Les Arts Florissants & Paul Agnew & Benjamin Alard - J.S. Bach Early Cantatas: Arnstadt & Mühlhausen - A Life in Music Vol.1 - Import CD

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Les Arts Florissants & Paul Agnew & Benjamin Alard

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Agnew and the superbly soft ensemble of Les Halles Florissants begin a new series of Bach cantatas! A new series of HMF highlights has begun! Paul Agnew and Les Salle Florissant present a series of J.S. Bach cantatas that trace J.S. Bach's creative itinerary through the cities and times in which he lived. The first volume focuses on the young master, who, while remaining faithful to the North German church music tradition, had already demonstrated a strong originality. The soft beauty of Leszar Florissant's vocal music, of course, but also the beautiful and heartbreakingly sublime music of his Sinfonia and other instrumental works, are a must-hear. The ensemble of vocal and instrumental music is also beautiful and old-fashioned in a good sense. The birth of a new series of cantata masterpieces is very exciting. It is said that Bach wrote Cantata BWV106 in 1707/08, Cantata BWV4 in 1708 or earlier, and BWV150 before 1708.In other words, all three works date from Bach's Arnstadt (1703/4-1707) or Mühlhausen period (1707-1708), which means they are from his very early period. It is also noteworthy that the album includes a work by Kuhnau with the same text and a related chorale (also performed by Allard, who is currently working on a project to record Bach's keyboard works in chronological order). The booklet also includes interesting photos of Arnstadt and Mühlhausen. Paul Agnew's words (from the booklet) - The inclusion of Johann Kuhnau's cantata "Christ lag in Todesbanden" was intended to give some context to Bach's own work. When he wrote this work in 1693, Kuhnau was already organist at the Thomas Church in Leipzig, and upon Scheret's death in 1701, he became cantor, and after Kuhnau's death in 1722, Bach himself took his place.Needless to say, I was eager to compare the two pieces of the same text, "Christ lag in Todes Banden". Bach would have known Cunau's organ works from an early age, and they met in Halle in 1716 (if not earlier) to examine a new organ together. The sonata opens with the gloom of the tomb, and in the second movement the chorale is sung amidst the energetic accompaniment of the instrumental ensemble, but from the fourth movement, Cunau abandons the chorale melody and the instrumental music travels around the ensemble's voices, returning to the melody in the final movement in a quasi-fugal-like movement, a song-like setting. Interestingly, Cunau, like Bach, signed his works "SDG" (Soli DeoGloria), not to mention the Magnificat performed at the first Christmas in Leipzig in 1723 and the St. John Passion at the first Easter in 1724, both of which are highly What would an audience accustomed to the archaic and relatively simple style of the Kuhnau have made of these mature, well-developed and mature works? But we are getting too far ahead of ourselves. Bach has not yet matured.He was 18 when he arrived in Arnstadt and only 23 when he left Mühlhausen for Weimar. King International