Koopman Cantatas 13

The world-renowned early music specialist and keyboard player Ton Koopman and the violinist Catherine Manson perform the six Sonatas for Harpsichord and Violin, BWV 1014-1019 of Johann Sebastian Bach on this new 2-CD set for Challenge Classics. Their previous collaboration on the label was an outstanding recording of the music of Buxtehude. Catherine Manson enjoys a versatile performing career specialising in period performance as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. She became the current leader of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 2006, and as first violinist of the London Haydn Quartet has been involved in a critically acclaimed series of recordings of the Haydn quartets for Hyperion.

2019 – An Anniversary Year. For three exceptional musicians 2019 brings cause for great joy and gratitude for several reasons. Ton Koopman, internationally renowned as a harpsichordist, organist, conductor, professor and musicologist, celebrates his 75th birthday.

For a long time Baroque and Bach specialst Koopman wanted to record this masterpieces of Bach and now was the time to do it! Recorded in the trusted and beautiful-sounding Walloon Church in Amsterdam. My recording of Bach’s harpsichord partitas was a long time in coming. The main reason was a lack of time (recording Bach’s complete organ works, complete cantatas and Dieterich Buxtehude’s Opera Omnia required much time and attention). Another factor was my respect for these masterpieces by Bach – they are not something to just fit in between other projects. I already had plans to record them in the 1990s, for Erato, and now that I finally am able to, it is for my own label.

Masaaki Suzuki is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist and conductor, and the founder and musical director of the Bach Collegium Japan. He also teaches and conducts at Yale University and has conducted orchestras and choruses around the world. He was born in Kobe to parents who were both Christians and amateur musicians; his father had worked professionally as a pianist. Masaaki Suzuki began playing organ professionally at church services at the age of 12.

Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained their Music Director ever since, taking them regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the USA and building up an outstanding reputation for the expressive refinement and truth of his performances.

Spanish and Portuguese organs are celebrated for their excellent trumpets (en chamade), but their splendid flutes, prestants, cornets, and reeds are less widely known. From the second half of the 17th century, organists in Spain and Portugal delighted in recreating the sounds of the battlefield on their instruments. The batalha has a simple harmonic structure; its interest lies principally in the stirring rhythm.

Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained their Music Director ever since, taking them regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the USA and building up an outstanding reputation for the expressive refinement and truth of his performances.