It is mentioned in almost all biographies of Johann Sebastian Bach: Bach was part of a large family of musicians and at festive gatherings the musical gifts were used to increase the revelry. We know, for example, an occasional piece by Bach about the departure of a brother, in which the wailing of the family who stayed behind, the dangers of the journey and the sound of the post horn (as a sign of the departure of the stagecoach) are portrayed in a humorous way.

George Philipp Telemann was a composer whose creative powers continued undiminished through his old age of eighty six years. The last decade of his life witnessed an astonishing creative surge, perhaps comparable only to that of Verdi. It was then that the eighty-year-old, with all the benefits of mature mastery at his command, penned some of his most beautiful vocal works. The oratorio "The Delivered Israel" is a work from this period.

This set is a rerelease of recordings made in 1991, not previously reviewed in Read more . In the order listed in the header, these four cantatas were composed for the following festal days in the liturgical church calendar: the Third Sunday in Advent, the Feast of St. John the Baptist, Pentecost, and Easter Sunday. All stem from the time of the younger Bach’s increasingly fractious and unhappy years as director of music in Halle, which spanned 1747 to 1764. The first of these is definitely known to have been written in 1749; the dates for the others are less certain, but stem from the mid to late 1750s.

In the only one of Johann Schein's religious works to be reissued as long as twenty-two years after his death, Fontana D'Israel (Fountain of Israel) is still regarded as his most exceptional artistic achievement. This Israelsbrünnlein contains twenty-six vocal compositions, which, as Schein writes, "can be comfortably played on their own with lively voice and instruments, and also on the organ/harpsichord" and to which he had added a figured bass, admittedly dispensable in most cases.

Johann Christoph Graupner (1683-1760) was a German Baroque composer with over 1,500 published works to his credit, yet hardly anyone recognizes his name anymore. He worked as Kapellmeister at the Hesse court in Darmstadt for almost fifty years, composing both secular and religious music, and he might have gotten the music director's post in Leipzig that went to J.S Bach instead had Graupner's patron allowed him leave.

Throughout his life Telemann collaborated with good poets who prepared sacred texts for him, usually to be set as annual cycles for the church year. This practice enabled him to design each of his annual cycles, as a rule consisting of seventy-two cantatas for each Sunday and feast day, on the basis of a unique overall idea. Annual cycles such as Geistliches Singen und Spielen, the »Annual Cycle in the Oratorio Style« and »Musicalisches Lob Gottes« not only lend expression to the artistic program and ideas of one of the most important sacred music composers of the eighteenth century but also document his deep religiosity.

A previously unknown contemporary score of the St. Mark Passion falsely ascribed to Johann Heinrich Rolle recently came to light in Brussels. Due to the new identification of the copyist’s hand, a largely original version of Georg Philipp Telemann’s St. Mark’s Passion of 1759 is now available, reflected in this recording. Freshly penned “poetical reflections” were added to the Evangelist’s text. The anonymous, theologically educated author of these reflective arias and accompagnati, who in consultation with the composer also chose the selection of church songs and designed the overall structure of the libretto, coordinated the sacred message of the text with a finely calculated affective dramaturgy.

Wie weit komponierende Söhne und Väter stilistisch auseinander liegen können, wird oft an dem Vergleich Johann Sebastians und Johann Christian Bachs demonstriert. Nun, es gibt einen ähnlich gelagerten Fall: Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688–1758) und sein Sohn Carl (1736–1800).

Johann Ludwig Bach’s Funeral Music for the Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen is a delightful discovery. JS Bach clearly regarded his distant cousin’s music highly, performing 18 of his cantatas in Leipzig during a single year. The Funeral Music, setting in part the Duke’s own text, is magnificent in scoring – for two choirs, soloists and large orchestra including trumpets and drums – and in scale. Like a Baroque Dream of Gerontius, the soul begins fettered in human bonds on earth, then ascends to the heavenly gates, with Part 3 a brilliant celebration of celestial joy. Bach’s descriptions are graphic – ‘bonds’ create staggering dissonances, resolved to momentary silence when ‘torn asunder’.

Hermann Max and the Rheinische Kantorei set out on new paths toward the interpretation of Bach's motet cosmos. The present CD also includes the Motets BWV Anh. 159 because Bach scholarship has come to regard these works, long ascribed to Johann Christian Bach, as compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach as they clearly bear his musical signature.

In 1789 Mozart arranged George Frideric Handel's Messiah on behalf of a group of Viennese noblemen.He abridged the work in an effort to tauten the drama, transposed arias to suit his singers' abilities and he subjected it to a fundamental re-orchestration to adapt the sound of the work to the musical taste of his time. lt was not until the 20th century that the historical and musical value of Mozart's Messiah arrangement was reappraised. Mozart's interpretation of Handel's Counterpoint and his synthesis of Baroque and Classical stylistic elements give the work a compelling new sound.

"Denn er selbst, der Herr, wird mit einem Feldgeschrei und der Stimme des Erzengels und mit der Posaune Gottes hernieder kommen vom Himmel, und die Toten in Christo werden auferstehen zuerst". Dunkel und drohend lässt Telemann dazu den Donner grollen, den Zorn Gottes. Der Herr, der Richter naht. Es beginnt der Tag des Gerichts. Mit diesen Signalen hebt ein packendes musikalisches Geschehen an, das dem, der sich mit ihm auseinanderzusetzen gewillt ist, eine reiche, symbolgeladene Welt schönster, erfüllender, oft eigenwilliger künstlerischer Bewältigung von Wort und Ton eröffnet.

Today it is the Passions of J.S Bach which are most commonly known. The Passion Oratorio by J.S Bach’s nephew, godson and pupil Johann Ernst Bach is lesser known. On this Capriccio re-release his Passion Oratorio is performed alongside an Ode on the 77th Psalm for tenor, chorus and orchestra and a Motet for solo voices, four-part chorus, strings and continuo.

Our collection of previously unknown Christmas oratorios is growing impressively and happily. After Joseph Eybler in October, I can even announce two trouvailles for this month. There is the Christmas Oratorio by Carl Heinrich Graun (1703-1759), the conductor of Frederick the Great. It was only recently found in Washington. A precise dating is not yet possible, but it certainly arose in Graun's pre-Berlin time in Dresden or Braunschweig. However, it is a masterpiece on the threshold of a sensitive style. The well-balanced alternation of melodically accented and contrapuntally rigorous choral movements, of soulful, colorfully orchestrated arias and harmoniously far-reaching recitatives is particularly impressive.

When Schumann was offered the post of music director in Düsseldorf in 1850, his first main project was to perform the St. John Passion, which had never been presented there, in April 1851: “It is much bolder, more powerful, and more poetic than the St. Matthew. This one seems to me not to be free of diffuseness and to be exceedingly long, but the other – how compact, how thoroughly genial, and of what art!” Robert Schumann