Regard Christ Art

La biographie de référence de saint Pierre, premier apôtre et premier pape.
Dans l'histoire de l'Eglise, Pierre est considéré comme le premier pape. Pourtant, rien ne le disposait à prendre la place du premier apôtre. Originaire d'une petite bourgade sans prétention située au nord de la terre d'Israël, il exerce humblement une activité de pêcheur avec son frère et quelques amis qui lui sont associés. Alors que la région est dominée par l'Empire romain et que le judaïsme est en crise, le discours messianique de Jésus le séduit si bien qu'il décide de le suivre. …

These new CDs are not being introduced as a simple addition to the consumer market, as they were produced with the consciousness that authentic Byzantine melody is not music intended for popular consumption, nor can it become an object of commercialization. On the contrary, Byzantine music belongs to the realm of transcendence. It is word [logos] in musical form, the word of revelation and disclosure of truth and the experience of the Church that is not related to the provocation of the senses, emotion, pleasure, or delight. The beauty, therefore, of Byzantine music does not have an aesthetic basis, but rather an ontological one, which imprints and defines this beauty in both an iconic and Eucharistic fashion in the Divine Services.

This album features works by composers for whom the conception and creation of music was intimately bound up with a religious attitude towards the world. Before the birth of aesthetics in the 18th century, the symbolic or “external” meanings of music resided in the music itself; neither its expressiveness nor its purpose as an integral part of social and religious rituals were separated from a larger context of moral and spiritual considerations. In this sense, although their tonal languages and forms differ greatly, later composers such as Liszt, Franck and Messiaen followed the spirit of Bach, reflecting a musical philosophy in which musical means and theological ends were deeply intertwined, if not one and the same.

The present set is the debut of Ton Koopman on the Challenge Classics label and the re-start of the series of complete cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. Volume 13 in this CD presentation contains the third series of chorale cantatas from the second annual cycle Bach composed for Leipzig. Music criticism in the modern sense did not exist in the eighteenth century, so we do not really know anything about how the public responded to Bach's music. One of the few comments we have is in a newspaper report of Bach's first appearance in the capacity of Cantor of St Thomas's, presenting a cantata on 30 May 1723,but we learn only that it was received with approbation, even applause.