Johann Sebastian Bach

This 2-CD set marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970) and features recordings ranging from boy cellist in 1911 to international conductor 1969 – in both ‘live’ and studio recordings. John Barbirolli was born in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, on 2 December 1899, a Cockney as he proudly boasted. Or, to be accurate, Giovanni Battista Barbirolli was born, son of an Italian émigré violinist and his French wife. English-born with Italo-French parentage – a wonderful pedigree for a musician. And so it proved, for he conducted Elgar, Verdi and Debussy, Vaughan Williams, Puccini and Ravel, with equal sensitivity and perception and intuition. This album of recordings forms a kind of musical biography; and Michael Kennedy’s notes (with many rare photos) trace that life alongside the recordings. A special bonus is the 1947 Austrian Radio recording of two works, Weber’s Euryanthe overture and Delius’s Walk to the Paradise Garden, from the Salzburg Festival concert on 20 August at which he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Was this, Michael Kenneday asks, the first time this orchestra had played the Delius? Two rare mementos of the New York period are included in this album. Anthony Collins had long been a friend of Barbirolli (they played in the LSO together) and worked in the USA from 1936 to 1945 and his Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, based on the two comic characters in Twelfth Night, is an example of his overlooked talent. Another composer almost forgotten today is the Czech-born Jaromir Weinberger whose opera Schwanda the Bagpiper enjoyed inter-war popularity. His Christmas for organ and orchestra was composed in 1929. In 1939 he dedicated his Variations and Fugue on an old English tune, ‘Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree’ to Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic.

Ten years ago Winter & Winter and the Uri Caine Ensemble produced an unconventional adaptation of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Critics around the world highly recommended this unique production, which ran to more than 70 variations, based on how famous composers might have have arranged them and indeed, Uri’s unique take on Bach, aided and abetted by DJs and soul singers.

The Goldberg Variations are one of the milestones in the art of composition. All recordings are noted by critics and music lovers alike. Teodoro Anzellotti was aware of that when he started to record this almost simple waltz and Bach’s complex 30 variations. Originally written for harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg and commissioned by the notoriously sleepless Duke Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk, Teodoro Anzellotti has 'adapted' this composition for accordion. For Winter & Winter Anzellotti has already recorded music by Domenico Scarlatti, Erik Satie, John Cage and others. Each album by Anzellotti opens a new sound pallette, regardless if he plays a new piece by Salvatore Sciarrino or a Baroque composition by Johann Jakob Froberger, gaining international recognition at the highest possible level. Here he gives Bach’s Goldberg Variations a new frisson. Give it a go!

Currently an assistant professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, András Csáki has given recitals throughout Europe, the United States, South America and Japan, and by 2009 had been awarded eighteen prizes, including first prize in the 42nd Michele Pittaluga Guitar Competition in Alessandria, Italy.

In this wide-ranging recital he interprets Bach’s most technically challenging ‘lute suites’, Britten’s groundbreaking tribute to John Dowland, Duarte’s bravura Variations and one of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s finest solo sonatas.

This CD contains the cantatas for the three Sundays after Easter. All of them demonstrate the overwhelming mastery of Bach.

Benjamin-Joseph Steen has played the clavichord which is heard on this recording since his youth. It is a copy by Joris Potvlieghe of the great 18th century models and Steens wanted to record the Goldberg Variations on this instrument. The work was written for a two manual harpsichord but the clavichord is thought to have been the preferred instrument of the Bach family.

Since Vladimir Ashkenazy’s debut with Decca in 1963, with more than 200 albums as pianist or conductor, he has never recorded the Six Partitas. The ‘master musician’ (Sydney Morning Herald) infuses a lifetime of pianistic and philosophical discernment into the Six Partitas of Bach.

This album will become an obligatory purchase for Bach and Ashkenazy fans: a summit-meeting of masters.