Benjamin Alard, Mahler Chamber Orchestra & Pablo Heras-Casado – Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite – Falla: El Retablo de Maese Pedro & Harpsichord Concerto (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Benjamin Alard, Mahler Chamber Orchestra & Pablo Heras-Casado – Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite – Falla: El Retablo de Maese Pedro & Harpsichord Concerto (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:04 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

The three works on this CD evoke the worlds of commedia dell’arte (Pulcinella), Don Quixote (El retablo de maese Pedro) and picaresque Spain (the Harpsichord Concerto).

Telling their stories with colour, rhythm and humour, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Pablo Heras-Casado and Benjamin Alard (playing a sumptuous Pleyel harpsichord) invite us to an exhilarating firework display.

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Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 8: Köthen, 1717-1723 – For Maria Barbara (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 8: Köthen, 1717-1723 – For Maria Barbara (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:23:32 minutes | 4,54 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Eagerly pursuing his exploration of Bach’s corpus for solo keyboard, Benjamin Alard focuses here on works associated with the composer’s first wife, Maria Barbara, and her untimely death in 1720. This instalment therefore includes both the Inventions and Sinfonias, a collection of teaching pieces brimming with freshness and invention, and the prodigious French Suites, one of the peaks of Bach’s years in Cöthen.

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Benjamin Alard – The Couperin Family (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Benjamin Alard - The Couperin Family (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – The Couperin Family (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:10:39 minutes | 849 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MarchVivo

This latest MarchVivo release is a remastering of the concert given by Benjamin Alard at the Fundación Juan March on 1 February 2020 as part of a series entitled The Couperins at the harpsichord. The album focuses on the stylistic connections between different members of the most significant family in the history of the French Baroque: the Couperins. The harpsichord epitomised the intimacy and sophistication of salon music and, with the repertoire they composed for their instrument, the clavecinistes français helped forge a distinctive national style. This was renewed and enlivened by successive generations of the Couperin dynasty as they introduced innovative aspects of contemporary Italian style into their works, thereby creating an eloquent new idiom that was to have a lasting influence on the history of keyboard music.
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Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 7 Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599-644 (with choir) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Benjamin Alard - Johann Sebastian Bach The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 7 Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599-644 (with choir) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 7 Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599-644 (with choir) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:44:40 minutes | 1,66 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

With it’s forty-five chorale preludes, the Orgelbüchlein bears witness to a mastery of the art of improvisation on the organ, as the congregation heard it at the time before singing the hymn in it’s turn. It was a tempting experiment to revive this primary function: by collaborating with the combined forces of the Ensemble Vocal Bergamasque and the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, Benjamin Alard gives the ‘little organ book’ it’s full significance and expressive power.
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Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 1 (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Benjamin Alard - J.S. Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 1 (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 1 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 04:08:00 minutes | 3,99 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

“Geniuses are not born but (self-)made. Bach’s youth was a vast field of observation. From the years of apprenticeship in Ohrdruf, where his precocious artistic sensibility was dazzlingly demonstrated, to his first major post as organist at Arnstadt, Bach constantly enriched his musical culture, underpinned by a strong family tradition and driven by iconic respect for the old masters, crucial affinities and unfailing curiosity. As the prelude to a complete recording of a new kind, the eloquence and vigilant intelligence of the admirable Benjamin Alard’s playing are the ideal medium to reveal the technical mastery of Bach’s early keyboard works and convey the essence of this young composer’s musical discourse at a time when he was already measuring himself against the yardstick of predecessors and contemporaries alike.
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Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 4 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Benjamin Alard - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 4 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 4 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:14:45 minutes | 4,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Volume 4 of Benjamin Alard’s complete recording of Bach’s keyboard works continues to explore the Weimar period. After À la française, we turn to Italy, where the Vivaldian concerto reigned in Venice. The young Bach created here a wonderful space of freedom between the transcriber and the improviser. Benjamin Alard performs on three exceptional instruments, including a magnificent 1702 harpsichord by Mattia de Gand, preserved in Treviso and recently restored.
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Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 5, (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Benjamin Alard - J.S. Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 5, (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 5, (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:04:58 minutes | 3,60 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

With Volume 5, Benjamin Alard closes the trilogy dedicated to the Weimar period.

Here we reach the toccatas, preludes, fantasies and fugues that show the extent to which Bach now mastered French and Italian influences, only to emancipate himself from them and compose in complete freedom.

An unexpected instrument makes its first appearance in this complete recording played on the finest historical keyboards: the clavichord, perfectly at home alongside the organ and the harpsichord.
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Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 3 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Benjamin Alard - J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 3 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 3 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 03:29:14 minutes | 4,00 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Having already attracted attention for his exceptional gifts, Bach entered the service of the Weimar court at the age of twenty-three. This was the start of the period known as his ‘early maturity’, in which his formal and expressive experiments reflect a significant interest in French music and ‘la belle danse’. The close intertwining of French and German styles is the dominant feature of this third volume in Benjamin Alard’s recording of the complete organ and harpsichord works.

