"[An] astonishing CD…. these performances may prove too colorful and too passionate for those who prefer an austere or detached approach to the Bach Motets. For the rest of us, however, this CD is sheer heaven." –Goldberg Magazine

Abel, Carl Friedrich
(1723-1787)

German composer and viola da gamba player, who settled in England and spent the last thirty years of his life there. Born in Cöthen, Abel studied with his father, Christian Ferdinand Abel, a violinist and viola da gamba player, and in Liepzig after his father's death in 1737, when he probably joined J. S. Bach's Collegium musicum. He was a member of the court orchestra in Dresden from 1743 through 1757, but ultimately settled in London wher he gave his first concert in 1759. In February 1764, he gave a first joint concert withJohann Christian, both of them serving as chamber musicians to Queen Charlotte from about this time. Together they established the Bach-Abel concerts, a series of ten to fifteen concerts given each year from 1765 to 1781. From 1781, these concerts were housed in a room built for the purpose on Hanover Square, the works performed being principally those of Bach and Abel themselves.

Bach was still writing The Art of Fugue at the time of his death. The work was intended to explore the possibilities of counterpoint, but Bach never wrote dry, academic music. It served its didactic purpose, but always there is warm humanity bursting from it. The Art of Fugue has been arranged for many musical groupings, and is always at best a guess at what Bach had in mind. What Robert Simpson has done here is to transpose the work so that it is playable by a string quartet. He does so without apology–Bach himself was a great transposer–and the results are totally convincing. Simpson knows a thing or two about string quartets (his own are well worth checking out), and he has breathed life into a work that is given a terrific performance here by the Delmé Quartet. To some, Bach's contrapuntal writing is a bit like a musical sewing machine, but when it is given with a true sense of ebb and flow, as it is here, it is magnificent. There are extensive liner notes, but you don't need to be a student of counterpoint to get a lift from this music on a pure sit-back-and-enjoy basis. –Keith Clarke

Georg Frederick Handel's organ concertos are among those works which, despite their widespread popularity, have remained in some respects unknown: for one thing they have often been misunderstood by audiences from Handel's time right down to the present day, and for another, in the absence of critical study of the original sources, some of them have come down to us considerably corrupted.

The Hamburg musical writer Johann Mattheson described Handel as the greatest organist of his time, comparable only with Johann Sebastian Bach. It is, therefore, all the more surprising that Handel was 49 before he wrote his first major works for organ, that no organ fugues, chorale preludes or other organ music in any of the traditional forms can be found among his works, and that his complete oeuvre of organ music consists of concertos which look at first sight as though they had been intended for the harpsichord.

SIEGFRIED WAGNER (1869-1930): Sonnenflammen, Op. 8. The latest new Siegfried opera, completed in 1912 but not premiered until the last month of the war in 1918, is set in Byzantium, a court of dissipation, cowardice, hypocrisy and other less than attractive traits, whose soiled characters the composer manages to portray in all kinds of shades of gray, surprising us with all kinds of character nuance which we don't tend to expect in stage works set in the dim past. As always, the music is melodic and often comfortably lyrical, playing against the grain, so to speak, given the apocalyptic ending which approaches. Symbolism, double meanings, allusions (often musical) to his earlier operas - there's a lot here to appreciate beyond the notes and Peter Pachl continues to be a good, concise guide in his excellent notes. 2 CDs. German-English libretto. Roman Trekel (baritone), Michaela Schneider (soprano), Richard Brunner (tenor), Jürgen Trekel (bass), Chorus and Orchestra of the Halle Opera House; Roger Epple. CPO 777 097 (Germany)

Britain s best-selling choir of the 21st Century, The Sixteen, releases a new album of music inspired by the Virgin Mary. Harry Christophers, the most prolific choral conductor of modern times, directs the choir performing a disc of Marian songs ranging from medieval composers like Palestrina, and Lassus through Bruckner and Liszt, all the way to modern times, including a world premiere work by Margaret Rizza, Ave Generosa. A Mother s Love: Music for Mary is The Sixteen s third album with Universal Classics and Jazz. The first two, Renaissance and Ikon, have already made them the bestselling choral artists in the UK as well as winning them a Classical Brit Award. Harry Christophers has been selected to front a new BBC4 show exploring the History of Sacred Music, rightly using his credentials as the authority in this field. The series, to be aired in spring 2008, will see Christophers as the new Howard Goodall. Business propositions aside, the very highest standards of singing remain the number one priority for Christophers and The Sixteen. The choir s repertoire never deviates from the core classical cannon. And so Christophers is delighted that, through the choir s renewed profile and enlarged fanbase, they can prove to the world with this recording that There s still Something About Mary…

Rarely a clavichord recording of Bach's works is published. It is a very specific instrument with a very peculiar sound. I would call this the precursor of the pianoforte, for you can definitely discern between loud and soft on this recording. This was also Bach's favorite instrument.

Thomas Augustine Arne (12 March 1710 – 5 March 1778) was an English composer, violinist, and keyboard player. He was the father of composer Michael Arne and the husband of lauded soprano Cecilia Young. A prolific composer of music for the stage, he was the most significant figure in 18th-century English theatre music and is considered the catalyst for the revival of English opera in the early 1730s. While he was alive, England's musical scene was for the most part dominated by foreign music and musicians. Arne was the only native English composer of his day that was able to compete successfully with composers like George Frideric Handel who monopolised the British music scene during the eighteenth century.

Johann David Heinichen was born in the small village of Crössuln, near Weissenfels. His father Michael Heinichen had studied music at the celebrated Thomasschule Leipzig associated with the Thomaskirche, served as cantor in Pegau and was pastor of the village church in Crössuln. Johann David also attended Thomasschule Leipzig. There he studied music with Johann Schelle and later received organ and harpsichord lessons with Johann Kuhnau. The future-composer Christoph Graupner was also a student of Kuhnau at the time.

Heinichen enrolled in 1702 to study law at the University of Leipzig and in 1705-6 qualified as a lawyer (in the early 18th century the law was a favored route for composers; Kuhnau, Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann were also lawyers). Heinichen practiced law in Weissenfels until 1709.

However, Heinichen maintained his interest in music and was concurrently composing operas. In 1710, he published the first edition of his major treatise on the thoroughbass. He went to Italy and spent seven formative years there, mostly in Venice.

In 1717, Heinichen became a colleague of Johann Sebastian Bach at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, then went on to be Kapellmeister to the Elector of Saxony. His pupils included Johann Georg Pisendel. In 1721, Heinichen married in Weissenfels and the birth of his only child is recorded in January 1723. In his final years Heinichen's health suffered greatly and on the afternoon of 16 July 1729, he was buried in the Johannes cemetery after finally succumbing to tuberculosis.

His music is enjoying a resurgence of popularity, with some of his masses and his final work, a Magnificat, now receiving some attention in the recording world.