Something for a Friday: All of Bach

[Padraig]

Fantasia and fugue in A minor – Bach

and, an alternative version by Pollini, as mentioned above.


Maurizio Pollini a 15 anni: Bach, Fantasia e fuga in La minore BWV 944 - YouTube

[Mandryka]

Fantasia and fugue in A minor – Bach

and, an alternative version by Pollini, as mentioned above.


Maurizio Pollini a 15 anni: Bach, Fantasia e fuga in La minore BWV 944 - YouTube

The 15 year old Pollini -- good find! It is ridiculously fast. Who's that "golden age" American speed demon pianist -- a crazy Schumann toccata at Carnegie Hall before the war?

[Beresford]

Thanks, Beresford. Interesting observations (though 'above my pay grade') Hewitt more my thing. Can't find the no.5.

Keyboard Partita No 5 (BWV829) played by Elina Albach is here:

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-829

Enjoy (I know you will).

What I like above all about most of the All of Bach performances is that the players can be seen to be enjoying themselves!! For baroque music this seems to be true of many of the modern performers and groups. Maybe it's just fashion, an idiosyncrasy of these times, losing the weightiness of older interpretations, but I take such enjoyment as a different form of sincerity.

[Padraig]

Keyboard Partita No 5 (BWV829) played by Elina Albach is here:

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-829

Enjoy (I know you will).

What I like above all about most of the All of Bach performances is that the players can be seen to be enjoying themselves!! For baroque music this seems to be true of many of the modern performers and groups. Maybe it's just fashion, an idiosyncrasy of these times, losing the weightiness of older interpretations, but I take such enjoyment as a different form of sincerity.

Thanks, Beresford.

I can see why you like such performances, and performers. Like the music, this performer is happy in herself in the playing - and at the writing.
I agree that it is a general feature of these performances that the enjoyment is apparent, and catching. A skill in itself.

[Padraig]

Viola da gamba sonata no. 1 in G major – Bach


Today's performance is another example of a loving demonstration of instrumental skill - Mieneke van der Velden in a piece not frequently heard.Yet the viola da gamba player draws you in. Maybe that's because I remember other performances in this series by this player, in one of which she gave a talk about her instrument - 500+ years old - including the prominent tail piece of which she was extremely proud. It's a pity that today's talk did not have a translation, as before, as she played a few bars of a piece that I knew -Love's Farewell - my standby piece for 'whenever I am tempted'.

Luciana Elizondo, viola da gamba: T. Hume, Loves Farewell - YouTube

[Mandryka]

Viola da gamba sonata no. 1 in G major – Bach


Today's performance is another example of a loving demonstration of instrumental skill - Mieneke van der Velden in a piece not frequently heard.Yet the viola da gamba player draws you in. Maybe that's because I remember other performances in this series by this player, in one of which she gave a talk about her instrument - 500+ years old - including the prominent tail piece of which she was extremely proud. It's a pity that today's talk did not have a translation, as before, as she played a few bars of a piece that I knew -Love's Farewell - my standby piece for 'whenever I am tempted'.

Luciana Elizondo, viola da gamba: T. Hume, Loves Farewell - YouTube

Thanks for mentioning Luciana Elizondo, a new name for me, and I think she is very good -- she has some interesting recordings on Spotify including some Hume (my favourite English viol composer.)

[smittims]

I've just discovered this thread, which seems to be a place for posting one's Bach listening, Hhmm?

I'll be sent to the back of the classroom straight away , or I would if Alan Davey were Headmaster, as Bach is not my favourite composer (I prefer Handel and Haydn) but I did enjoy Brandenburg 6 in a favourite Oiseau-Lyre recording by the Philomusica of London:Cecil Aronowitz, Rosemary Green, Desmond du Pre, Dietrich Kessler, with Thurston Dart 'filling in' most imaginatively on his Goble or Goff Harpsichord. His premature death in 1971 was a great loss, as Neville Marriner recalled in a moving tribute in the Gramophone.

[Sir Velo]

Each Friday, the Netherlands Bach Society releases a new recording/film of a J.S. Bach piece. This schedule will continue until Bach's entire oeuvre is online. How wonderfully ambitious. How many of us will be extant to hear the final upload, I wonder?

All of Bach

For those who may not be able to access the opening post on the thread, hopefully this gives context.

[Padraig]

Thanks for mentioning Luciana Elizondo, a new name for me, and I think she is very good -- she has some interesting recordings on Spotify including some Hume (my favourite English viol composer.)

Pleased to be of service, Mandryka. I owe my love of this piece, Love's Farewell, to our esteemed departed member who went by the name of Gamba.

Smittems, you have a bit of catching up to do

[smittims]

You're right, of course, Padraig, but I prefer living in the past . One of my favourite 'Four Seasons' is the 1939 Decca recording by Alfredo Campoli and Boyd Neel.

I do like some recent Brandenburgs, such as the Swiss Baroque Soloists on Naxos and Orchestra Mozart on DG Archiv, ad our old friends Il Giardino Aemonico, not so naughty in Bach as they were in Handel..

[Padraig]

As a vocal quartet with theorbo the performance of this Chorale ranks very high in my estimation. I loved the sound of the SATB harmony with theorbo.
I am at a loss however when trying to place it in the context of church music of my limited experience. Would it be the choir and orchestra in the performance of a Bach cantata? Or is it a stand-alone short piece for a sermon,say?

Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern – Bach

[silvestrione]

Thanks for mentioning Luciana Elizondo, a new name for me, and I think she is very good -- she has some interesting recordings on Spotify including some Hume (my favourite English viol composer.)

I love English viol music, Byrd, Ferrabosco, Ward, Gibbons, Lawes, Jenkins, Simpson, Purcell, Locke....but I don't think I've yet heard of Hume?

[Padraig]

I love English viol music, Byrd, Ferrabosco, Ward, Gibbons, Lawes, Jenkins, Simpson, Purcell, Locke....but I don't think I've yet heard of Hume?

silvestrione, Tobias Hume was a soldier with a daring talent for music, and Scottish.

Tobias Hume: gallus viol player, Scottish soldier | Kate Molleson

[Mandryka]

I love English viol music, Byrd, Ferrabosco, Ward, Gibbons, Lawes, Jenkins, Simpson, Purcell, Locke....but I don't think I've yet heard of Hume?

Tobias Hume. Here are a couple of ideas to start exploring his music. He was indeed Scottish, as Padraig said -- I had forgotten.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7983602--tobias-hume-passion-division

His songs are also not at all bad -- maybe here

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/64k4vn/kaori-ishikawa-humorous-toby

[Hitch]

Released on 7th December.