Les Muffatti, Bart Jacobs – Bach: Concertos for Organ and Strings (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Les Muffatti, Bart Jacobs – Bach: Concertos for Organ and Strings (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:19:55 minutes | 1,46 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ramée

Although we know of at least five concertos J.S. Bach wrote for solo organ we have no surviving Bach organ concertos with orchestral accompaniment. Contrast this with the 200+ cantatas: of these, 18 feature organ obbligato, which Bach uses as a solo instrument in arias, choral sections and sinfonias. The most obviously conspicuous date to 1726. In May to November of that year, Bach composed six cantatas which assign a prominent solo role to the organ. Most of these are reworkings of movements of lost violin and oboe concertos written in Bach’s time at Weimar and Köthen. Why Bach wrote such a number of obbligato organ cantatas in such a short period remains unknown. One possible explanation may lie in Dresden, where Bach had given a concert on the new Silbermann organ in the Sophienkirche in 1725. Some scholars think that, in addition to other organ works, he also performed organ concertos, or at least a few earlier versions of the sinfonias, with obbligato organ and strings in order to show off the organ. From the cantatas mentioned above, along with the related violin and harpsichord concertos, it is perfectly possible to reconstruct a number of three-movement organ concertos of this type. By using this method, we hope to bring some of the music which Bach may have performed in Dresden in 1725 back to life.

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Bart Jacobs – Recommended by Bach (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Bart Jacobs - Recommended by Bach (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download

Bart Jacobs – Recommended by Bach (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:21:43 minutes | 2,88 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Ramée

Heinrich Andreas Contius, originally from Halle in Central Germany, was the leading organ builder in the Baltic lands during the second half of the 18th century; his work was particularly appreciated by J.S. Bach. None of his instruments has survived in its original state, but Joris Potvlieghe (Belgium) and Flentrop Orgelbouw (The Netherlands) began an exact reconstruction of Contius’ Liepāja organ to its 1779 state under the management of the Contius Foundation in 2012, using materials and techniques that Contius himself would have employed. The project is unique, as no other instrument by Contius has as yet been reconstructed so meticulously. The organ is characterised by a gentler and more elegant attack that is also somewhat rounder and milder than that of earlier instruments by Gottfried Silbermann and is therefore well suited to the refinements of the galant style. This is the first recording to use the replica of the Contius Liepāja organ in the Sint-Michiel Vredeskerk in Leuven; Bart Jacobs here presents works by composers directly linked to Johann Sebastian Bach as well as to organs built by Heinrich Andreas Contius.
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Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier and Bart Jacobs – Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: Luther and the Music of the Reformation (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier and Bart Jacobs – Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: Luther and the Music of the Reformation (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:30:08 minutes | 1,54 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ricercar

A two-CD set devoted to the Lutheran liturgical repertory from Martin Luther himself to Heinrich Schütz. The first disc comprises compositions specific to the Lutheran liturgy: Deutsche Messe, Deutsches Magnificat, Deutsche Passion (the first German polyphonic Passion, by Joachim von Burck) and even a reconstruction of a Deutsches Requiem drawn from polyphonic works that set the same texts as those Brahms was later to use for his Deutsches Requiem. The second disc presents a selection of motets arranged according to the liturgical calendar, from Advent to Trinity. These polyphonic pieces were written by a wide range of composers including Martin Luther, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Michael raetorius, Joachim von Burck, Christoph Bernhardt, Heinrich Schütz, Thomas Selle, Melchior Franck, Caspar Othmayr, Michael Altenburg, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Hermann Schein and Johann Walter. The organist Bart Jacobs completes the programme with a few organ pieces by seventeenth-century composers.

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