Bach's Bungalow

[milk]

Might be interesting.

[Sammy]

Might be interesting.

More than interesting, it's a sensational disc.  Get it soon!

[Mandryka]

Might be interesting.

This was, I think, her first recording, made in 1999. It's quite exuberant and up-beat in the suites. If it is the same as the early recording, Don reviewed it on the Bach cantatas website.

[milk]

This was, I think, her first recording, made in 1999. It's quite exuberant and up-beat in the suites. If it is the same as the early recording, Don reviewed it on the Bach cantatas website.

Ah-ha!
5.99 on amazon 6.99 on itunes in 8/14. The price will be right if I wait for the rerelease. I definitely read Don's review more than once but still forgotten it.

[Sammy]

Ah-ha!
5.99 on amazon 6.99 on itunes in 8/14. The price will be right if I wait for the rerelease. I definitely read Don's review more than once but still forgotten it.

Although I wrote it, I also forgot about it.

[Wakefield]

Excactly my preferences and even in identical order. I recently acquired Beznosiuk, but I feel, that the music never really takes off under her fingers.

Yes, Beznosiuk is truly sleep-inducing.

After I wrote my previous message, I acquired the set by Verena Fischer and Leon Berben and it was a sort of revelation, especially because of the great interplay between them. Have you listened to that set, Poul?

[prémont]

....I acquired the set by Verena Fischer and Leon Berben and it was a sort of revelation, especially because of the great interplay between them. Have you listened to that set, Poul?

No, but I have considered it and will include it in my next JPC or Presto order.

[Brahmsian]

First listen to these performances (thanks to Greg in Georgia!)    Excellent stuff!

Bach

Harpsichord Concerto in A major, BWV 1055
Harpsichord Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056
Harpsichord Concerto in F major, BWV 1057
Harpsichord Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058
2 Harpsichord Concerto in C minor, BWV 1060 "the Barry Lyndon concerto" 

The English Concert

Pinnock, conducting and performing on harpsichord
Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord for BWV 1060

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[jlaurson]

Notes from the 2014 Salzburg Festival ( 1 )
Bach Recital • Pierre-Laurent Aimard

A Happy Spiritual Vortex

For a couple years, the Salzburg Festival has opened its doors a week earlier than traditionally, dubbing the prequel to the Festival—officially part of it, but taking place before the official opening ceremony— "Ouverture spirituelle". It began on the 18th with the BRSO and Haitink in Haydn's Creation. On Saturday came the first highlight—which, paraphrasing everyone I know who was there, was "a concert to remember for years, if not decades": Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine with John Elliot Gardiner and his bands, that used the Salzburg cathedral to ingenious acoustic effect. I missed that, but Monday I had my own Ouverture spirituelle in the form of Pierre-Laurent Aimard's recital of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier...

Notes from the 2014 Salzburg Festival ( 2 )
Bruckner Cycle IV • Barenboim, WPh

Lorin Maazel was a fixture at the Salzburg Festival, leading 119 performances between 1963 and 2013.
It made sense, therefore, to slap an "in Memoriam" label onto one of this summer's performances and even more so
to make it one of the concerts in which a requiem featured... and furthermore with an orchestra that had a history with
Lorin Maazel. The first such concert happened to be the Vienna Philharmonic's opening shot under Daniel Barenboim—
the beginning of this year's Bruckner Cycle at the Salzburg Festival...

[EigenUser]

I was reading this page on the Bach BBCs and came across the dilemma of the two-note slow movement in the 3rd (I played this as a freshman in orchestra in high school and we thought it was hilarious that the 2nd movement was two notes). Thoughts on this? What do you prefer?

http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics2/brandenburg.html
(Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V alert!)

Between them lies a puzzle that has perplexed scholars and challenged performers. The second movement, labeled adagio, consists of two chords forming a bare Phrygian cadence of the type that often links a slow middle movement in the relative minor to a vivid major-key finale, but with an intriguing sense of open expectancy. Here, the chords occur in the middle of a page, so clearly no music was lost. Yet the remainder of the score is fully detailed and presumably was intended as complete guidance to the Margrave's forces, as Bach had no realistic expectation of preparing a performance. What to do?

Several scholars note that Corelli and other contemporaries inserted similar bare cadences in their scores, and Reiner, Casals, Klemperer and others schooled in Romantic interpretation play it unadorned in their recordings. Yet when played literally it sounds far too short to serve as a needed respite between two rollicking neighboring movements. Other scholars assume that it must have been a conventional shorthand instruction that all performers of the time would have understood to require embellishment or an improvised interlude (even though the meaning has since been lost). Yet the question remains as to which instruments would do this. In several recordings (Cortot, Goberman, Horenstein, Ristenpart, Karajan, I Musici) the harpsichordist ornaments the first or both chords with arpeggiated runs. Others (Sacher, Richter, Paillard) go further, with the harpsichordist providing brief fantasies recalling thematic material from the preceding movement. Yet the soft tinkling of that instrument seems dwarfed by the sonority and at odds with the string texture of the surrounding movements. (Sacher's and Paillard's engineers avoid the former problem by cranking up the harpsichord volume for the passage to unnatural levels.) Busch, Harnoncourt, Hogwood and Britten avoid both issues by having their violinists embroider the chords.

