Sebastian Wendle

Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concerto Koln, Peter Dijkstra - Johann Sebastian Bach: Johannes-Passion (2016) 3CDs

Johann Sebastian Bach - Johannes-Passion (2016) 3CDs
Julian Prégardien (Evangelist), Tareq Nazmi (Jesus), Christina Landshamer (soprano)
Ulrike Malotta (alto), Tilman Lichdi (tenor), Krešimir Stražanac (bass)
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concerto Köln, conducted by Peter Dijkstra

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 787 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 409 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Choral | Label: BR Klassik | # 900909 | Time: 02:57:16

The music of Bach's 'St. John Passion', which the composer wrote for Holy Week in 1724 immediately after his appointment as cantor of St Thomas's Church in Leipzig, still retains all its freshness and vitality nearly 300 years later, and is a true Baroque delight. The two main choruses Herr, unser Herrscher and Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine form the beginning and culmination of a large-scale orchestral and vocal structure in which Bach reveals his absolute mastery of polyphony. Inwardly reflective chorales are as much interwoven into the events of the Passion as the haunting arias which comment on the biblical texts of the Gospel of St John. Throughout this solemn Passion oratorio, there is a constant emphasis on Baroque musical magnificence. What makes this live recording of the concert version of March 7, 2015 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz so special? The fresh voices of the young and excellent vocal soloists, the regularly praised "astonishing three-dimensionality" and "crystalline clarity" of the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of Peter Dijkstra and, of course, the renowned period instrument ensemble Concerto Köln.
Anton Batagov - Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of the Fugue) (1993) 2CDs

Anton Batagov - Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge (1993) 2CDs
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 462 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 346 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: SoLid Records | # SLR 0001/2 | Time: 02:28:01

The Russian composer, pianist and electronic musician, Anton Batagov, graduated from the Gnessin School and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He was prize-winner at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1986) and other competitions. Anton Batagov introduced the music by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass to Russian audiences. His discographical debut was a recording of Olivier Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'Enfant Jesus for Melodiya. From 1989 to 1996 he was one of the leaders and organizers of the Alternativa, the annual international new music festival in Moscow. Heralded as “one of the most significant and unusual figures of Russian contemporary music” (Newsweek, Russian edition, 1997) and "a Russian Terry Riley" (Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 2008), Anton Batagov is one of the most influential Russian composers and performers of our time. The well-known American musicologist Richard Kostelanetz characterized Batagov's 1993 piano recording of J.S. Bach’s The Art of the Fugue (BWV 1080) as "the most stunning interpretation of Bach since Glenn Gould".
Nathan Milstein - Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006 (2012) 2CDs

Nathan Milstein - J.S. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006 (2012) 2CDs
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 307 Mb | Scans ~ 90 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: EMI | # 50999 6 78741 2 5 | Time: 01:54:06

The late Nathan Milstein’s 1975 stereo remake (DG mid-price) was his own preferred version of these pillars of the violin repertoire with which he had been so associated since his youth in Odessa. But his (broadly faster) mid-Fifties New York account, now remastered and restored by EMI, was a famous yardstick of its time – a grandly phrased, aristocratically structured, Romantically resonant statement to treasure beside Menuhin and Heifetz. These are epic virtuoso performances justifying Milstein’s view that with this music the performer could ‘bask in the most glamorous light’. Stylistically, purists will object to their expressive liberty and gesture. But few will be able to resist their artistry or intensity of delivery.
Marion Verbruggen, Mitzi Meyerson - Johann Sebastian Bach: Trio Sonatas (1994)

Marion Verbruggen, Mitzi Meyerson - Johann Sebastian Bach: Trio Sonatas (1994)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 329 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 145 Mb | Scans ~ 135 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMU 907119 | Time: 01:02:59

This is a delightful, inventive, witty, charming, enchanting, inspiring disc. In the Verbruggen disc, only four of the six sonatas appear together, plus one other trio sonata (BWV 1031). Perhaps Ms. Verbruggen thought that BWV 526 and 528 did not translate well to the recorder. In any event, the recorder and the harpsichord are outstanding here, as is the recording quality. Highest recommendation.

Sebastian Manz & Herbert Schuch - Brahms Schumann Gade (2022)  Music

Posted by delpotro at May 10, 2022
Sebastian Manz & Herbert Schuch - Brahms Schumann Gade (2022)

Sebastian Manz & Herbert Schuch - Brahms Schumann Gade (2022)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 204 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 153 Mb | 01:06:37
Classical | Label: Berlin Classics

On his latest album "Brahms, Schumann, Gade", the clarinet virtuoso and three-time ECHO Klassik winner Sebastian Manz dedicates himself to three absolute opera magna of the clarinet repertoire. The focus on the chamber music core repertoire makes this album project stand out clearly from the artist's previous discography. Without distractions or programmatic embellishments, Sebastian Manz completely serves the artistic content of these timeless masterpieces in this album. Sebastian Manz is accompanied on the piano by Herbert Schuch. Together they inspire with recordings in which one can hear that time and space have been left for spontaneous musical qualities. The thoughts and emotions of the performers thus come to the fore unfiltered. In addition, large-scale takes preserve the musical flow and their naturalness.

