Johann Sebastian Bach 333

This release is part of a set of Bach cantata recordings by the Belgian group Il Gardellino and director Marcel Ponseele: not an entire new Bach cantata cycle but a set of thematically oriented recordings that may also include works by other composers. "De profundis" (from the depths) offers three cantatas based on Psalm 130, which begins with the words "From the depths I cry to thee, Lord" and was translated into German in several ways.

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.

The solo violin pieces of the Baroque period are not just limited to the sonatas and partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach, although these certainly represented its highpoint. Other violinist/composers in Germany sought to translate their polyphonic tradition to this four-stringed instrument, exceeding the instrument’s apparent limitations.

It was literally "highly virtuosic" when the great composers of the 18th century brought together solo soprano and clarinet trumpet in glorious praise of God. Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen is a prominent example of this. That his courtly colleagues Jan Dismas Zelenka in Dresden and Christoph Graupner in Darmstadt were just as imaginative and effective when composing for their best interpreters is demonstrated by the ensemble Harmonie Universelle with Magdalene Harer (soprano) and Hannes Rux (trumpet) in the breathtaking solo parts.

Bach's setting of the Magnificat is one of his most often-recorded vocal works; as a rule, it's paired with one of Bach's lavishly scored festal cantatas. (The Easter Oratorio seems to be a current favorite.) Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan had a different idea: they've paired Bach's Magnificat with roughly contemporary settings by Johann Kuhnau, who was Bach's immediate predecessor in Leipzig, and Jan Dismas Zelenka, who was a composer at the court of Saxony in Dresden. Zelenka is an interesting composer, among the most underrated of the Baroque era. His writing is less dense and intricate than Bach's–at times it looks forward to the simpler, more elegant style of Haydn and C.P.E. Bach. Zelenka knew his counterpoint, however, and was fond of slipping the occasional surprising chord change into his music.

In this programme entitled Variations on Variations, Rinaldo Alessandrini, one of the today’s references on Baroque music, has chosen to adapt the Goldberg Variations and the Aria variata alla maniera italiana - initially composed for the keyboard - for small string ensemble, from duo to quartet.

Susanne Kujala is a German organist and classical accordionist living in Finland. She studied accordion, coaching, and organ at the HfM "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin and at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. She graduated with a Doctor of Music Degree from the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki in 2013.

Natürlich muss man die Bearbeitung, ja Entstellung von originalen Werken der Kunst ablehen - aber man sollte die Gesetze auch manchmal ruhen lassen. In diesem Fall eröffnet sich dem Freund des Bachschen Solowerkes eine neue Welt. Ganz einfach weil die Piano-Begleitung Robert Schumanns (egal wie angemessen oder gelungen) den einzigartigen Meditationen des Barock-Meisters eine ganz neue Note verleiht. Aus dem Monolog wird eine Dialog. Aus den manchmal anrührenden, manchmal nervenzerfetzenden Phrasen des Einsamens wird eine Kommunikation, ein Gemessenwerden, ein Ver- oder Mißverständnis. Das verlangt Benjamin Schmid ein ganz anderes Musizieren ab (er hat die Original-Version schon ganz großartig genommen). Und er schafft es auch hier meisterhaft.

IMAGINE is the first Warner Classics release from the dynamic young French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau, who sees it as “an exploration of all the possibilities that lie in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and in the harpsichord”. Praised by radio station France Musique for his “maturity, fabulous touch and originality,” the multi-talented Rondeau feels that, as a young musician today, he has “an incredible opportunity to break out of the concert hall and meet the world”.

In a promotional DVD accompanying this release Jean-Guihen Queyras cites the abundance of excellent Bach Cello Suites cycles on the market as one reason he waited until 2007 to commit his interpretations to disc. Queyras needn't have worried, for his playing is never less than beautiful, eloquent, and thoroughly world-class. It fuses the most apparent characteristics distinguishing certain memorable editions: Schiff's shapely melodic parsing, Pergamenschikov's infectious feeling for the dance, Bylsma's period-performance innovations, and Tortelier's purity of tone.