Bach, J S: Cantata BWV32 'Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen'

Recording locations: Recorded live in Weimar/ Leipzig/ Hamburg, December 1999/ January 2000.

SDG174 is the much awaited last volume of the Bach Cantatas Pilgrimage, one of the most talked about musical events of the last decade.

This is an anthology of the Christmas period, combining cantatas for Christmas Day and the Epiphany.

It features ten acclaimed soloists, including Magdalena Kožená, Bernarda Fink, Michael Chance, James Gilchrist and Christopher Genz.

The album opens with Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (“Christians, engrave this Day”), which was performed on Christmas Day 1999 to launch the year-long pilgrimage. This is one of Bach’s best known cantatas. The accompagnato recit was sung by Bernarda Fink to great acclaim.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the song of the angels at the birth of baby Jesus, is best known as the Gloria in the B Minor Mass.

Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen (“All they from Sheba shall come”) describes the procession of the three magi. Bach conveys the majesty of the scene by using high horns, and the recorders and oboes da caccia create an Eastern-like atmosphere.

The cantatas on this album display a great variety of dramatic expression. Both Mein Liebster Jesus ist verloren (“My dearest Jesus is lost”) and Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (”Beloved Jesus, my Desire“) tell the same story, but in a different style, expressing different emotions.

This album was recorded at Weimar’s Herderkirche, Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche and Hamburg’s Hauptikirche St Jakobi.

SDG174 is packaged with a separate index sheet of the Cantata series.

“This ongoing recording project ranks as one of the musical events of the decade.” The Observer

“One of the most ambitious musical projects of all time” Gramophone

This 2-CD set is a re-issue of two separate albums, the first being a collection of arias for soprano and oboe by J.S. Bach performed by Pauline Oostenrijk and her sister the soprano Nienke Oostenrijk, (previously available on Vanguard), and the second a performance by Pauline of concertos by J.S. Bach, and two of his sons J.C. Bach and C.P.E Bach. Both recordings feature the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and conductor (and well-known cellist) Jaap ter Linden.

In 1999 Pauline Oostenrijk received the Music Prize of The Netherlands, the highest State Award for classical music. She is a member of the Orlando Wind Quintet and the ensemble Nieuw Amsterdams Peil, and several composers have dedicated works to her, among them Louis Andriessen. Pauline Oostenrijk’s previous releases for Challenge Classics include a collection of 20th century pieces ‘Oboesession’ (CC72062), and a disc devoted to concertos by Vivaldi (CC72389).

Pauline Oostenrijk’s sister Nienke appears in opera roles as well as on the concert platform, and has performed throughout Europe but mostly in The Netherlands and Germany. She is also a much sought-after Lieder singer.

The members of this ensemble are all leading specialists in historical performance practice and are internationally acclaimed performers of baroque music. They aim to make a difference and create something at the cutting edge. Il Gardellino has been enjoying an ever increasing success on their tours.

The present volume in the cantata cycle of the Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki consists of four works all written for performances in January 1726. Among these is the New Year’s cantata Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV16 (Lord God, we praise you).

The Bach Cantatas are some of the composer’s most admired works. In these pieces Bach manages to infuse them with an almost operatic feel. Les Folies Françoises is one of the most acclaimed Early Music French ensembles. This young ensemble of highly talented musicians are currently making a name for themselves throughout Europe.

This 9-CD boxed set of first releases from the RIAS archives presents the first ever attempt at a recording of the complete Bach cantatas.

For everyone who is interested in the history of Bach interpretation and in the development of Germany’s post-1945 cultural rebuilding, these recordings represent a significant enrichment. From 1946, Karl Ristenpart established choral and orchestral ensembles at the RIAS Berlin, directing the RIAS Kammerchor and the RIAS Kammerorchester. With these ensembles, and emerging young singers (including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Helmut Krebs and Agnes Giebel), Karl Ristenpart and Elsa Schiller, then head of music at the RIAS, embarked in 1947 upon a recording series of the complete Bach cantatas. However, it proved impossible to realise the project in its entirety. The 29 cantatas which survive in the RIAS archives document a Bach ideal which is pioneering even by today’s standards: thanks to small-scale forces the musical structures are distinct and transparent, and the singers link their articulation to that of the instrumentalists.This interpretation, which is free of any monumentalism, paved the way, aesthetically, for historically informed performance practice.