Other recordings (Pommer and Pinnock) attempt to restore the usual formal balance of three entire movements by having their violinists extemporize at greater length. Still others extend the effect by inserting a slow movement from one of Bach's other, and often more obscure, works. Thus, Dart uses the adagio from a Sonata in G for violin and continuo, Munchinger the ruminative, delicate Concerto # 15 for solo harpsichord (itself possibly an arrangement of a Telemann piece), Koussevitzky the tragic sinfonia from the Cantata # 4, the Brandenburg Consort the adagio from Bach's Violin Sonata in G, and Menuhin an arrangement by Britten for violin, viola and continuo of the gracious, mournful lento of Bach's organ Trio Sonata # 6 (although curiously Britten omits all the embellishments found in the three-part organ score and didn't use this movement in his own recording). While none of these seems wholly satisfactory, they all present intriguing attempts to surmount the vexing snag posed by Bach.

[Mookalafalas]

Last night I played Perahia's English suite disc, and was so pleased I played it again this morning (in my bedroom).
  I had completely forgotten that I had the Bob Van Asperen version cued in my 5 disc player in my study, and when it came on I was almost equally impressed, although the effect and mood of the two are surprisingly different (at least to my ears).  The two discs I played covered different suites, but I did not even realize they were part of the same series, and, to be honest, might not have even if they had been the same



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[Jo498]

I cannot check right now, but I think the first time I encountered more than the chords with a few (violin, I think) flourishes, but a real "slow movement" was W. Carlos "Switched on Bach"! I think this movement was composed by Carlos.
As Bach usually wrote out most things and left little to the imagination of the performer, the case is definitely odd. (And the score/parts of these concerts are in a representative calligraphed copy, I think, so not some scraps from the music room.) I guess a short improvised transition would come closest to practice in Bach's day, but I wonder why so few ensembles arrange and insert a short slow movement from other Bach. I do not think there's any among my five or so recordings of the piece, but I'd have to check.

[Wakefield]

This afternoon I listened to the flute sonatas recorded by Wilbert Hazelzet and Henrik "Henk" Bouman, when they were part of Musica Antiqua Köln.

I have a well known 2002 re-release ("Orchestral and Chamber Music", 8 CDs), where the liner notes don't indicate the instruments used and I would really like to know what harpsichord is playing Bouman. Some kind soul around here? 

[Marc]

This afternoon I listened to the flute sonatas recorded by Wilbert Hazelzet and Henrik "Henk" Bouman, when they were part of Musica Antiqua Köln.

I have a well known 2002 re-release ("Orchestral and Chamber Music", 8 CDs), where the liner notes don't indicate the instruments used and I would really like to know what harpsichord is playing Bouman. Some kind soul around here? 

BWV 1030-1032: Keith Hill, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, 1982, after German 18th century instruments.
BWV 1033: Willem Kroesbergen, Utrecht, NL, 1980, after Ruckers, around 1650.
BWV 1034-1035: Joop Klinkhamer, Amsterdam, NL, 1979, after Flemish 18th century instruments.

[Wakefield]

BWV 1030-1032: Keith Hill, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, 1982, after German 18th century instruments.
BWV 1033: Willem Kroesbergen, Utrecht, NL, 1980, after Ruckers, around 1650.
BWV 1034-1035: Joop Klinkhamer, Amsterdam, NL, 1979, after Flemish 18th century instruments.

Thank you very much, Marc! It was the Keith Hill... lovely instrument. 

[Hiker]

David Smith of Presto Classical has recommended some recordings of Bach's choral and vocal works. (I have no connection to Presto.)

[North Star]

Sigiswald Kuijken and Marleen Thiers, discuss the book Kuijken wrote, in which he writes of his relationship with Bach's music. The book is only available through La Petite Bande.

https://www.youtube.com/v/SERcTF1F9hI

[Mandryka]

Sigiswald Kuijken and Marleen Thiers, discuss the book Kuijken wrote, in which he writes of his relationship with Bach's music. The book is only available through La Petite Bande.

https://www.youtube.com/v/SERcTF1F9hI

What language is this book in?

[mc ukrneal]

What language is this book in?

From the site: "For the time being, we decided to have the book published in Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese."

[Mandryka]

Has anyone explored Helge Thoene's ideas about the Chaconne? How have Bach scholars responded to what she says?