Bach Messe in h Moll, Bwv 232 (marc Minkowski) [2008]

With the complete recording of Bach's organ works on various instruments, Jörg Halubek's "Bach Organ Landscapes" project paints a panorama of organ landscapes and organ building traditions. Since 2020, he has portrayed nine different locations and their unique organs on six double albums to date. With a careful eye for the unique cultural heritage of the instruments of the Bach regions, he is in search of the original Bach sound.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) was a French composer who was a contemporary of Louis XIV. Charpentier created liturgical works full of grace and energy, using great imagination for his musical settings. This is very much evident in the selections for this recording, the TE DEUM and the MESSE DE MINUIT. The first one is a joyously triumphant interpretation of the thanksgiving text, using eight soloists, chorus and orchestra, including three trumpets, something unusual for the times.

Marc Minkowski was one of the most promising conductors to emerge in the 1990s, having carved out a niche for himself (and his hand-picked ensemble, Les Musiciens du Louvre) in the lesser-known works of the French and Italian Baroque. In the competitive fields of early music and historical performance, he has garnered considerable critical acclaim and managed to bring works of relative obscurity to the attention of wider audiences.

This compilation of selections from a number of Cecilia Bartoli's recitals from between 1994 and 2009, plus several newly released tracks, is unified by the theme of sighs, "sospiri." The music expresses a variety of moods, including sighs of resignation, relaxation, grief, ecstasy, and romantic pleasure. The first of the two CDs is devoted to secular music, much of it operatic, and the second to sacred pieces. The album should offer few surprises to anyone who has a preconceived opinion of Bartoli's vocalism.

Initially a bassoonist, Marc Minkowski began conducting at an early age, notably under the guidance of Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux Memorial School in the United States. At the age of nineteen he founded Les Musiciens du Louvre, an ensemble that was to play an active role in the Baroque revival. After their success at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2009 with a complete cycle of Haydn's 'London' Symphonies recorded live by Na+¯ve (their exclusive record label since 2007), Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble now release the complete Schubert symphonies.