Two Concertos For Organ

J.S.Bach - Concertos For Violin, Concerto For Two Violins, Concerto For Violin & Oboe - Josef Suk (1988)
EAC Rip | FLAC (img + cue), LOG | TT 65:32 | Covers (jpg 300 dpi) | RAR 357 MB (3% Recovery)
Supraphon | Czechoslovakia | 11 0642-2 011 | 1988

The soloist in all the concertos of our recording is Josef Suk (1929), the grandson of the composer Josef Suk (1874-1935) and great- grandson of Antonin Dvorak. Since 1954, he has been pursuing an uninterrupted and diversified solo career and has become the most eminent Czech violin virtuoso of his generation. Suk's partner in Bach's Concerto for Two Violins is the Czech violin virtuoso Ladislav Jasek (1929), who has been active in Australia since the early 1970's. The oboe part in the Double Concerto in D minor BWV 1060a is played by Jan Adamus (1951).

During his years at Weimar Bach made a number of keyboard arrangements of concertos and instrumental movements by other composers. His arrangements of concertos by Vivaldi, six of them for harpsichord and three for organ, remind us of the strong influence Vivaldi exercised over Bach's Instrumental compositions. The sixteen arrangements for harpsichord include a keyboard version of an oboe concerto by Alessandro Marcello, a violin concerto by Telemann and three concertos by Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. The six concertos transcribed for organ also include arrangements of two concertos by Duke Johann Ernst. The latter was a nephew of Bach's employer and a pupil for keyboard and for composition of Johann Gottfried Walther, organist of the Weimar Stadtkirche. His principal instrument was the violin and Telemann wrote for him a set of six sonatas for violin and clavier. Johann Ernst died in 1715 at the age of nineteen, leaving nineteen instrumental works. Of these six concertos were published posthumously by Telemann in 1718.

This album is devoted to Handel's concertante music for solo oboe, of which only a few concertos have survived. He was particularly fond of the instrument and assigned many solos to it in his oratorios, operas, concerti grossi and sonatas. He is even reported to have said of his early oboe works: 'I used to write like the D-v [Devil] in those days, but chiefly for the oboe, which was my favourite instrument.'

The practice of composing for two keyboard instruments, very common in the illustrious Bach family, naturally achieved its apotheosis with Johann Sebastian, whose three concertos for two harpsichords are performed here by Olivier Fortin and Emmanuel Frankenberg with the Ensemble Masques. These works, particularly the concertos in C minor, are among the composer’s most admired. They suggest a conception of the concerto specific to Bach: rather than a dialogue between several individual entities, the piece presents a subtle intertwining of melodic lines and blurs the distinction between solo and tutti parts by making them respond to and quote each other, thus illustrating the principle of harmony dear to the composer. Finally, the recording on two harpsichords of the Prelude and Fugue BWV 552, originally composed for organ, is in keeping with the nineteenth-century tradition of transposing Bach’s works with the aim of giving their refined polyphony greater clarity.