Meine Wunschgeburt

The Prelude and Fugue in E Minor forms a frame, as it did in Bach’s time, around this program, designed to fit the liturgical format that gave Bach’s music its purpose; the Fantasia precedes the motet on which it is based and follows Cantata BWV 64, which quotes the fifth stanza of Johann Franck’s poem “Jesu, meine Freude.” The recording was made in the Arnstadt church where Bach served from 1703 to 1707 (the 1699 organ has recently been restored), but the two cantatas and the motet date from his first year in Leipzig. This impressive presentation, the first in a series called Bach in Context, is a hardbound book of 84 pages. The notes favor Joshua Rifkin’s understanding of one voice to a part in Bach’s vocal/choral music, the use of a harpsichord as well as the church organ (not the more versatile chest organ), and the liturgical context in which the music was originally sung.

L'Arpa Festante's softly lyrical playing and Winter's shapely singing reveal abundant melodious charm and an appealing sense of pastoral instrumental colour…These excellent performances remind us how many of the finest Saxonian Baroque composers had close ties with the university town long before Bach turned up in 1723.

L'Arpa Festante's softly lyrical playing and Winter's shapely singing reveal abundant melodious charm and an appealing sense of pastoral instrumental colour…These excellent performances remind us how many of the finest Saxonian Baroque composers had close ties with the university town long before Bach turned up in 1723.

Paul Gerhardt - Du meine Seele, singe
Solistenensemble / Gerhard Schnitter
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 345 MB | MP3 CBR 320: 132 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info / Rev-Part
Label/Cat#: Hänssler 394.003 | Country/Year: Germany 2006 | Genre: Classical | Style: Sacred

Paul Gerhardt (12 March 1607 – 27 May 1676) was a German hymn writer. Gerhardt is considered Germany's greatest hymn writer. Many of his best-known hymns were originally published in various church hymnbooks, as for example in that for Brandenburg, which appeared in 1658. The first complete collection is the Geistliche Andachten, published in 1666-1667 by Ebeling, music director in Berlin. No hymn by Gerhardt of a later date than 1667 is known to exist.

“Meine Seele weinte” ("My soul wept") is the title of the versatile mezzo-soprano Natalya Boeva's new CD featuring lieder spanning a wide variety of epochs, languages, and styles. It is a co-production of GENUIN and the Bayerischer Rundfunk. Together with her piano partner Polina Spirina, the winner of the ARD International Music Competition in Voice 2018 immerses herself in an exciting selection of works by the great lied composers Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Karol Szymanowski and the contemporary Russian composers Alexander Labyrich and Dmitri Smirnov. Arguably no other genre can probe the most intimate human feelings of deep sorrow and quiet hope as profoundly as the lied. Natalya Boeva and Polina Spirina trace the most subtle emotions and the most imperceptible color shifts of these treasures with utmost precision – a moving interpretation of an extraordinary program!