Philips 412 214 2

Johann Sebastian Bach - Weltliche Kantaten BWV 205, 214
René Jacobs, Christoph Prégardien / Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment - Gustav Leonhardt
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 332 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Philips # 432 161-2 | Country/Year: Germany 1992
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Vocal, Secular

…Leonhardts first public performance took place in 1950, when he performed J.S. Bach's The Art of the Fugue for a Viennese audience. This marked the beginning of a legendary and influential career that would take him to performance venues all over the world, setting stylistic and interpretive standards for keyboard music dating from the early 1500s to the late 1700s. His treatment of the works of Couperin, Froberger, and Frescobaldi were pivotal in affecting a shift in Baroque performance practice from the motoric to the malleable…

I can claim possibly some very small influence on this record. Some years ago Jessye Norman broke the last and very difficult phrase of Ganymed with a breath. I then pointed out in a review that Gerald Moore (in Singer and Accompanist London: 1953) had urged singers to phrase it in one as Norman has done in recitals, and now on record, ever since. Cause and effect? I don't know. This is, in any case, one of the most rewarding performances on the record, sung with conviction and, throughout, with long-breathed phrasing.

In the early 1950s Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau began what would become a long and distinguished career as one of his generation’s foremost Bach interpreters. By 1981, when he and his wife Julia Varady made this recording for Philips, his declining vocal abilities apparently didn’t prevent him from continuing to deliver the kind of infectious, exuberant performances that established that reputation and endeared him to so many listeners.

In 1823 Johann Georg Stauffer invented the arpeggione, a freak instrument, a hybrid of 'cello and guitar, with strings tuned in fourths. Schubert invested such attractive melodies in this queer contraption, he must have believed in its future. The melodies that float throughout the "Sonata for Arpeggione", are indeed attractive to say the least. The first point that strikes one in this performance is the clarity that cellist Mischa Maisky maintains.

The three sonatas on this disc were all written in 1777-78, and mark Mozart's attainment of a new level of skill and sophistication in his writing for the piano. Uchida's accounts, recorded in 1985, midway through her survey of the composer's complete piano sonatas for Philips, are sympathetic and nicely shaped. Some pianists have found more vehemence and darkness in the A minor sonata, K. 310, and more elegance in the two major-key works, but the balanced, essentially lyrical approach Uchida brings to the music works very well. This is soulful playing, of an intimacy not often encountered these days, and the recording does it full justice.

This is Brendel's third Haydn record in recent years (the other two, also on Philips, are 9500 774, 8/81 and 6514 317, 11/83), and it offers three sonatas and two oddities in superlative performances, beautifully recorded. The lack of dynamics in the B minor means Haydn expected it to be played mainly on the harpsichord, but this leaves Brendel free to find his own dynamics which he does with impeccable taste. The robust outer movements in fact are well suited to a piano, and the central minuet offers a delicate contrast. The D major, later, and definitely for piano, consists only of a long set of variations and a short quick finale.

Berlioz was the first Romantic master of the orchestra. His music hasn't been surpassed in terms of sheer brilliance and accuracy of effect. This set includes all of the overtures, the Symphonie fantastique, Harold in Italy, the Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens, orchestral music from The Damnation of Faust and Romeo and Juliet, and the completely insane Grande Symphonie funebre et triumphale. Davis achieved his reputation as a conductor as a Berlioz specialist, and he proves an expert advocate on behalf of this stimulating, bizarre, and totally original genius.

Pepe Romero has played the guitar for as long as he can remember, debuting at the age of seven. His father was the legendary guitarist Celedonio Romero and was his only teacher. Along with his father and brothers Celin and Angel, Romero formed the Romeros Quartet, and riding on the heels of Celedonio's celebrity in Spain, embarked on an international career that made them the most famous guitar ensemble in the world.