Die Zeit 16 2014 (10.04.2014)

Ton Koopman is not only one of the great fathers of the Baroque-Renaissance revival in the 1970’s, but a true pioneer of our time. After completing the Bach Cantatas survey, was he awarded the Bach Prize 2014 by the Royal Academy of Music. The prize is awarded to outstanding individuals in the performance and scholarship of Bach’s music and none could be more worthy than Koopman, who has been noted as doing ”remarkable work promoting Bach’s music in the last thirty or so years.”

A timelessly classical Parsifal from the 1998 Bayreuth Festival in a mystically poetic staging that exerts an unbroken fascination not least as a result of its expressive lighting effects. Under the direction of the great Wagner conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, the four main roles are taken by Poul Elming, Linda Watson, Falk Struckmann and Hans Sotin - one of the strongest line-ups in Bayreuth´s more recent history. "Giuseppe Sinopoli coaxed an outstanding performance from the Festival Orchestra and Chorus, throwing light on the elaborate score from an agreeable distance and investing the music with a meditatively flowing quality rather than the usual bombast" (Opernglas)

The young Austrian soprano Miriam Feuersinger presents her debut CD accompanied by the Capricornus Consort Basel with a selection of several cantatas by the Kapellmeister at the Darmstadt court. With the agreeable timbre of her easily appealing voice, she succeeds wonderfully in recreating the appropriate tone of Graupner's sensuous cantata style. As with those of Bach, the cantatas of Graupner aim to stir the listener, but without sacrificing intellectual elegance or even the composure fitting for a predominantly courtly community. Unlike the confidently catchy Telemann, Graupner prefers a refined and subtle elaboration that audibly reckons with skilful interpreters and always seeks to move the listener. Despite all these advantages, the discographical exploration of Graupner's over 1400 cantatas has only just begun.

The 'Lobgesang' or Hymn of Praise, commissioned by the city of Leipzig from its Kapellmeister Mendelssohn to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing in 1840, has elements of all three categories. But, at the opposite pole from Beethoven s Ninth, we have here a symphonic miniature in three movements, intended to act as the overture to the sung part of the work, which is twice as long. Thus this splendid Symphony-Cantata expands into a sweeping vocal and choral epic.

All are equal before the work, before the mysteries of a score; this was Claudio Abbados heart-felt conviction. For him, the willingness to be open to one another and to the independent life of musical processes was the only prerequisite for making music. In the live performances documented here for the first time, Abbado could be sure of the devotion of these world-class artists: the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, the sopranos Christine Schäfer and Juliane Banse, as well as the actor Bruno Ganz. They shared his credo of listening togetherness (Die ZEIT) that made possible those precious moments of musical truth toward which this great conductor strove throughout his life.

This C Major Blu-ray disc release of Gustav Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 initiates a complete Mahler cycle project with Paavo Ja¨rvi conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra well-regarded for their Mahler recordings, as witnessed by its highly successful cycle on CD under conductor Eliahu Inbal some thirty years ago. As an enlivening bonus feature, each symphony in this new cycle will feature an explanatory, in-depth introduction by Mr. Ja¨rvi. “Mahler’s 2nd was given a brilliant interpretation by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony.” (Die Zeit).

Actus Tragicus The words ‘art of dying’ sound strange to modern ears, perhaps. Although there are related philosophical, religious and ‘end of life’ health care, and much-debated legal concerns today surrounding the subject of dying, we moderns probably rarely, if ever, think of preparing for death as an art form. A central topic in sermons, hymns and contemplative literature, death and dying was a chief pastoral concern of the church of Johann Sebastian Bach’s day. Finding consolation and facing fears and anxieties near the time of death, and also as a part of everyday living, are arguably at the heart of the sacred vocal works of Bach, who is regarded by many as a kind of theologian in music.