Frankly, my dear, it's too pretty -- and while Stravinsky's Les Noces is many things, it's not pretty. It's belligerently uncompromising in its abrasive choral writing, it's aggressively brilliant in its glittering score for four pianos and percussion, and it's powerfully propulsive in its driving polyrhythms. But it's not pretty -- and this ...
The three cantatas on this disc, volume 33 of the ongoing complete edition by conductor Masaaki Suzuki and his historical-instrument Bach Collegium Japan, aren't familiar items. But they make a marvelous program that introduces the listener to many of the specific virtues of Suzuki's series. Those virtues do not run especially in the direction of ...
We know mainly of Martin Luther as the monk who, in 1517, tacked up his 95 Theses to the front door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg and touched off the Protestant Reformation, an event that would change the course of European history and world religion forever. Lesser known is Luther's contribution to music, which on a strictly personal level ...
This CPO issue of Johann Georg Conradi's 1691 opera Ariadne is based out of a revival of this obscure work produced in 2003 as part of the Boston Early Music Festival. One might be surprised to see the name of Conradi above the title of such a large opera set -- has anybody really heard of this guy? What is up with this opera? German Baroque opera ...
On CPO's George Philipp Telemann: Drei sind, die da zeugen im Himmel, conductor Hermann Max leads the Rheinische Kantorei and Das Kleine Konzert through another installment delving into the largest repertory ever created by a major classical composer, Telemann's sacred cantatas, of which more than 1,400 survive. One would think Telemann would have ...
Conductor Masaaki Suzuki and the Japan Bach Collegium, Japan's leading historical-instrument ensemble, here take a break from a long series of cantata recordings to present Bach's Easter Oratorio and Ascension Oratorio. Actually, these recordings are very much of a piece with Suzuki's cantata discs. The two oratorios are really large cantatas, ...
For anyone who ever wondered what Pachelbel was up to when he wasn't writing his Canon in D, this CD offers some lovely answers. (He was also playing the organ and teaching, and one of his students was Johann Sebastian Bach, in whose works it's possible to detect Pachelbel's influence.) While there is nothing as immediately catchy as the Canon, ...
The music on this disc dates from the 1780s, late in C.P.E. Bach's career, when he was the music director for the city of Hamburg. While Mozart was wrangling with archbishops and nobles, and soaking up the revolutionary winds blowing from France, these pieces were written for the most old-fashioned kind of event imaginable -- ceremonies marking ...
Thankfully, Sigiswald Kuijken doesn't feel the overwhelming urge to record every extant sacred cantata by J.S. Bach. That project would have consumed years of his life -- and at best only equaled the achievements of other, earlier explorers. By choosing to record only enough cantatas to span a single liturgical year of Sundays plus the major holy ...
If the idea of six sorrowful sacred cantatas written by four pre-Bach German composers appeals to you, this disc by the Collegium Vocale Gent under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe is the disc for you. Opening with three works by Lübeck organist Franz Tunder (1614-1667) -- Dominus illuminatio mea, Wend' ab deinen Zorn, and an Ein feste Burg ...
Gottfried August Homilius was a student of J.S. Bach's who worked in Dresden for much of his career. He was apparently highly thought of in the late eighteenth century, with many of his works circulating in copies. This Johannespassion, or St. John Passion, shows the influence of Bach's Passion settings, with biblical narration of the events of ...
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![Stravinsky: Les Noces; Mass; Cantata [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m23512vh2m4_t.jpg)
![Bach: Cantatas, Vol. 33 [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m24794n300g_t.jpg)
![Bach: Easter Oratorio [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m17431bvooh_t.jpg)
![Bach: Cantatas, BWV 179, 35, 164 & 17 [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m35452rms4v_t.jpg)
![Bach: Johannes Passion arranged by Robert Schumann [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m35885i6nr4_t.jpg)
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