Werner Bach cantatas

[tones]

I just noticed this has come out:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CD8SK72/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

This was first available on Erato as "les grandes cantates de J.S. Bach", and I have many of the vinyl issues. Fritz Werner was one of a new generation of Bach conductors post-WW2, which was to transform Bach performance. Although played on modern instruments, the trend towards smaller ensembles and non-bel canto singers was there. Werner was able to draw on Erato's stable of outstanding soloists (e.g., Pierre Pierlot on oboe, Maurice André on trumpet) to complement his ensembles.

The result is a rather pleasant Bach - it is still "romantic" in feel, when compared with the likes of Gardiner, Suzuki and Koopman, but it is none the worse for that - after all, this is music for eternity and should not be locked iny anyone's stylistic straitjacket. And some of the performances are genuinely outstanding - Werner's version of BWV140 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers, awake) remains my personal favourite. One could complain about some aspects - Werner recorded the version of BWV80 Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott edited by Wilhelm Friedmann Bach after the old man's death - he tarted it up with trumpets and drums, which it really doesn't need (listen, e.g. to Gardiner's stunning version).

However, if you want an introduction to one of the greatest oeuvres in music, it would be hard to pass this up.

 

[lennyw]

Seconded. I got these in their previous guise, and they are generally very enjoyable performances, though not up there with the great Karl Richter's

Werner was able to draw on Erato's stable of outstanding soloists (e.g., Pierre Pierlot on oboe, Maurice André on trumpet) to complement his ensembles.

Exactly!

 

[eisenach]

Well, there we are ! Erato's back ! Bravo !
(Pity about EMI Classical !)

 

[tones]

Seconded. I got these in their previous guise, and they are generally very enjoyable performances, though not up there with the great Karl Richter's

Although Richter was a great Bachian, Lenny, I always found his recordings of the cantatas a bit stodgy and overblown. He did, of course, have the advantage of some truly great singers (Fischer-Dieskau, Edith Mathis). He also had some odd mannerisms - he had this odd habit of extending the final note of choral lines for dramatic effect (I heard him do this live in a Munich performance of the Weihnachtsoratorium) - it sounded all wrong.

 

[lennyw]

Sorry never to have heard him live.

I'm a big fan of "Victorian Bach" (though must confess to struggling with Klemperer), but also love Herreweghe's. Gardiner has always left me cold, and have mixed experiences with Harnoncourt (trying to decide whether to here him conducting St. Matt's in Vienna next spring -- depends in part on my Bayreuth success). His most recent (10years ago) St. Matt's is mind-blowing.

 

[Stunsworth]

I'm a big fan of "Victorian Bach" (though must confess to struggling with Klemperer

Have you tried the B Minor Mass? Not how you'd normally hear it these days, but it works on its own terms IMHO.

 

[tones]

Have you tried the B Minor Mass? Not how you'd normally hear it these days, but it works on its own terms IMHO.

Although I like the Gardiner and Butt versions, I came to love the B Minor via the Klemperer version. It was slow in places, but utterly magnificent in its own terms - any version with Janet Baker singing the Agnus Dei has got to be exceptional. I still drag out the vinyl now and then for a listen.

It lasts about 2 hours. I used to put it on cassette in the car, and started it when I left the Mt. Buller ski resort, knowing that I'd be at the Donna nobis pacem as I approached Melbourne!

 

[tones]

Sorry never to have heard him live.

I'm a big fan of "Victorian Bach" (though must confess to struggling with Klemperer), but also love Herreweghe's. Gardiner has always left me cold, and have mixed experiences with Harnoncourt (trying to decide whether to here him conducting St. Matt's in Vienna next spring -- depends in part on my Bayreuth success). His most recent (10years ago) St. Matt's is mind-blowing.

Nicky H. and Gus Leonhardt were trailblazers who influenced a whole generation of musicians as to the playing of baroque. Being trailblazers, they occasionally fumbled and even dropped the ball. The technique of playing "authentic" instruments was not well developed, and the sound was often thin and scrawny, with some of the cantatas sounding as if they'd been recorded in Nicky's garden shed.

The watershed in B Minor recordings was Gardiner's. Up to that point, music critics had made a distinction between "authentic" and "modern" B Minors, but, as one critic said of Gardiner's, the difference has vanished.