Jorg Senf

Il Gusto Barocco approaches Johann Sebastian Bach's suites and concertos from a contemporary and at the same time historically informed perspective. On their new album "Suite & Concertos", Jörg Halubek and the early music specialists of Il Gusto Barocco take a look at Bach's activities in the Zimmermann coffee house in Leipzig. They are not reconstructing an actual programme, but testing how the spirit of the musical gatherings in the circle of family, relatives and students can be transferred to our modern times. "We want to take a more modern look at Bach, who today is mainly seen as a strict church composer. For us, it's about the communicative side turned towards people," says ensemble leader and harpsichordist Jörg Halubek.

With the major project "Bach Organ Landscapes" and the recording of all of Johann Sebastian Bach's organ works, the German conductor, harpsichordist and organist Jörg Halubek invites you on a comprehensive journey to historical organ builders who shaped Johann Sebastian Bach. "The further you look back into music history, the more regional developments can be discovered," says the artist. “These connections between instrument and organ work characterize the so-called organ landscapes”. The third and fourth albums of the ten-part series are about 'Hamburg' and 'Lüneburg & Altenbruch'.

Balthasar Erben, born in Danzig in 1626, was a cosmopolitan. When he applied for the position of Kapellmeister at the main church of St. Mary in his home town at the age of 27, the council granted him a generous grant so that he could "look around the world and perfect himself as a composer". Erben was on the road in Europe for five years and visited all the centers of musical culture up to Rome.

These classic performances belong in the collection of anyone who cares about Debussy's piano music. Certain creators and re-creators become synonymous. Beethoven and Schnabel, Chopin and Rubinstein at once spring to mind. Yet in the entire history of performance I doubt whether there has ever existed a more subtle or golden thread than that between Debussy and Demus. French jibes about the reduction of Debussy’s clarity to a charming but essentially decorative opalescence are little more than the bitter fruit of envy, of an exclusivity, that finds an Austrian pianist’s supreme mastery of their greatest composer’s elusive heart and idiom hard to stomach.

Two great artists, pianist András Schiff and composer/clarinettist Jörg Widmann, join forces for the first time on record, performing Brahms’s late masterpieces, the clarinet sonatas op. 120, written in 1894. In between the sonatas Schiff plays Widmann’s evocative Intermezzi for piano. As Jörg Widmann explains in a programme note, these are works inspired by his friendship with András Schiff and by a shared love of Brahms, to whom they pay tribute. The album was recorded at Neumarkt’s Historischer Reitstadel.

The large-scale Bach Organ Landscapes project featuring J.S. Bach’s entire organ oeuvre recorded on a range of instruments aims to provide an overview of organ-playing and organ-building traditions that were key to Bach’s composing. With a keen eye to the unique cultural organ legacy of the places associated with Bach, Halubek has placed Bach’s original sound at the heart of his project. The recordings are accompanied by digital material that offer an almost tactile access to the great composer’s sound universe. This Album features famous organs of north Germany. Firstly, the organ by Friedrich Stellwagen in Lübeck. Secondly, the organ made by Christoph Treutmann in Grauhof near Goslar.

The large-scale Bach Organ Landscapes project featuring J.S. Bach’s entire organ oeuvre recorded on a range of instruments aims to provide an overview of organ-playing and organ-building traditions that were key to Bach’s composing. With a keen eye to the unique cultural organ legacy of the places associated with Bach, Halubek has placed Bach’s original sound at the heart of his project. The recordings are accompanied by digital material that offer an almost tactile access to the great composer’s sound universe. This Album features the legendary Silbermann organ in Freiberg near Dresden.

With the major project "Bach Organ Landscapes" and the recording of all of Johann Sebastian Bach's organ works, the German conductor, harpsichordist and organist Jörg Halubek invites you on a comprehensive journey to historical organ builders who shaped Johann Sebastian Bach. "The further you look back into music history, the more regional developments can be discovered," says the artist. “These connections between instrument and organ work characterize the so-called organ landscapes”. The third and fourth albums of the ten-part series are about 'Hamburg' and 'Lüneburg & Altenbruch'.