Bach

Domestic music-making of a distinctly superior sort is lovingly recreated in a rare recording of the notebooks Bach presented to his second wife.

The violinist Leila Schayegh has already impressively demonstrated her Bach expertise several years ago with her recording of the Sonatas BWV 1014-1019, which won the Diapason d’or de l’annee, the Editor’s Choice and was also included in the prestigious Bestenliste der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Bach's six suites for cello (BWV 1007 to 1012) are regarded as the must-haves of the instrument's repertoire. In this recording, Valérie Aimard offers a generous version that radiates without ever seeking effect for its own sake. With finesse and subtlety, the performer honours Bach's greatness.

The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a musical composition for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have been the first performer of the work.

“J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites are somehow hypnotic. An austere work, an instrument, a performer, a single voice and yet we begin to listen to them and are introduced into a path which inevitably leads us inwards, and makes us aware of our absolute solitude facing the universe and the unknown.

„Magie faszinierender Cellokünste“, „kontemplative Tiefe“, „Vorschein erfüllter ästhetischer Utopie“,
schrieb die „Süddeutsche Zeitung“ über das Cellospiel von David Stromberg.

Finnish cellist Max Lilja, one of the founders of Apocalyptica, takes us on an immersive journey across Johann Sebastian Bach’s life; through merging the iconic Cello Suites with an ambient composition, Lilja enlightens the space around the solitary voice.

‘Intense, emotional and pure’ is how Pavel Kolesnikov describes the experience of making this recording, the fruits of a collaboration between the pianist and choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The spirit of the dance, so fundamental to Bach, is never far away in this compelling new account.

In InfInIte Bach, the avant-garde cellist Maya Beiser elevates our sensory perception of the solo cello Suites of J. S. Bach in the expanded realm of spatial audio. Anchoring her body and instrument in the studio space, she reimagines this seminal Baroque work in a visceral experience that is both immersive and transcendental. The multilayered sounds of her cello emerge as ethereal and illuminated, like ambient lights and shadows tempering the overwhelming force of tradition.

Sorrow, desolation and comfort: In 1723 and 1724, the congregation of the Lutheran parish church of St Thomas’s in Leipzig had ample opportunity to discover, week after week, a little more of the talent of their new Kantor, a certain Johann Sebastian Bach. Among the ‘obligatory cantatas’ that were his weekly lot were the three presented on this album, which make use of the texts of Psalms 22 and 130 (the De profundis: ‘Out of the deep have I called unto thee’) or deal with the ‘Weeping, wailing, lamenting, fearing’ that are our everyday fare in this vale of tears. In fact this cantata BWV 12, which actually dates from considerably earlier in Bach’s career, gives a particularly doleful tone to a programme whose ultimate message will nonetheless bring succour to souls in torment…