Mario Salieri Films Online

The largest living Bach

[Crucifixion (detail). Matthias Grünewald]

The binomial Philippe Herreweghe, Bach has given fans the Baroque some stunning recordings of the last 25 years. Under the guise of 40 anniversary of the founding of the Collegium Vocale of Ghent , Harmonia Mundi, the label that has collected the vast majority of these productions, has begun publication of an edition that collects the most of this material, absolutely crucial for understanding the development of Bach interpretation in our time. Triple album is superbly edited book / CD format, sold and average price of which four have been put on sale. The journey of these four papers is chronologically comprehensive, because it reflects one of the oldest records of the Belgian master Bach (that of the Motets of 1985) along with others conducted in the first two years of this century.

The volume includes the motets (HML 5908366.68 reference) is also devoted to the second recording made of the Herreweghe Mass in B minor (1996: the first, taken in 1988, was published by Virgin ). There is in this second version, the recording is not all clear that it would be desirable, a point of excitement and brightness in the Virgin, excellent in its depth and rigor, very representative of the first style of approach to Bach's director Ghent, very concerned about the transparency and clarity, but also to preserve a point of monumentality that led to the use of slow tempi and thickeners point line. Gradually, the joints would become more Herreweghe nimble, tempi lighter, lighter lines. But the Mass , 1996 still has, despite the increased intensity of dynamic contrasts and a more poignant instrumental timbres, the ecstatic sense of the majestic and ancient, with a great balance between filling and light coral and a noticeable emphasis on Details of rhetoric. The description can be applied to Motets, which are more austere, but with an intensity and emotional expression of deep and passionate as well.

The album includes the HML 5908372.74 cantatas sung by bass Peter Kooy (1991), the high with Andreas Scholl as soloist (1997) and the only non-Bach CD collection, a work dedicated to cantatas by German composers prior to Bach (Thunder, Kuhnau, Bruhns, Graupner) was recorded in 1999. Here we see clearly the passage of a performance style that favors a more enveloping sound, meaty and meditative to a more loose, flexible and lightweight. The very emotional Ich habe Genung is a milestone in the version of Peter Kooy for its exquisite balance between rhetoric and musicality. The work of an aristocratic Andreas Scholl is a cold spot in the play of tensions, densities and balances like to Herreweghe, but that gives her album a very special interest by the contrast between a more dark and deep and the other more focused on the pure beauty of sound. In the cantatas CD prebachianas Italianate looks luminosity of the works of Thunder and a clear will to speed up lines and lighten the texture, which affects both the choral parts and the instrumental accompaniment.

But where this stylistic paradigm shift is best seen in the comparison between the two versions of the Magnificat published in the album with HML 5908360.62 reference, the version in D major in 1990 and recorded written in E flat major in 2002. The first is completed with the cantata BWV 80 and the second with BWV 63. The third disc of the album includes the cantatas BWV 8, 125 and 138, which were registered in 1998. The exuberant nature of the Magnificat had already been well caught in the recording of 1990, but in the year 2002 tempi are faster, the choir has eased (although slightly, from 21 to 17 voices) the instrumental brilliance resonates with more power and sharpness and contrast are more blunt. Options are somewhat different, perhaps a more chaotic the second point, although the Christmas interpolations impose some grim tenderness and perfectly complementary. Extraordinary, almost unbeatable, the soloists of 1990 (Mellon, Lesne, Crook, Kooy), especially the formidable American tenor (the duet with Lesne is high voltage), although in 2002, the record also has a superb Sampson (crystalline and lovely "Quia respexit"), while still significant, the rest of the cast (Danz, Padmore, Noack) is somewhat below twelve years ago. More than additions, BWV 80 and BWV 63 are capital pieces of art that reveal the Bach Herreweghe careful with details (the accompaniment of soprano and bass duo of BWV 63 with a glorious Ponseele Marcel oboe is a supreme delicacy) but capable of showing both the most joyous of the great choruses accompanied by trumpets and timpani.

has sometimes insisted on austerity herreweghiana general (more palpable in their earliest recordings) as a point against his work, but I find it a special connection to the spirit of Bach, for sobriety Belgian style always looks great master of counterpoint clarity, balance and combination of parts (such unison between first violins and sopranos of the choir), all illuminated by an exquisite care for detail timbre (very noticeable on the involvement required instruments and subtlety of the continuum that follows) and rhetoric who focused on both the most superficial and most Bach music deep. This is very significant both in the complete cantatas disc album of the Magnificat as in the reference appeared HML 5908369.71 gathering of Advent and Christmas cantatas (BWV 122, 110 and 57, 1995, BWV 36, 61 and 62, 1996, BWV 91, 121 and 133 of 2001). It not worthwhile to influence, by known, at the excellent work of the Collegium Vocale of Ghent and insisting on the special fellowship that the concept of Herreweghe achieves with this music so full of nuances that could almost be described number by number. There are of course other far-reaching decisions about the recorded music of Cantor (Gardiner Koopman through Suzuki or Kuijken) but in the opinion of the undersigned Philippe Herreweghe can without exaggeration be considered the most important figure of Bach interpretation of our time.
[ Scherzo No. 259. January 2011 ]