Armin Sierszyn 2000 Jahre Kirchengeschichte

Jordan catches particularly well the immediacy of expression of these delightful pieces; note the force and amplitude of the conclusions to ''Danse villageois'' and the ''Scherzo-Valse''. He does excellently, too, in what Cortot described as ''the truculent flavour, unbuttoned and cheeky exuberance'' of España, and in the ''Danse slave'' from Le roi malgre lui, a quite similar piece.

The tenth volume of the complete recording of Bach's cantatas contains a final group of works (BWV 44, 73, 119 and 134) from the first cycle of 1723-1724. It continues with the first of a substantial series of chorale cantatas that give the second Leipzig cycle of 1724-1725 its particular character. This volume ends with the serenata BWV 134a, which completes the secular cantatas in Volumes 1 to 3; it provided the musical model for the Easter cantata BWV 134, which was composed in 1724. Bach's commitment in composing this second cycle of cantatas went well beyond his undertaking in the previous year. Whereas in the first cycle, existing cantatas from the Weimar period could be found alongside new pieces, the second cycle contains a sequence of newly composed works that continued uninterrupted until the spring of 1725.

In the lineup of promising music geniuses whose lives were cut short, Norbert Burgmüller (1810-1836) is an imposing figure. During his lifetime, he made an impression on Mendelssohn and found an ardent champion in Schumann, who proclaimed "After Franz Schubert's early death, no other death could cause more grief than that of Burgmüller." He studied composition with Louis Spohr, who left a mark on the four string quartets. Three of them were completed while Burgmüller was still a student, but nothing in them suggests juvenilia. These are serious and beautiful works steeped in a post-Beethoven outlook. All of them are in minor keys, and while drawing upon Spohr, they look forward to early Romanticism and have lyrical qualities akin to Schubert.

Letzten Monat konnte ich Ihnen den letzten komponierenden Enkel Johann Sebastian Bachs vorstellen, und diesen Monat können sie die lohnende – und spannende – Bekanntschaft mit einem seiner Zeitgenossen machen, der ebenfalls aus der weitverzweigten Bach-Dynastie stammt: Johann Michael Bach (1745–1820). Er gehört ebenfalls der Enkelgeneration Johann Sebastians an; der hessische Bach-Zweig, aus dem er stammt, hat sich jedoch so frühzeitig von den thüringischen Hauptlinien getrennt, dass heute das genaue Verwandtschaftsverhältnis zu Johann Sebastian nicht mehr geklärt werden kann.