Karl Richter's performance dates from 1965, since when it has seldom been out of the catalogue. It is in an entirely different class… Richter's Munich Bach Choir were at a peak at this time and the results are often quite exciting. Under Richter's direction the ''Ehre sei dir, Gott'' chorus…is appropriately lustig with wonderfully light-hearted singing and orchestral playing… [T]he arias with Gundula Janowitz and Fritz Wunderlich…[are] of a calibre which will always ensure considerable enjoyment…
This album is a story of family and friendship. Positioned between homage to a father figure and modernity, the viola da gamba sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian Bach are a revealing element in the history of the Bach family and its ties of friendship with two families of virtuoso instrumentalists, the Abels and the Hesses, who had already inspired the work of Johann Sebastian.
The performance of the St. Matthew Passion at the 1950 International Bach Festival still carries an enormous reputation. The Wiener Singverein and the Wiener Symphoniker were conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The singers were all said to be among the best of the early postwar period, and Kathleen Ferrier was at the peak of her tragically short career. And even his detractors had to admit that in the immediate postwar period Herbert von Karajan was at his least narcissistic when he was feeling slightly chastened by having picked the losing side and slightly nervous that someone might hold his choice against him. We are gratified that „Andante“ has reissued the performance and thrilled with the excellence of the digital remastering and with the richness of their packaging.
Johann Ludwig Krebs (Buttelstedt, 12 October 1713 – Altenburg, 1 January 1780) was a favourite pupil of the great J.S. Bach (who regarded him particularly highly, punning on their two surnames declaring Krebs ‘was the only crayfish in his stream’) and a supremely talented inheritor of the composer–organist tradition of the Northern European Baroque. As a member of the last generation of these musicians, he lived in a time of marked shifts in taste, during the rise of the empfindsamer (sensitive) style, with its preference for balance and grace over the high baroque’s interwoven contrapuntal lines and chromatic harmony.
Nur wenige Werke der Musikgeschichte erfreuen sich so großer Beliebtheit wie die 1850 wiederentdeckten Sechs Brandenburgischen Konzerte von Johann Sebastian Bach. Diese dem Markgrafen Christian Ludwig von Brandenburg gewidmeten Konzerte wurden von der Hofkapelle München unter der musikalischen Leitung von Rüdiger Lotter in einer erfrischenden Interpretation neu eingespielt und bestechen durch ihre straffen Tempi. Zahlreiche bekannte Solisten wie Dorothee Oberlinger, Hille Perl, Rüdiger Lotter u. a. brillieren in den von Bach untereinander sehr unterschiedlich instrumentierten Konzerten.
The Six Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) are considered by musicians, critics and audiences alike among the finest musical compositions of the baroque era. Bach presented the concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg, Christian Ludwig, in Berlin, March 24, 1721, with the hopes some patronage would come his way. The music was preserved in the Brandenburg archives, and when rediscovered in the 19th century became some of the most beloved music of all time. Beloved is the operative word in this re-release of the masterpieces in the hands of Jeanne Lamon and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.