Johann Sebastian Bach

Christoph Ullrich has a very creative mind and has been involved in many projects with the TACET and EigenArt labels. He also works with school children to make classical music more accessible. Here he brings his fun approach to a very well known Bach composition. His playing is always organic and natural.

This 10 CD Limited Edition is released in preparation for René Jacobs’ 65th birthday on 30th October 2011 and features complete recordings for Sony Classical and dhm combined for the first time in a truly unique edition.

René Jacobs came to fame as a countertenor and in recent years has become renowned as a conductor of Baroque and early Classical opera. The Kuijken brothers, Gustav Leonhardt and Alfred Deller all encouraged him to pursue a career as a countertenor, and he quickly became known as one of the best of his time. He recorded a large amount of Baroque music by such composers as Antonio Cesti, d'India, Ferrari, Marenzio, Lambert, Guédron, William Lawes and others. He also sang in much-acclaimed recordings of Bach’s major works such as the St Matthew Passion led by Gustav Leonhardt, which is also included in this set.

More recently, as a conductor, Jacobs has recorded numerous operas and sacred and secular works of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. His recordings have won numerous awards, including a Grammy Award, Gramophone’s "Record of the Year", the “III Premio Traetta”, and numerous European awards.

Jacobs regularly conducts such orchestras and ensembles as Concerto Köln, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Nederlands Kamerkoor and RIAS Kammerchor for recordings and concert tours. In 1992, Jacobs was invited to conduct the Berlin State Opera.

Volume 6 of Margaret Phillips’ on-going and critically-acclaimed cycle of the complete organ works of JS Bach Two CD set at ‘two-for-one’ price, each disc is a self-contained recital featuring major works, a trio sonata, a concerto and a selections of chorale preludes.

The first disc features one of the worlds most iconic historic organs, built in 1738 by Christian Müller, in St Bavo’s church in Haarlem. The second disc features the large 2004 Bernard Aubertin organ in St Louis-en-l’Île, Paris. Built in eighteenthcentury German style this instrument is a similar size to the one in Haarlem and offers a fascinating comparison.

Repertoire includes some of Bach’s largest works for organ, with the Prelude and Fugues in Eminor (‘Wedge’) and B minor at Haarlem and the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor at Paris.

As a tribute to the artistry of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, this retrospective gathers together many of the finest recordings of arias and duets made during her acclaimed association with harmonia mundi. The booklet notes include tributes from her husband, Peter Lieberson, Nicholas McGegan and her obituary from Le Monde.

Lorraine Hunt - who became Lorraine Hunt Lieberson after her marriage to the American composer Peter Lieberson in 1999 - was born on March 1st 1954, in San Francisco. Her father was a music teacher and a conductor, her mother a contralto and a voice teacher. She played viola professionally until she was 26, when she found that her voice could be a better and richer way to express her musicality and secure her professional future. Lorraine would have a professional singing career of only 2 decades (1984-2006), interrupted twice by illness. She died from cancer on July 3, 2006, aged 52.

For harmonia mundi, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson recorded operas, oratorios and Handel arias, conducted notably by Nicholas McGegan. For Erato, she added the rôles of Rameau’s Phèdre and Charpentier’s Medea, under William Christie. Since her death, other taped live performances have been added to her discography, including two Wigmore Hall Live recitals and Peter Lieberson’s Rilke and Neruda Songs.

In 2009 harmonia mundi issued a recital given at the Ravinia Festival in August 2004 with pianist Peter Serkin. More recently, new label Philharmonia Baroque has issued Lorraine’s live performances of Les Nuits d’Eté and Handel Arias.

A formidable musician, a natural-born actress, she was at her best in roles of sacrificed victims, which didn’t prevent her from displaying a dark sense of humour. After having sung during the same evening Stravinsky’s Jocasta and Britten’s Phaedra, she once said: ‘Two suicides in one night! That’s right up my alley’.

“For those who loved Lorraine and her singing, and for those who have not yet heard her, my gratitude to harmonia mundi.” PETER LIEBERSON (b.1946, d.2011)

“Whether Scholl’s voice at all resembles that of the great original [Senesino] we cannot know, but it is wonderfully pure and moves with marvellous flexibility. He has the art of making recitative sound spontaneous and of catching the rhythmic impulse as though native to his body.” John Steane, Opera Now

Stock is now available again of this historical collection of performances by a world famous artist. It includes opera excerpts from 78rpm discs of performances with Karajan, Ackermann, Kripps and Galliera as well as lieder accompanied by Gerald Moore. The set includes the complete Aix en Provence Concert of 1954 with Hans Rosbaud accompanying.

The cast list of this 1962 Electrola production reads like a 'who's who' of postwar German record history. Jürgen Kesting wrote of Fritz Wunderlich: “The recording of Bach’s St John Passion (Karl Forster) shows how the pure and silvery sound of his voice was able to convey a spiritual message

Although a lot of mystery shrouds their conception, Bach’s motets count amongst his works which were played uninterruptedly in Leipzig from their origin up until now.

For this reason interpretative traditions have overlapped in the course of the centuries in these six remarkable pages. Philippe Herreweghe, at the light of recent research, has found inspiration in the Leipzig practices.

These traditions give these motets all their glamour, whilst given them stark relief with very different configurations (simple and double chorus, basso continuo, varied instrumentation).

Led by outstanding soloists, Collegium Vocale Gent is at the peak of its art. A new version destined to become a milestone!