Netherlands Bach Society

After the successful ‘collectors item’ releases of the Christmas Oratorio (2003), St. John Passion (2005) and B minor Mass (2007) performed by the Netherlands Bach Society, Channel Classics now releases a new and very special recording of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

Once again, the recording has been made in collaboration with the Catharijne convent Museum of Utrecht, so that this edition of the St. Matthew Passion is accompanied by a richly illustrated text book. This enables the listener to experience the Passion both in music and images. The illustrations are drawn from the unique collection of the Catharijneconvent Museum, which possesses the largest collection of liturgical art in the Netherlands.

According to conductor Jos van Veldhoven ‘there are reasons enough to look at the score in another way than the traditional symmetrical structure. (...) It could very well be a single choir passion based on hierarchy, rather than equality or symmetry (...) I decided to create a spatial arrangement by having a separate stage for each group of musicians, placed some ten metres apart. Some members of the audience even sat between the two choirs, experiencing the dialogue in a very special manner.

The recording was produced during live concerts in April 2010.

We selected tracks from recordings we made through the years with The Netherlands Bach Society and Jos van Veldhoven. This resulted in a beautiful collection of music, perfect for the Christmas season. Founded in 1921, The Netherlands Bach Society is the oldest Early Music ensemble in the Netherlands, and possibly in the whole world.

Yet along with the musicians, its artistic director Jos van Veldhoven is still continually in search of contemporary ways of presenting this music, whether it be the traditional performances of the St. Matthew Passion in Naarden, other works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) or music by his predecessors, successors, contemporaries and fellow spirits.

All the music on this CD is associated with the festival of Christmas. Bach wrote the cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens (BWV 110) for morning service on Christmas Day 1725, and the first version of the Magnificat in E flat major (BWV 243a) for Vespers on Christmas Day 1723, seven months after the Leipzig town council appointed him cantor of the Thomaskirche. It would hardly be exaggerating to say that Bach thus presented his visiting card to his new employer. According to the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff, the work is his "first really large-scale and complex piece of church music".

'Christmas was not the only occasion to sing the Magnificat text, however, for it was also a standard part of the Vespers liturgy. This may explain why Bach made a second version some years later (in D major, BWV 243). (...) For a Christmas CD in the year 2010 it is obviously attractive to add new movements to Bach's Magnificat, entirely in keeping with the tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His own choice, in the E flat major version, remains unsurpassed. By adding extra Christmas music to the second version in D major, however, a new and unexpected form arises which lends the performance a certain topicality. What is more, it gives us the opportunity to present Bach with several Netherlands composers of the seventeenth century. Jos van Veldhoven (from: liner notes)

The Treaty of Utrecht, which established the Peace of Utrecht, comprises a series of individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed in the Dutch city of Utrecht in March and April 1713. The treaties among several European states, including Great Britain, France, Spain, Savoy, and the Dutch Republic, helped end the War of the Spanish Succession. The treaties were concluded between the representatives of Louis XIV of France and Philip V of Spain on the one hand, and representatives of Queen Anne of Great Britain, the Duke of Savoy, the King of Portugal and the United Provinces on the other.

This was the first peace achieved through diplomacy, with thanks to the hospitality of Utrecht. The Peace of Utrecht was celebrated in 1713 with music, festive fireworks and specially commissioned compositions such as the Utrecht Te Deum and Utrecht Jubilate by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and the Ode for the Peace of Utrecht by William Croft (1678-1727).

In 2013, Utrecht once again will be the host, stage and partner of festivities, arts and culture. Founded in 1921, The Netherlands Bach Society is the oldest Early Music ensemble in the Netherlands, and possibly in the whole world. Yet along with the musicians, its artistic director Jos van Veldhoven is still continually in search of contemporary ways of presenting this music, whether it be the traditional performances of the St. Matthew Passion in Naarden, other works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) or music by his predecessors, successors, contemporaries and fellow spirits.

Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, a collection of love songs grew up. Under the title of the “Most beautiful of songs”, they found a home in the Old Testament—it was Martin Luther who first gave them the name of “Song of Songs”—and since that time they have inspired and fascinated a vast number of theologians, mystics, philosophers, poets, painters, and, last but not least, composers.

Particularly during the Baroque period, these poetic, sensual, vividly descriptive texts were set over and over again to music, and they inspired librettists to expand on the original texts. Some of the most beautiful settings of the Song of Songs were produced in Germany.

Founded in 1921, The Netherlands Bach Society is the oldest Early Music ensemble in the Netherlands, and possibly in the whole world. Yet along with the musicians, its artistic director Jos van Veldhoven is still continually in search of contemporary ways of presenting this music, whether it be the traditional performances of the St. Matthew Passion in Naarden, other works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) or music by his predecessors, successors, contemporaries and fellow spirits.

Beloved & Beautiful is the fourth cd in a series of songs, carefully chosen and combined because of the themes they represent. The programmes are often compiled in an original way and thus give a refreshing view of the various musical styles from Schütz/Monteverdi to Haydn/Mozart, as well as of the central composer Bach himself. The flexibility of the ensemble makes it possible to perform works from the secular and sacred repertoires in a great variety of combinations of musicians.

“the performance maintains the high standards established by the NBS and van Veldhoven in the Passions and Oratorio. Classical CD of the week The Sunday Times

“Dutch soprano Johannette Zomer leads a fine team of soloists with the society singers under their eminence grise, Jos van Veldhoven, in an ethereal version of this magnificent work, recorded with crystal clarity.” The Observer