German Baroque Cantatas

Some people believe that music which has fallen into oblivion is simply not good enough to survive the passing of time. In some cases that may be true, but as many music of the 17th and 18th centuries was written for one performance at a specific occasion it is rather surprising that so much material has been preserved. When music is rediscovered in libraries or archives it often turns out to be of surprising quality, even if the composers are totally unknown to us. The disc to be reviewed here is another example of music which fully deserves to be brought to our attention.

The legendary label, deutsche harmonia mundi, releases a special 50 CD boxset featuring star performers such as Hille Perl, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dorothee Oberlinger, Simone Kermes, and Nuria Rial and more! This collection displays the sheer variety available from the dhm archive. A perfect collection ranging Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic music.

1723 marked the beginning of a new era: Johann Sebastian Bach was appointed Thomaskantor in Leipzig and was about to leave his mark on German music history like hardly any other composer. But first, Georg Philipp Telemann, the actual preferred candidate, needed to withdraw from his appointment in favor of Hamburg. Christoph Graupner, the jury's next choice, was unable to take up the post because he didn't receive approval from his employer in Darmstadt. It's hard to believe that Bach was only the third choice! Immerse yourself in the fascinating application process and slip into the role of the jury!

Gardiner's acclaimed readings of the major Bach choral works are joined by 12 CDs of equally distinguished recordings of Bach cantatas, from Gardiner’s famous "pilgrimage" in 2000, plus the "Magnificat" and "Cantata no. 51".
Included in this 22 disc special release: the classic recordings of the "Christmas Oratorio", the "St. Matthew Passion", the "St. John Passion" and the "Mass in B minor"; a wide selection of 37 cantatas, odes and motets covering the whole church year and other occasions, and including favourites such as "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland", "Wachet auf", "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben", and "Ich habe genug".

Continuing the series ‘Bach’s Contemporaries’, this volume concentrates on the wonderful music of Johann Schelle—a cousin of Kuhnau (another composer featured in this series). This immensely striking sacred music by Schelle (one of Bach’s predecessors in the post of Kantor in Leipzig’s famous Thomas Church) brings together a top-flight group of soloists and a large and colourful assembly of instrumentalists, and presents remarkable and splendidly varied music which not only stands up proudly in its own musical right, but also greatly enhances our understanding of Bach’s own sacred writing.

There has been a resurgence of interest in Handel's Italian-language cantatas as recordings have begun to reflect the vast totality of his output rather than a selection of big hits ideologically bound up with British nationhood. The works on this disc date from early in Handel's career, while he was working in Italy; this Italian recording accurately uses the German spelling of the composer's name, Händel, which he would still have been employing at the time. They are youthful works in the best sense of the word: they break formal boundaries, give full voice to passions, and feel gloriously free to push performers to the edge.

Francesco Gasparini was active in Italy during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; he served for a time at the Venetian orphanage called the Ospedale della Pietà, where he hired the young violinist Antonio Vivaldi. His music has been mostly unheard for several centuries, and this high-quality revival will be welcomed by Baroque vocal fans and those interested in Vivaldi and his world. Included are a quartet of cantatas, two for soprano and alto, and two solo cantatas, mostly with a pair of violins and continuo. Despite the plural "sonate" promised by the disc title, there is only one sonata, placed in the middle of the program as a kind of intermission.