Various
Bach & Vivaldi Klassik Aus Berlin
JONATHAN KELLY | ANTONIO VIVALDI CONCERTI .The Berliner baroque soloists under the direction of Rainer Kussmaul are one of the most renowned specialists of the early music. Their recordings have been awarded several times with the Echo classic award. This CD includes masterpieces of Antonio Vivaldi: the famous four seasons with Rainer Kussmaul on the solo violin, the cello concert in b-minor RV 424 with Georg Faust, the Viola d'amore concert a-minor RV 397 with Wolfram Christ and the concert foboe & violin in B-Dur RV 548 with Jonathan Kelly as soloists..PHIL. 06006 | PI-HSIEN CHEN | JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: 'GOLDBERG VARIATIONEN, BWV 988' . "Aria mit verschiedenen Vernderungen vors Clavicimbal mit zwei Manualen denen Liebhabern zur GemErgetzung verfertigt von Johann Sebastian Bach" ist he heading of the cover of the first edition of the composition wich today is called "Goldbergvariantionen". Bach was commissioned to compose them by the Russian envoy to the court in Dresden, Graf Hermann von Keyserlingk, at the court in Dresden. The earl, suffering from insomnia, had asked for piano pieces of a "soft and somewhat merry character". His private harpsichordist, Johann Theophilus Goldberg, was to play them for him at night to cheer him up. Bach complied willingly with the earl's request and created the extensive cycle of an aria with 30 variations. Keyserlingk was enthusiastic about the music. Bach received a golden goblet containing 100 Louisdor. This masterpiece begins and ends with an aria with a sarabande character and can already be found in the "Klavierbin fAnna Magdalena Bach". As is frequently the case with baroque variation cycles, the variations situated in between are not based on the melody of the aria but rather on its bass and the bass harmonies. The Taiwan-born pianist Pi-hsien Chen is considered one of the outstanding interpreters of both classical and new music. In the age of 10 she began her studies at the Cologne Academy of Music. Chen was won first prices at several international competitions, i.e. the ARD Competition (Munich), the Bach Competition (Washington DC.) and the Schonberg Competition (Rotterdam). The well-calculated spontaneity of her playing is characterized by a great structural clarity and astriking sense of contabile. In addition to her regular performances schedule, Pi-hsien Chen was Professor of Piano at the Cologne Academy of Music from 1983-2004. Since 2004 she teaches on the Freiburg Academy of Music.. PHIL. 06007 | KOLJA BLACHER / FRANK ARNOLD | JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: PARTITA NR. 2 D-MOLL + NR. 3 E-DUR / Gedichte von Andreas Gryphius, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau, Paul Fleming.Both these strands - the Memento mori poems and the carpe diem poem - of German Baroque poetry, which although still in its infancy would soon be producing works of astonishing quality, are essential to the intellectual climate in which Johann Sebastian Bach, the best known musical champion of immortality, grew up. His music spans the entire breadth of spiritual experience: from rootedness in the here and now to unshakeable faith in the Beyond, from the captivating force and existential reassurance of a life lived to the full to trust in God alone, from the material to the metaphysical. Even now, J. S. Bach is a presence among us as is almost no other composer in the history of music. The recordings of his works are legion, the body of scholarship into his life and oeuvre immense, and the performance of his music - whether in concert halls, churches, or theaters and with every conceivable ensemble - a global endeavor. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the great Baroque poets. Except in departments of German literature, they are largely forgotten, and despite being part of our cultural heritage, no longer form part of our cultural consciousness. The loss is a painful one, and not just because of the literary quality of the works in question. For what these unclaimed treasures convey are the mindset, the zeitgeist, and the ideas of a particular age, and hence the intellectual environment which shaped Bach's development - but regrettably is no longer a presence in the minds of today's music lovers. The purpose of this CD, therefore, was to draw attention to the link between the associations and ideas that informed the poets of the Baroque era and the music of J. S. Bach, and so inspire listeners to explore the interaction of music and text in greater depth. Those who do will discover a language that is not just powerful, but playful, and keenly felt, a hidden poetry as rich in profundity and metaphysical musings as in an intense love of life. They will thus inch closer to the mind of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in doing so perhaps gain an even more inclusive understanding of who he really was - which after all is what this recording is all about.