‘A remarkable complete set of Bach’s keyboard music is gradually being built up.’ – ResMusica.
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Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 2.2 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Benjamin Alard - J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 2.2 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 2.2 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:00:50 minutes | 2,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

In this second instalment of the complete keyboard works, Benjamin Alard demonstrates with splendid eloquence how invaluable the young Bach’s north German experience proved to be; his attentive examination of the works of the great organ masters and his craving for all kinds of music significantly broadened the stylistic foundations of his keyboard writing. The wide range of works presented here, complemented by pieces by Buxtehude, Reinken and Pachelbel, illustrates in exemplary fashion the power of a master in the making.
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Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 2.1 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Benjamin Alard - J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 2.1 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Edition, Vol. 2.1 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 02:22:18 minutes | 2,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

In this second instalment of the complete keyboard works, Benjamin Alard demonstrates with splendid eloquence how invaluable the young Bach’s north German experience proved to be; his attentive examination of the works of the great organ masters and his craving for all kinds of music significantly broadened the stylistic foundations of his keyboard writing. The wide range of works presented here, complemented by pieces by Buxtehude, Reinken and Pachelbel, illustrates in exemplary fashion the power of a master in the making.
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Benjamin Alard – Bach: The Work for Organ & Harpsichord, Chapter II – 1. Sopra un tema di Albinoni (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Benjamin Alard - Bach: The Work for Organ & Harpsichord, Chapter II - 1. Sopra un tema di Albinoni (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – Bach: The Work for Organ & Harpsichord, Chapter II – 1. Sopra un tema di Albinoni (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 36:34 minutes | 377 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Organist and harpsichordist Benjamin Alard has put his mind to producing a complete recording of J.S. Bach’s works for keyboard instruments. At this point we should note that the title for the English release, “The Work for Organ & Harpsichord” may cause confusion. It should in fact read “The Work for Organ & for Harpsichord”… Bach, after all, never wrote anything for organ and harpsichord playing together… But we digress. This sprawling work, covering thirty hours of music, will tell the story of the Cantor of Leipzig in fourteen chapters; and it seems that it is the first complete recording for all the works for a solo keyboard – i.e. all the music for organ and all the music for solo harpsichord – that Bach wrote, executed by one single musician. Alard attempts to bring out these albums in an order that respects the chronology of his life, following his influences, his journeys, his professional choices. The fourteen chapters, in an oblique numerological jest, represent the fourteen letters of his name. The recording was started on the André Silbermann organ (1718) in the church of Sainte-Aurélie in Strasbourg, and on a harpsichord made by Émile Jobin, inspired by a Ruckers of 1612 and a Dulcken from 1747. The first volume of this collected works will bring together the works composed between 1695 and 1705. It should come as no surprise that the works from Bach’s youth should carry such high BWV numbers – the numbering system of the Bach Werke Verzeichnis is not chronological, and the organ works run from BWV 525 to 771, and those for harpsichord from 772 to 994.
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Benjamin Alard – Bach: The Work for Organ & Harpsichord, Chapter I – 1. Jesu meine Freude – EP (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Benjamin Alard - Bach: The Work for Organ & Harpsichord, Chapter I - 1. Jesu meine Freude - EP (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – Bach: The Work for Organ & Harpsichord, Chapter I – 1. Jesu meine Freude – EP (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 26:24 minutes | 431 MB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

We are delighted to announce that organist and harpsichordist Benjamin Alard is now recording for harmonia mundi. Following several acclaimed recordings for Alpha, Benjamin Alard will now devote himself to the complete works for organ and harpsichord of Johann Sebastian Bach. A massive undertaking, involving around 30 hours of music, which will be structured into chapters that mark the significant moments in the life of the Cantor of Leipzig: “This is indeed the first time Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete works for solo harpsichord will be performed by the same musician. Contrary to the encyclopaedic complete works so far published (harpsichord, organ, cantatas, concertos, etc.), my approach is to present Bach’s harpsichord music in parallel with the chronology ofhis life, his inf luences, his travels, his professional choices, grouped symbolically into 14 chapters, to represent the number of letters in his name.” (Benjamin Alard)
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Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 6 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Benjamin Alard - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 6 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Benjamin Alard – Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 6 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:41:53 minutes | 2,94 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

After five volumes devoted to the early years of J. S. Bach, up to the Weimar period, Benjamin Alard takes an utterly fascinating approach to the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. First he offers the listener an astonishing mental preparation on the clavichord, derived mainly from the Clavier-Büchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann. Then he arranges the preludes and fugues in a new order, and to play his programme he has chosen two instruments for which the word ‘extraordinary’ is not too strong: here is the moment when the glorious Hass family of instrument builders comes on the scene, in a festival of colours and registrations each more breathtaking than the last.
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