Collegium Aureum Bach

Schon bei seiner Gründung 1962 hatten es sich Collegium Aureum als Ziel gesetzt, alte Musik auf historischen Instrumenten aufzuführen. Während der langen Zeit seines Bestehens veröffentlichte das Ensemble zahlreiche erfolgreiche LPs und CDs und konzertierte in den großen Konzertsälen ganz Europas.

This recording is something of a throwback to earlier days of the original instrument movement. The Collegium Aureum was an early exponent of this, and the 1966 recording of the JS Bach shows how this movement has evolved. Wonderful trumpets, struggling with the tessitura and tuning, and the (probably) part-time early music oboists, point up the most obvious difference. Early music was a labor of love in the 1960's, not a full time job. Which make me wonder if today's "authentic" performances aren't too clean, and too polished. How much rehearsal time did the "old wig" get, anyway, especially with works that were being given their premiere performances? Charles Rosen said that a truly authentic performance is impossible, you're either too early or too late.

A good first introduction to the musical worlds of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is the recently released 10-CD box "C.P.E. Bach Edition ", on which the German 'harmonia mundi' has compiled high-quality recordings from the past 50 years.

This is an excellent and varied selection of composers from the very well known like Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach and Vivaldi, through the less famous but familiar like Frescobaldi, Sainte-Colombe and Zelenka, to the downright obscure. It is all delightful: the musicians are uniformly excellent, and include such great names as Gustav Leonhardt, Cantus Colln, Christopher Hogwood and so on. They give fine performances both of the familiar works and of the less familiar ones. Obviously there will be discs you like more than others and you may already have favourite versions of some works, but these discs are never less than very good and are often outstanding.

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.

Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.

The five symphonies by the 'London Bach' on this Hungaroton disc have been chosen from three different collections. Bach's first set (Op. 3), though not his first essays in symphonic writing, printed in London in 1765, is represented by Symphonies No. 1 in D major and No. 2 in C major. From Op. 6 come Symphony No. 1 in G major and what is probably the strongest and best known work in the programme, No. 6 in G minor. Lastly there is Symphony No. 2 in E flat major from a set of three collected under the title Op. 9, printed in The Hague.

Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.

Baroque Masterpieces - collection of Baroque music in the best performance in the company Sony BMG DHM Artenova. One of the best collections of Baroque music! The greatest works - the legendary performance! Baroque music is a style of European classical music in the period from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque era follows the Renaissance and the Classical period precedes. The main in this music was an expression of emotions. Baroque music - this violence and ecstasy, in contrast to the confidence and independence of the Renaissance.