"…Musica Antiqua convey equal vitality and character to the two most striking rarities here. JCF Bach’s double concerto for fortepiano and viola appears as a prototype symphony with important solo interjections. Melodically unexceptional, it is nevertheless stylish in a jejune way. CPE Bach – the most iconoclastic of the sons – successfully combines the prevailing keyboard instruments of the day, harpsichord and fortepiano. Fingers fly with aplomb – and no little mischief – as one is left to ponder the impact of this last Bach generation on Mozart and Beethoven, with whom there were (and are) of course many significant connections. Goebel provides a historical wake-up call." ~Gramophone
Viele der bekanntesten Melodien von Johann Sebastian Bach stammen aus den ausdruckstarken langsamen Sätzen seiner Konzerte, Suiten und Sonaten. Aus Anlass von "330 Jahre Bach" erscheint nun die Doppel-CD Bach Adagio. Sie lädt dazu ein, Ruhezonen im Alltag zu entdecken und sie zur Entschleunigung zu nutzen. Die reichen Klangwelten, die der Barock-Meister erschuf, animieren zum Träumen und Entspannen. Mit den renommierten Bach-Interpreten wie John Eliot Gardiner, András Schiff, Friedrich Gulda, Albrecht Mayer, Janine Jansen, Riccardo Chailly, Christopher Hogwood und vielen mehr.
It would be impossible to say enough good about this two-disc set of Sviatoslav Richter playing Bach. Coupling three English suites and three French suites plus a pair of toccatas and a fantasia in live recordings from 1991 and 1992, Richter gives every movement, line, rhythm, and note its own weight and character, but also conveys every detail's critical function in the work as a whole. One could, for instance, characterize his E flat major French Suite as serene, his F major English Suite as playful, or his D minor Toccata as thoughtful, but doing so would not fully capture Richter's fusion of individuality and inevitability.
The pure polyphonic quality of J.S. Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias cannot be overstated – simple yet bursting with ideas, they offer an agile introduction to late-baroque musical forms and imitative writing in general, while retaining a cantabile feel. These exquisite miniatures, transcendent of the didactic purpose to which they were relegated for too long, provide an orderly and at once concise and comprehensive survey of Bach’s soundscape. The purity and density of their musical substance, distilled in a sort of abstract and universal language, has naturally encouraged numerous arrangements from the 19th century onwards for vast array of other instruments.