fulfilling the requirements of his position as a princely court musician. This can be seen in this comment by Bach: ”Because I have had to compose most of my works for specific individuals and for the public, I have always been more restrained in them than in the few pieces that I have written merely for myself” (The Autobiography, written for the German translation of Charles Burney’s The Present State of Music in Germany … London, 1773—see: Carl Burney, Tagebuch seiner musikalischen Reisen Vol. 3, Hamburg, 1773).

It was a momentous encounter: around 1714, the Weimar court organist Johann Sebastian Bach came across Antonio Vivaldi’s opus 3 L’Estro armonico, hot off the press, and soon nothing would be the same for him musically. Bach eagerly appropriated the Venetian Red Priest’s modern concerto style. And true to the meaning of the word “concertare”, which in Italian means “to unite”, but in Latin means “to argue” or “to fight”, Bach rapidly entered into a competition, first with his Italian models and then with himself. At the outset, he arranged Vivaldi’s violin concertos for his (main) instrument, the organ. But then he transferred Vivaldi’s principles into his own instrumental concerto style. The results were his immortal Köthen concertos for one to three solo instruments and orchestra, blending the concerto principle of structural tutti ritornellos and interspersed imaginative solo episodes with Bach’s unique polyphonic style – highly virtuosic works in which all participating instruments connect with one another at eye level, and also enter into fierce competition with each other. All this can be heard on the third audite album of the Thüringer Bach Collegium: a good 70 minutes of competition for the best musical arguments, presented with irresistibly sparkling virtuosity.