Johann Sebastian Bach

The Teldec recordings of the legendary pianist who rarely went into the recording studio so most of his recordings are live at concerts.

Experience, virtuosity and individuality are all required when tackling J.S. Bach’s popular cello suites; Richard Tunnicliffe brings a lifetime of insight to his debut solo recording.

Richard has made a special study of Bach's cello suites and his performances of all six have been acclaimed in Europe and Australia as well as at numerous venues in Great Britain, including Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room in London.

Richard’s recording of the complete cello concerti by John Garth with the Avison Ensemble was chosen as ‘Critic’s Choice’ by Gramophone, ‘Concerto Recording of the Month’ by The Strad and twice as ‘CD of the Week’ by Classic FM.

Richard Tunnicliffe’s broad experience and versatility mark him out amongst the best of today's impressive array of instrumentalists.

Richard has enjoyed a long and varied career at the forefront of Britain’s thriving period instrument movement and is a member of the renowned viol consort Fretwork and principal cello with the Avison Ensemble.

Richard has played with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Boston Symphony, Frankfurt Radio S.O., City of Birmingham S.O., English National Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, The Gabrieli Consort and the Academy of Ancient Music.

The Orchestra of the Antipodes boasts members from many acclaimed and admired ensembles, including Les Arts Florissants, Academy of Ancient Music and the English Concert. The recording has all the clarity and rhythmic acuity of a top period ensemble, with some outstanding horn playing, especially in the last movement of BWV 1046. Also included are a number of sinfonias.

Teldec’s COMPLETE BACH Edition, 153 CDs in 12 volumes comprising Bach’s complete works performed by world renowned Bach interpreters on period instruments, constitutes one of the most ambitious projects in recording history.

COMPLETE BACH represents the culmination of a process that began over five decades ago, in 1958, with the creation of the DAS ALTE WERK label. After initially triggering an impassioned controversy, Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s belief that “Early music is a foreign language which must be learned by musicians and listeners alike” has found widespread acceptance. He and his colleagues searched for original instruments to throw new light on composers and their works and significantly influenced the history of music interpretation in the second half of this century. Their ideas have been shared by many fellow musicians, among them Ton Koopman, Il Giardino Armonico, Luca Pianca and Andreas Staier, all of whose performances appear in the COMPLETE BACH Edition. As an entirety, COMPLETE BACH offers listeners the chance to rediscover the astonishing developments in Bach interpretation of the last forty years and the tonal beauties of Bach’s works performed on period instruments.

Without Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s and Gustav Leonhardt’s groundbreaking accounts of the cantatas, a complete Bach edition would have been inconceivable. But with the recording of Bach's Complete Sacred Cantatas as inspiration, not to mention Harnoncourt’s 1970 St. Matthew Passion and Gustav Leonhardt’s legendary 1965 account of the Goldberg Variations, the early 1990's found Teldec in an extraordinary position: able to embark on the artistic, financial and logistical adventure to record and license recordings of the remainder of Bach’s oeuvre and present a complete edition in time for the 250th anniversary of his death.

From Schleicht, spielende Wellen, BWV 206, recorded by the Monteverdi Choir Hamburg, Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra, Jürgen Jürgens and André Rieu in 1963 to the Trio in A major, BWV 1025 with Werner Ehrhardt and Gerald Hambitzer recorded in April 1999, COMPLETE BACH chronicles nearly four decades of Bach performance on period instruments. By 1995, the year in which the project COMPLETE BACH was conceived, Teldec had already committed approximately two thirds of Bach's oeuvre to disc. Subsequently the company produced approximately twenty new recordings specifically for the COMPLETE BACH Complete Edition. Many of these new recordings were of works never before available on disc, including chorales, as well as works for organ and works for harpsichord.