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Four CDs are now available: Bach arranging and arranged, Every one a chaconne, Nun komm!, and Italy versus France; the fifth, Pachelbel and Bach: canons and cantatas, will be released in spring 2012.
The CDs can be bought online for £12.50 (post & packing free in the UK) direct from the publisher, Hyphen Press Music.
In the UK and Ireland, they are distributed to the trade by Harmonia Mundi UK.
They are also available from CD Baby, as digital downloads and as physical copies.
Nicolette Moonen talks about the background to the first recording here: Bach arranging and arranged: an interview.
Bach arranging and arranged (HPM 001)
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What happens when great composers arrange each other’s works? J.S. Bach gave Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater a new text and a new viola part, making a fresh piece that speaks both of Germany and Italy. Our performance features singers Rachel Elliott and Sally Bruce-Payne.
Mozart gave string players the pleasure of playing fugues from the Well-tempered Clavier II – fresh arrangements by The Bach Players complete the set of all the four-part fugues from this work.
Listen to these sample tracks:
Fugue no.3 in E major (from the Well-tempered Clavier II [BWV 878], arranged by W.A. Mozart)
‘Missetaten, die mich drücken’ (from G.B. Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, arranged by J.S. Bach)
Every one a chaconne (HPM 002)
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We centre this programme on the chaconne: you will hear how Henry Purcell and J.S. Bach join hands in this much-loved dance form of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Of the few works of Philipp Heinrich Erlebach that survive, we perform a suite that concludes with a chaconne. The two Bach cantatas are contrasting: BWV 150 is said to be Bach’s earliest surviving cantata, BWV 78 was composed in Leipzig at the height of his career.
Listen to these sample tracks:
Ciaccona ‘Meine Tage in dem Leide’ (from J.S. Bach’s Cantata ‘Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich’, BWV 150)
Part of the chaconne from Philipp Heinrich Erlebach’s Ouverture V
Nun komm! French overtures by German composers (HPM 003)
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We explore the form of the French overture in two cantatas by J.S. Bach: the thrilling Advent cantata ‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’ (BWV 61), from his Weimar years, and ‘In allen meinen Taten’ (BWV 97) from his later years in Leipzig. We play a dance suite by Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, opening with another French overture. To complete the disc, Heinrich Isaac’s beautiful ‘Innsbruck ich muß dich lassen’, which provides the choral melody for cantata 97, is sung a capella, and is played in two instrumental settings.
Listen to these sample tracks:
Aria ‘Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze’ (from J.S. Bach’s Cantata ‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’, BWV 61)
The chaconne from Philipp Heinrich Erlebach’s Ouverture VI
Italy versus France (HPM 004)
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Italian or French? Jean Baptiste Lully and Arcangelo Corelli were the champions of these two musical styles – and the main subjects of the many attempts to establish which style was better. Or could the two styles be united? This programme paints a musical picture of the seventeenth century in Europe, through the music of Corelli, Lully, and their contemporaries. Chief among the reconcilers was the organist and composer Georg Muffat. German but of Scottish ancestry, it was he who introduced both styles to Germany. Also included are Rebel’s homage to Lully and Couperin’s to Corelli.
Listen to these sample tracks:
From Corelli’s trio sonata, op. 2, no. 12
The borea from Georg Muffat’s Armonico tributo sontata II in G minor
Pachelbel and Bach: canons and cantatas (HPM 005)
This is a double CD. Each disc presents cantatas set by both Pachelbel and Bach: ‘Christ lag in Todesbanden’ and ‘Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan’. In the first case the older composer’s influence on Bach’s writing is very clear; in the second, we hear the mature Bach. Also on the discs: Pachelbel’s beautiful Canon and two of his sacred concertos; with Bach’s lesser known canons from the Goldberg Variations.
We are still inviting subscriptions for this double CD: subscription forms can be downloaded.
Images
Martin Argyrgolo took photographs at the recording sessions for Bach arranging and arranged, some of which are reproduced in the CD booklet. The pictures here are among those we couldn’t fit into the booklet.
Sally Bruce-Payne and Rachel Elliott
Pawel Siwczak, Elizabeth Bradley, Alison McGillivray
Producer Roy Mowatt with the quartet
Listening back to a take