Masaaki Suzuki - Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Works (2015)  Music

Posted by Designol at June 1, 2023
Masaaki Suzuki - Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Works (2015)

Masaaki Suzuki - Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Works (2015)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 370 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 185 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: BIS | # BIS-SACD-2111 | Time: 01:19:26

For this hybrid SACD of famous organ works by J.S. Bach, Masaaki Suzuki plays the restored Schnitger-Hinz organ in the Martinikerk (Martin's Church), in Groningen, one of the most celebrated instruments in the Netherlands and one which dates back to Bach's time. Its bright, Baroque sonorities and Suzuki's historically informed interpretations give these performances a compelling sense of authenticity and period style. The pieces are among Bach's greatest hits, particularly the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which gives the program a decisive opening. Following that flashy demonstration, Suzuki is relaxed and almost contemplative in the Pastorale in F major, and continues his thoughtful readings in the Partita on "O Gott, du frommer Gott," the Prelude and Fugue in G minor, and the Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her." Yet he includes two sparkling virtuoso performances in the Fantasia in G major and the Prelude and Fugue in E minor, which keep the album from being too soft and subdued. BIS' super audio sound is crisp and detailed, which is no mean feat in a church recording.
Masaaki Suzuki - Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Works, Vol. 2 (2016)

Masaaki Suzuki - Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Works, Vol. 2 (2016)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 312 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 169 Mb | Artwork included
Genre: Classical | Label: BIS | # BIS-SACD-2241 | Time: 01:10:47

Masaaki Suzuki was an organist before he was a conductor, and his recordings of Bach's organ works have made a delightful coda to his magisterial survey of Bach cantatas with his Bach Collegium Japan. This selection, the second in a series appearing on the BIS label, gives a good idea of the gems available. You get a good mix of pieces, including a pair of Bach's Vivaldi transcriptions. Fans of Suzuki's cantata series will be pleased to note the similarities in his style between his conducting and his organ playing: there's a certain precise yet deliberate and lush quality common to both. And he has a real co-star here: the organ of the Kobe Shoin Women's University Chapel, built in 1983 by French maker Marc Garnier. The realizations of Bach's transcriptions of Vivaldi concertos fare especially well here, with a panoply of subtle colors in the organ. Sample the first movement of the Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, with its mellow yet transcendently mysterious tones in the string ripieni. BIS backs Suzuki up with marvelously clear engineering in the small Japanese chapel, and all in all, this is a Bach organ recording that stands out from the crowd. Highly recommended.
Piotr Anderszewski - Johann Sebastian Bach: English Suites Nos. 1, 3 & 5 (2014)

Piotr Anderszewski - Johann Sebastian Bach: English Suites Nos. 1, 3 & 5 (2014)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 217 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 157 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Warner Classics | # 0825646219391 | Time: 01:06:46

This is a glorious disc. Simply glorious. Anderszewski and Bach have long been congenial bedfellows and the Pole’s playing here is compelling on many different levels. To start with, there’s the sense of sharing the sheer physical thrill of Bach’s keyboard-writing. This is particularly evident in faster movements such as the fierce and brilliant fugal Gigue that concludes the Third Suite, or, in the E minor Fifth Suite, the extended fugal Prelude and the outer sections of its Passepied I. Common to all is a sense of being fleet but never breathless, with time enough for textures to tell.
Kenneth Gilbert - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Two-Part And Three-Part Inventions (Inventionen & Sinfonien) (1985) [Re-Up]

Kenneth Gilbert - J.S. Bach: The Two-Part And Three-Part Inventions (1985)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 362 Mb | Scans included | Time: 00:50:54
Genre: Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion (DG) | # 415 112-2

This is a superb recording of the Two-Part and Sinfonias (Three-Part Inventions) of Johann Sebastian Bach. Kenneth Gilbert is a wonderful interpreter of Bach's keyboard music and in this recording plays an instrument made in 1671 by Jan Couchet that was subsequently enlarged in 1778. The Two-Part Inventions and Sinfonias consist of 15 parts; they were written as technical exercises and as composition demonstration pieces originally for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. The various pieces were probably written separately and were gathered together by Bach in major/minor key sequence and published in 1723. The recording is clear and well balanced. Kenneth Gilbert plays beautifully; the music is lively without being ostentatious.
Martha Cook - Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst Der Fuge (2015) 2CDs

Martha Cook - Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst Der Fuge (2015) 2CDs
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 507 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 292 Mb | Artwork included
Genre: Classical | Label: Passacaille | # 5425004140142 | Time: 01:23:24

Harpsichordist Martha Cook here records Bach's Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080 (The Art of the Fugue), with a specific interpretive framework in mind. The work, Cook believes, was devotional and intimate in intent; it is, she writes, a "musical prayer," and it embodies the parables and exhortation found in the biblical Book of Luke, 14:27-35. Interested readers are invited to consult the booklet for more details. Making the supposition work involves discarding the version of the work published after Bach's death by C.P.E. Bach and others, and it also involves some of the numerology that so often seems to crop up in connection with Bach's larger works. There's some justification in earlier German music for regarding Bach's instrumental music in this programmatic way; Bach would have known the Biblische Historien keyboard sonatas of 1700 by one of his key predecessors, Johann Kuhnau. But what's missing is any evidence of why Bach, by the end of his life a revered figure, might have wanted to embed secret messages in Die Kunst der Fuge. The unalloyed good news is that you can disregard the stated method of interpretation and listen to the performance in the abstract. It's very powerful.