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Two CDs are now available: Bach arranging and arranged and Every one a chaconne. The third in the series, Nun komm!, will be released in September 2010.
The CDs can be bought online for £15 (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.
We also sell them at our concerts: the price is then £12.
Nicolette Moonen talks about the background to the first recording here: Bach arranging and arranged: an interview.
Bach arranging and arranged
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)
For more details and to buy copies, click here.
Every one a chaconne
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
For more details and to buy copies, click here.
Nun komm! French overtures by German composers
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 cappella, 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
For more details, click here.
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