Fugue

Steinway Artist Lura Johnson is celebrated for her insightful, emotionally impactful performances. The Washington Post describes hearing her play as “one of life’s great pleasures.” The Baltimore Sun praises her “surging expressive force… impressive bravura…” and “exceptional vitality, color, and impact.” Performing more than one hundred concerts annually as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral pianist, Lura captures, distills, and powerfully communicates the spirit of the music she performs. She describes her mission this way: “My aim is to bring to life the essence and true character of the music - vividly - the way an actor embodies a role with full commitment.” Through her interpretations of passionate and complex masterpieces, Lura brings healing to a confused world, inviting her listeners into an extraordinary world of art and beauty that represents something bigger than all of us.

Most classical music lovers know – or at least know of – J.S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue. It’s sometimes described as the composer’s greatest creation, and spoken about in terms of its mathematical beauty, purity of musical thought, and thematic complexity. But strikingly, none of these descriptions tell us very much about what the music actually sounds like – or indeed what The Art of Fugue is, and who it’s for.

Written in the latter part of the composer's life, it encompasses the zenith of Bach's exploration of possibilities of contrapuntal writing for instrument. This release offers the first integral recording worldwide of this famous work from the first 1751 printed version which appeared after the death of the composer. This recording allows listeners to enjoy that first publication verbatim for the very first time. Performing on a fine copy of the harpsichord by Johann Christoph Osterlein and concluding with the chorale setting for organ on Wenn wir in hochsten Noten BWV 668a recorded in Grauhof, Germany, listeners can enjoy the 1751 print verbatim for the first time. James is joined by Carole Cerasi (Gramophone Award-winning harpischordist) on two tracks requiring a duet partner.

The Art of Fugue is Bach's final composition and one of his most challenging. In this album Phantasm and its director Laurence Dreyfus showcase all the hidden beauties of the composer's magnum opus, arguably the pinnacle of the fugue genre. Printed in open score, the format allows a rendition on viols, as recorded here. Brimming with rich counterpoint and dynamic conversation among the parts, the work can legitimately claim a place within the consort repertoire. Bach manages to paint a finely delineated set of contrasting musical portraits full of revelations and surprises. Far from an academic encyclopaedia of arcane musical techniques, The Art of Fugue thus embarks on a (unfinished) voyage of discovery shared by an inveterate explorer whose thirst for invention knows no bounds. Organist Daniel Hyde performs four movements in this welcome follow-up to Phantasm's acclaimed Well-Tempered Consort series.

The Art of Fugue is Bach’s final composition and one of his most challenging. In this album Phantasm and its director Laurence Dreyfus showcase all the hidden beauties of the composer’s magnum opus, arguably the pinnacle of the fugue genre.

The recorder quartet quintaessentia is the leading ensemble of its kind in Brazil. This label debut for the ensemble gives extraordinary audibility to Bach’s brilliant counterpoint.

L'Ensemble Aglàia, nato a Milano nel 1992 su iniziativa di Cinzia Barbagelata e Jorge Alberto Guerrero, è un gruppo specializzato nell'interpretazione del repertorio barocco e preclassico su strumenti originali. L'ensemble, che si avvale di alcuni tra i più stimati esecutori italiani di musica antica, si presenta in formazioni variabili, dal trio all'orchestra da camera. Tra le formazioni di punta vi è senz'altro il quartetto d'archi, organico sul cui repertorio, dalla nascita del genere al periodo Classico, il Quartetto Aglàia svolge una approfondita attività di ricerca, con numerose proposte inedite.

Surrounded by a certain air of mystery and revered as a relic, The Art of Fugue is roundly praised for its complex, mathematical nature.

Surrounded by a certain air of mystery and revered as a relic, The Art of Fugue is roundly praised for its complex, mathematical nature. However, these works are also movingly lyrical, and deserve to be enjoyed for their pure beauty, just as one enjoys the rhythms and sounds in the words of a poem, regardless of form and sometimes even meaning. Following the last version of J.S. Bach's autograph manuscript, New Collegium champions in "Lemniscate" the reconciliation and celebration of all these aspects, bringing to the fore both the cerebral brilliance as well as the emotive intensity of this iconic masterpiece, allowing it to be both light and profound. The rich instrumentation of woodwinds, brass, strings and harpsichord allows for expressive characters to be exaggerated, hints at other musical styles, and paints diverse atmospheres, infusing fantasy and life into these twenty fugues and canons.