Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 100 Great Recordings

Franz Joseph Haydn - The Creation (Die Schopfung)
EAC RIP | WAVPACK + CUE + LOG | HQ Scans
NAXOS | Recorded: 2003 | Released: 2005
VokalEnsemble Koln - Capella Augustina - Andreas Spering

Although The Creation is no stranger to period-instrument performance, two in particular spring to mind as particularly outstanding. The first of these is Christopher Hogwood's on L'Oiseau-Lyre, which is in English and remains the only version to assemble the huge forces for which Haydn actually wrote, with singularly thrilling results. Second, there is Hengelbrock on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, who demonstrated that at least on recordings the music can sound just as big and colorful, but without extensive doubling of instrumental parts. In his version of The Seasons, René Jacobs accomplished a similar feat, and so does this newcomer, even outdoing Hengelbrock in wringing every last drop of color from Haydn's perennially fresh orchestration. All of the other period performances, including Brüggen, Weil, Harnoncourt (twice), Kuijken, and Gardener, stand at some remove from these three.

Athalia, first performed in Oxford in 1733 was enthusiastically received, bar the comment by a crusty academic complaining of ‘Handel and (his lowsy Crew) a great number of forreign fidlers’. All current recordings are of this version, perhaps explaining why Paul Goodwin chose Handel’s London revival from 1735.

The late seventeenth century was a period of great change in English music. This was a time when the influences of Italian music were ever-increasing, brought to England by Italian composers such as Draghi, Haym, and Matteis, and by their German contemporaries Pepusch and Handel. In this new release we explore how the English composers Purcell, Weldon, and Croft responded to Italian music and incorporated the style into their own works. The piece by Purcell, Tell me, some pitying angel (or ‘The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation’), written in the style of an Italian cantata, perfectly illustrates his mastery of the Italian style.

Gustav Maria Leonhardt was one of the best-known leaders of the Early Music movement. A harpsichordist and organist and later a conductor, he was credited with being one of the most important figures in establishing the Netherlands as one of the main centers of period music performances. He had a classical education, then entered the Schola Cantorum in Basle. There he studied organ and harpsichord with Eduard Müller.

This disc gives us the two cello sonatas that Brahms wrote, Opus 38, and Opus 99. As the distance between the opus numbers suggests, one is fairly early in the composer's work (1862, to 1965), and the second one is rather later (1886). Though the second, later sonata evidences a deepening and intensification of his music, the first sonata is by no means a callow piece. Brahms was said to be inspired to write a cello sonata because he was studying the cello in his twenties, or thereabouts.

J. S. Bach - … per la viola da gamba …
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 287 MB | Rapidshare
Recorded: 14-17 July 1999, Colnrade Church, Germany | Released: 1999 | Label: DHM/BMG 05472 77515 2 | TT: 65:17
Hille Perl - viola da gamba | Lee Santana - baroque lute | Andrew Lawrence-King - double harp | Veronika Skuplik - violin | Barbara Messmer - viola da gamba

[…] Per la viola da gamba is a solid, entirely satisfying, and authoritative-sounding hour of Bach. In particular, the gamba and lute transformation of Bach's "doubtful" Violin Sonata, BWV 1025, utilizing Sylvius Leopold Weiss' original lute part and transposing the Bach's violin part down an octave, sounds more natural and authentic than the familiar "doubtful" version. The Sonata BWV 1029 is played as a trio with continuo, and this approach lends a concertato effect to the sonata, which works well due to the obviously close relationship between this work and Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. (Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide)