Ich Sehe, Wer du Bist

Throughout most of his professional life, Johann Sebastian Bach composed cantatas for use at church services: it is thought that he probably wrote at least 300 such works. Some 200 of these are still extant, of which the earliest hail from Bach's time as organist in Arnstadt (1703-07) and the last were composed only a year or two before his death in 1750. In 1995, when Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan began the monumental journey of recording the cantatas, they decided to follow in Bach's footsteps.

The ultimate collection of the complete music of J.S. Bach. Having all of Bach's music at my fingertips is a dream come true. This astonishing collection of music is a historic event. Teldec has compiled an excellent collection of all the works of J.S. Bach, from well-known to the obscure, performed by a wide variety of highly respected musicians. There are many, many treasures included in this collection, for example: the cello suites performed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt now on cd for the first time. And the 4-cd set of chorales is stunning.

The third volume of our complete recording of Bach's cantatas comprises works drawn from three different categories. First comes a group of seven sacred cantatas from the years 1714-17, the majority of which were written for the Weimar Schloßkirche. Taken together with the cantatas contained in Volumes 1 and 2,these seven works - Cantatas 54,63,155, 161,162,163 and 165 - form the group of 23 sacred cantatas that have survived complete from the years leading up to the end of Bach's term of office as Konzertmeister to the Weimar court in 1717.

"An excellent master of his craft" (M. Harras). For four decades, bass-baritone Klaus Mertens has been acclaimed by critics in concerts and nearly 200 album recordings as "unearthly radiant" (klassik com), "wonderfully slender, clearly delineating" (mdr Figaro) and "unchanged fresh and immensely homogeneous" (klassik com) for his interpretations of music ranging from early to avant-garde. Dmitri Grigoriev was born in 1979 in Leningrad and studied organ and piano after private lessons at the conservatories in St. Petersburg and Kazan, where he completed his studies in 2007 with the state concert exam. The two musicians play music from "three centuries" on this album. Cantor Dmitri Grigoriev and Klaus Mertens deliberately chose a program for this project that, on the one hand, takes into account the diverse colors and possibilities of the so special organ on site, and on the other hand, is able to provide a small but subtle insight into sounds and styles of vocal music over three centuries.

The ultimate collection of the complete music of J.S. Bach. Having all of Bach's music at my fingertips is a dream come true. This astonishing collection of music is a historic event. Teldec has compiled an excellent collection of all the works of J.S. Bach, from well-known to the obscure, performed by a wide variety of highly respected musicians. There are many, many treasures included in this collection, for example: the cello suites performed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt now on cd for the first time. And the 4-cd set of chorales is stunning.

Rita Streich (born 18 December 1920 in Barnaul, Altai Krai, Russia, died 1987) was one of the most significant coloratura sopranos of the post-war period.
Rita Streich moved to Germany with her parents during her childhood, where she grew up bilingual, something that was extremely helpful during her later career. Among her teachers were Willy Domgraf-Fassbaender, Erna Berger, and Maria Ivogün.

The artistry of Rita Streich presented in this multi-disc set represents an art that in all likelihood would not return: the Viennese school of coloratura and lyrical singing.

A native of St Petersburg, Ingeborg von Bronsart studied with Liszt in Weimar, her striking appearance earning her the nickname ‘Ingeborg die Schöne’. Goethe’s libretto for Jery und Bätely is a charming and bucolic tale of unrequited romance between a pretty Swiss milkmaid and an eligible bachelor who are ultimately brought together by some farcical matchmaking. Bronsart brings life to this story with exquisite music, from an exciting overture through an uninterrupted evolution in melody and harmony to a spine-tingling finale, delivering a Singspiel that helped establish her reputation as a successful composer for the stage.