Bach Rifkin

When Joshua Rifkin began recording Bach vocal works to demonstrate his one-singer-per-part thesis, he started not with the lightly scored early cantatas but rather with the Holy of Holies–the B-Minor Mass. (Don't accuse the man of starting small.) Predictably, outrage ensued: detractors far outnumbered supporters at the time (though this seems to be gradually changing). Musicology or not, Rifkin's approach works. Bach's florid vocal parts are far more negotiable for soloists than for chorus; period instruments never overwhelm the voices. Certainly the standard of baroque- instrument playing, particularly brass, has improved since 1980; but Rifkin's instrumentalists, especially woodwinds, are quite listenable.

On 2 March 1714, barely three weeks before his twenty-ninth birthday, the Weimar court organist Johann Sebastian Bach received "the title of Concertmaster." Shortly before he had turned down an important organist's position in Halle; the promotion to concertmaster, granted "at his most humble request," clearly represented a quid pro quo on the part of his employer, Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. As the principal condition of his new post Bach had the obligation "to perform new pieces every month"—in today's parlance, to produce a new cantata on a monthly basis.

Andrew Parrott was the first conductor to adopt Joshua Rifkin's controversial one-singer-per-part approach to Bach's "choral" music (other than Rifkin himself, that is). On the whole, Parrott and his ensemble make a good case for both one-per-part practice and their own performances. Once the ear adjusts, the balance is excellent: the vocal parts don't dominate the orchestra (as many listeners accustomed to a chorus expect); they are equal partners with it–which suits Bach's intricate and often dense writing for instruments and voices.

This is a beautiful CD. On it is a collection of some of Vivaldi' best concertos played on authentic instruments with light, transparent textures, brisk tempi and real excitement. An absolute delight!

The Prelude and Fugue in E Minor forms a frame, as it did in Bach’s time, around this program, designed to fit the liturgical format that gave Bach’s music its purpose; the Fantasia precedes the motet on which it is based and follows Cantata BWV 64, which quotes the fifth stanza of Johann Franck’s poem “Jesu, meine Freude.” The recording was made in the Arnstadt church where Bach served from 1703 to 1707 (the 1699 organ has recently been restored), but the two cantatas and the motet date from his first year in Leipzig. This impressive presentation, the first in a series called Bach in Context, is a hardbound book of 84 pages. The notes favor Joshua Rifkin’s understanding of one voice to a part in Bach’s vocal/choral music, the use of a harpsichord as well as the church organ (not the more versatile chest organ), and the liturgical context in which the music was originally sung.

While this cannot be a first-choice recording of the Bach Overtures (Suites), it's certainly a worthy addition to any collector's Bach shelf. Citing numerous examples of recent research, including conductor Siegbert Rampe's own, along with articles by Dirst, Rifkin, and Wolff, Rampe and his excellent period-instrument ensemble Nova Stravaganza strive to show what may have been the original forms of these four famous works. That means we get to hear suites Nos. 3 and 4 without trumpets and timpani; suite No. 2 played in A minor instead of the usual B minor–and with a solo violin rather than flute; and suite No. 1 as "a simple septet"–two oboes, two solo violins, solo viola, bassoon, and harpsichord (reinforced "in accordance with period practice" by 16' violone).

The Dunedin Consort's recording of Bach's Mass in B Minor revisits the spectacular individual virtuosity that made the Messiah recording so successful. This is the premiere recording of the work in the new Breitkopf edition, edited by Joshua Rifkin, a leading thinker in authentic period performance, who fully endorses John Butt's interpretation.

One of the most popular of the Nativity cantatas is certainly No. 122, performed the Sunday after Christmas, “The new-born baby,” with its motet-like opening chorus and flavored orchestral ritornellos that underline its pastoral nature. The recitative with three recorders playing the choir of angels is one of the most unusual and touching moments in all of Bach. No. 61, “Now come, Savior of the heathens” is an early Weimar cantata, dating from 1714, where the opening chorale is placed in the context of a French overture, its processional feeling perfectly suited to the first Sunday of Advent. Bach even submitted this work as an examination piece for the post of Cantor at the Thomas School; it was rejected as too theatrical.