Bach Brilliant

Another collection of Bach’s chamber music from the ensemble led by Jed Wentz and Michael Borgstede, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung’s Middle East correspondent. As on its earlier release on Brilliant Classics, the ensemble has researched the scores, performance techniques and the types of instrument used at the time of composition. That is not to say that the approach they take is a dry academic one.

This disc has a lot going for it. Thomas Zehetmair is a world-renowned violinist; the Amsterdam Bach Soloists comprise a little over a dozen players from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra; and while they perform on modern instruments, they adhere largely to historically informed performance practice. Thus, we get the best of all worlds: world-class playing; smooth, mellifluous sound; and convincing interpretations.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs interest in the organ would seem to be fairly limited, at least judging by the number of pieces he composed for the instrument. The reasons for this attitude could be personal and professional, but could also reflect the changing affections and the new sensibility of the period, since during his lifetime the organ underwent a phase of relative decline. Indeed, following the acme reached by Johann Sebastian Bach, the instrument sank into a phase of neglect in Germany during the second half of the 1700s.

This fascinating set provides a refreshing window onto a much studied, much idolized, and oft performed master of composition, allowing many of his familiar works to appear in a new light, recognizable and yet transformed. Bach's music is often described as indestructible, in the sense that no matter how it is performed, or in whichever arrangement, it's essential spirit survives. Many of the transcriptions included here represent the work of contemporary, world-class performers bringing Bach's masterpieces into the repertoire of their own instruments or ensembles, thereby giving new timbres to the genius of Bach's contrapuntal lines.

A stunning collection of some of the greatest sacred music ever written. From the great Lamentations of Byrd, Tallis and Palestrina, the listener is taken on a remarkable spiritual journey through Bach’s great St Matthew Passion, Purcell’s moving and bleak funeral music for Queen Mary, and Handel radiant Messiah. Pergolesi’s masterful setting of the Stabat Mater and Telemann’s Passions-Oratorium are also to be found here, along with Haydn’s Stabat Mater and his dark and intense masterpiece Die sieben letzen Worte, or The Seven Last Words of our Saviour from the Cross. Finally, Allegri’s hauntingly beautiful Miserere opens this collection – a work that was copied from memory after one hearing by the child Mozart. Prior to that moment the work had only been heard in the Vatican.

If you’re looking for an acceptable, low-cost cycle of Bach’s harpsichord concertos, this Brilliant Classics set may be of interest. Discs 1 and 2 contain all of the concertos for solo harpsichord and continuo, as well as the Concerto BWV 1060 for two harpsichords and Concerto BWV 1065 for four harpsichords, performed by the modern-instrument ensemble Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum, with soloist Christine Schornsheim, joined by fellow harpsichordists Armin Thalheim, Mechtild Stark, and Violetta Liebsch in the multiple keyboard works. These performances were originally issued in the U.S. nearly 25 years ago on the now defunct Capriccio label.