Johann Sebastian Bach

A celebration of the pioneering early music label Archiv, offering 55CDs ranged across the label’s entire 66-year history. Beautiful presentation, original jacket sleeves and documentation to the customary high standards of the label.

In more ways than one, 2013 will be an Archiv Produktion year. The beloved Silver Label – the “Early Music Studio of Deutsche Grammophon”, as it was called for many years – is being revived in a big way, both in frontline and catalogue. In early April 2013 an event in Berlin is being held to mark this relaunch. New albums from choral group Tenebrae, Anna Prohaska and Giuliano Carmignola are being released in the first quarter to coincide with this occasion.

Simple, striking and strong: in gleaming silver with the large blue Archiv Logo embossed on all sides. A large onsert on the top and back of the box details contents and is illustrated with a packshot showing contents.

Original Jackets: starting with the austere yellow covers of the 1940s and 1950s gradually giving way to the great historical illustrations and images that featured up to the 1990s, when artists at last began to make an appearance (there were no artist photos in the 1950s!)

The 180-page full-colour book has articles by journalist Nicholas Anderson, and “memoirs” by former directors of Archiv, Prof. Andreas Holschneider and Dr. Peter Czornyj, and Executive Producer, Marita Prohmann.

The book features many rare photos from Archiv recording sessions, as well as other memorabilia.

In this CD in which we can find recordings of some of Segovia’s favourite composers from Albeniz and Granados to the beloved Bach, with the transcription of the Suite BWV 1009 never recorded by Segovia before. The result is superb, wonderful as usual, and is demonstration of a poetry in Segovia’s music that maturity made only more elegant.

On May 29th 2013, Helmuth Rilling, the founder and artistic director of the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, will celebrate his 80th Birthday.

The spiritual father of the complete edition of the works of J.S. Bach on 172 CDs, a distinguished guest conductor, who has performed with leading orchestras world-wide, has put together for this occasion a special collection documenting his recorded legacy with Haenssler Classics over the past decades, featuring the recordings of his most admired and critically acclaimed works.

Ten CDs, focusing on central moments of Helmuth Rilling’s artistic growth are presented; many of them have received international awards. They show the conductor not only for his profound understanding of J. S. Bach, but as equally familiar with masterpieces of Romantic era.

Recorded in the City of London in 2012, this album features the missing cantatas from the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage: the Ascension Cantatas.

They were recorded live at St Giles Cripplegate (one of the original Pilgrimage venues) in two concerts entirely funded by the generosity of hundreds of donors across the world, following a heartfelt appeal from British comedian Alexander Armstrong.

The quartet of soloists include one of the original Pilgrimage soloists, bass Dietrich Henschel, alongside a new generation of Bach interpreters who have worked with the ensembles since 2000 – making this recording a “bridge” between a Bach tradition started 13 years ago and today.

The Ascension Oratorio “Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen” (BWV11) is a heart-warming, uplifting work. Beginning and ending with two grand festive choruses, it is full of rhythmic swagger, jazz-like nonchalance, stratospheric glitter for the high trumpet and vocal acrobatics for the choir.

“Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen” (BWV43) opens with a glorious, unconventional introduction with high trumpets and drums, and continues with a sequence reminiscent of the opera seria of its time. “Wer da gläubet und getauft wird” (BWV37) focuses on the words of Jesus to his followers and starts with a gentle chorus of choir and orchestra of strings and oboe d’amore. “Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein” (BWV128) features festive opening and closing movements celebrating Christ’s majesty.

SDG185 is packaged in SDG’s usual high-quality book-case. It contains a 32-page booklet with original notes by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and sung texts in German and English.

This is the premiere recording J.S. Bach’s John Passion heard for the first time within its original liturgical context.

This recording marks the return of Dunedin Consort’s star studded cast including, Nicholas Mulroy, Matthew Brook, Robert Davies, Joanne Lunn and Clare Wilkinson.

Director John Butt has given listeners an interpretation that will provide a refreshing outlook on this masterpiece and will show the John Passion in a completely new light.

The Consort recreate the context of a passion performance during Bach’s time at Leipzig; the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir (directed by James Grossmith) and a congregational choir of amateur singers perform motets and chorales from an original Leipzig hymn book and John Butt takes centre stage to perform organ preludes on the Collins organ at Greyfriar’s Kirk in Edinburgh, where the recording took place.

'No performance could better justify small-scale Bach than this convincing marriage of scholarship and inspiration.’ BBC Music Magazine (on J.S. Bach: Mass in B Minor)

‘The playing and the singing is outstanding, undoubtedly enhanced by John Butt's scholarly and revelatory handling of the score.’ The Observer (on J.S. Bach: Matthew Passion)

The Dunedin Consort has established a reputation as the finest single-part period performance choir currently performing, under the direction of prize-winning Bach specialist John Butt O.B.E.

The multi-award-winning Dunedin Consort has won praise for the natural style of its soloists and renown for the virtuosity of its singers.

Since receiving a Gramophone Award in 2007, Dunedin Consort has continued to receive accolades: Esther was voted one of the ‘Top 10 Classical Albums of 2012’ by The Times, 2011 saw them included in Gramophone’s ‘Twenty Greatest Choirs’ list and its recording of Bach’s Matthew Passion was named Building A Library: First Choice by BBC Radio 3 - CD Review.