Bach, J S: Cantata BWV51 'Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen'

Karl Münchinger recorded all the major orchestral and choral pieces by Bach for Decca, and over a period of some 30 years (from the Mono to the Digital eras), five of the Cantatas. All boast remarkable soloists from their eras. Suzanne Danco sings the two solo cantatas, BWV 51 and 202, recorded in 1953 and released on CD for the first time. Elly Ameling and Helen Watts are soloists in the early cantata, BWV 10. And the digital recordings of Ein feste Burg and Wachet auf feature Julia Hamari and Tom Krause. The collection is rounded off with two of the most popular orchestral arrangements from the Bach cantata repertoire – Jesu, joy of man’s desiring and Sheep may safely graze.

The Armonico Consort return to disc on Signum (following their highly-regarded Naked Byrd CD series) with a new disc celebrating the glorious combination of soprano and trumpet in baroque music – featuring the soaring talents of Elin Manahan Thomas and Crispian Steele-Perkins.

Widely-praised for their imaginative and inventive programming, this disc features works by JS Bach (Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen), GP Telemann (Trumpet Concerto in D major), Alessandro Scarlatti (Su le sponde del Tebro) and a special compilation of works by Handel devised by Crispian Steele-Perkins.

Winner of the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 2007 Cardiff Song Prize, soprano Elizabeth Watts, makes her harmonia mundi début in a luminous programme of Bach cantatas and arias, deftly supported by The English Concert, led by Harry Bicket.

With a voice described by International Record Review as “one of the most beautiful Britain has produced in a generation”, Elizabeth Watts is now securely established as “one of the brightest new talents” (The Independent). After training as a chorister at Norwich Cathedral, Elizabeth went on to study archaeology at Sheffield University before attending the Royal College of Music in London. Her many prizes include the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier Prize (UK), the 2007 Outstanding Young Artist Award at the Cannes MIDEM Classique Awards and the Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at the 2007 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. A former ‘BBC New Generation Artist’, she was invited to become an Artist in Residence at London’s Southbank Centre in 2010. Now equally in demand as a recitalist, opera singer, and concert artist, she has already appeared at many of the world’s leading musical centres and festivals, including the Royal Opera House, London, Wigmore Hall, Welsh National Opera, the BBC Proms, Santa Fe Opera, Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, and has upcoming engagements throughout Europe from Amsterdam to Zurich.

Internationally renowned conductor Harry Bicket is especially noted for his interpretation of Baroque and Classical repertoire. In 2007 he became Artistic Director of The English Concert, which he has led on tours in the UK, USA, Europe and the Middle East.

He has won high praise world wide for his work in opera, including at The Royal Opera Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival, Opera North, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, and Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. He made his debut at The Metropolitan Opera in 2004 in a new production of Rodelinda with Renée Fleming and David Daniels, and returned to conduct Giulio Cesare in 2006 and La clemenza di Tito in 2008.

Future projects with The English Concert include a recording featuring Lucy Crowe for harmonia mundi.

Barbara Hendricks' voice — particularly suited to Mozart, Debussy, Fauré, and the lighter roles of Puccini and Richard Strauss — has a warm, crystalline quality that has kept her in demand on stage and in recording studios. Her performances have embraced everything from contemporary music to popular standards, including songs of Duke Ellington and several world premieres. She has been careful with her choices of repertoire, avoiding roles that would overextend her essentially lyric instrument. Aside from music, she is deeply committed to humanitarian work, with a particular concern for refugees and those in war or poverty zones. She sang a concert in Sarajevo in 1993 while the city was being shelled, in which she had to wear a bulletproof vest and helmet.

Hendricks has appeared on nearly 80 recordings spread over a variety of major labels. Her first of many recordings for EMI was in the small part of the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo in 1978. For nearly twenty years her solo recordings have been made exclusively for EMI Classics.

Outstanding soprano Natalie Dessay and conductor Emmanuelle Haïm have come to a great understanding with their numerous Handel recordings, especially ‘Delirio’ (Handel Cantatas), which sealed their musical companionship and paved the way for numerous recording projects on Virgin Classics. After their recent recording of Bach’s Magnificat and Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Natalie Dessay and Emmanuelle Haïm present today their first all-Bach recital.

The programme features three of Bach’s superb Cantatas, including the great ‘Ich habe genug’, in Bach’s own arrangement for soprano, BWV 82a. The other two Cantatas are two of only four sacred cantatas that Bach wrote for solo soprano: ‘Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (Praise God in All Lands) is one of Bach's best known cantatas, with an important part for solo trumpet, here performed by young British musician Neil Brough. Both the soprano part, which calls for a high C in the first and last movements, and the solo trumpet part, which at times trades melodic lines with the soprano on an equal basis, are extremely virtuosic. The third cantata ‘Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut’ (My Heart Swims in Blood) is one of the earliest cantatas Bach composed – its vocal part is technically demanding and contains challenges which Natalie Dessay meets with the highest artistry.

The soprano Martina Janková, a Zurich Opera soloist since 1998, has been a frequent guest of the Salzburg Festival and worked with conductors of such renown as Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Fedoseyev, Herreweghe, Rattle, etc. She also participated in Gardiner’s acclaimed Bach Cantatas project.

On this recording, Janková returns to the Bach repertoire alongside the distinguished Czech Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704, conducted by Václav Luks. Their different purposes (the first being a wedding cantata, the other two sacred works) notwithstanding, the three cantatas featured on the album have something in common: each of them in a way treats one of the possible forms of joy. Bach’s musical world is close to Martina Janková’s sensibility and voice – both in virtuoso coloratura passages (Jauchzet Gott) and fine expressive nuances (Ich habe genug). The live recording further augments the immediate experience with encountering Bach’s beautiful and inimitable music.

Archipel is delighted to offer this recording of Bach’s major choral works performed by the winning partnership of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Gedda and Herbert von Karajan.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s great cantata ‘Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen’ provides the title of this 1982 recording by the distinguished soprano Lucia Popp, which also includes sacred works by Telemann and Handel.

The recordings derive their very special attractiveness from the interaction of two quite exceptional artists. At this time Lucia Popp was at the height of her powers and among the most sought-after sopranos in the world, whilst the trumpeter Carole Dawn Reinhardt had become the first woman to be awarded the Vienna Music Academy’s coveted “Diploma for brass instruments”. The great Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen took the baritone part in this production, which also features the conductor Marinus Voorberg and the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra with a group of specially selected instrumental soloists.