Great Masters Bach

The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a musical composition for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have been the first performer of the work.

"I started my career as a jazz musician.

Having enjoyed great success with the Christmas Oratorio and the B minor Mass, the Chamber Choir and ensemble frauenkirche dresden under the direction of Frauenkirche music director Matthias Grünert now continue their series of great works by Johann Sebastian Bach. Their St John Passion live from Dresden's Frauenkirche enthralled audience and critics alike at Passiontide 2017. Release on a double album not only makes this great work readily accessible at home, it transports you directly into an unforgettable evening of drama.

Suzuki presents the 1749 version of the St. John Passion, a work that underwent many changes since its first performance in 1724. This fourth version, performed at the end of Bach's life, represents his ultimate vision of this great work. (Suzuki includes in an appendix three arias from the 1725 version that Bach removed from this later version.)

Celebrated for her brilliant qualities as a first class cellist, Xenia Jankovic carries out a worldwide career as soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue.

For his first recital, Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas invites us on a fascinating exploration of the keyboard music of J. S. Bach and his mentors. In the hands of this talented musician, the intimate tones of the harpsichord and the sumptuous strains of the great organ ring out by turns. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the organ and the harpsichord were the two principal faces of a generic ‘keyboard’ repertory that was often played without discrimination on a number of instruments, which might also include the clavichord, the spinet and the virginal.

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the second solo album by exceptional young American organist, Cameron Carpenter, All You Need is Bach. Bach s great keyboard masterpieces provide an ideal platform for Carpenter s formidable creative gifts and the seemingly limitless possibilities of his dream instrument his signature International Touring Organ. The album takes is cue from The Beatles classic All You Need is Love , where Bach s Invention No. 8 in F major proudly rises out of the coda s collage-like texture.

Walter Wilhelm Gieseking (5 November 1895 – 26 October 1956) was a German pianist and composer.

Making their first appearance on BIS, Margaret Batjer and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) cross great distances in both time and space in this programme of concertante violin works. The disc opens with a Violin Concerto by the American composer Pierre Jalbert (b. 1967), whose music has been described as ‘rich in instrumental color and harmonically engaging’. Composed in 2017, the 26-minute concerto was a commission from the orchestra and here makes its first recorded appearance.

“DECCA has used the most recent digital and Cedar technology to improve the original sound, under the overall supervision of veteran technician James Lock. This is one of the great performances of recording history.” Over half a century has passed since this classic DECCA recording was made in Kingsway Hall, London in January 1963. While the performance remains a benchmark, time has left the original analogue master tapes more fragile than ever.