Bach: Organ Mass

Advantages: Wonderful transcriptions of JS Bach's majestic music; sensitive, tender, vivacious, effortless and fluid playing.
Disadvantages: Nil.

...with such vivacity, tenderness and sensitivity as these are – then I turn into a harmless, non-homicidal and blissfully happy Bachmaniac. For a glimpse of pure trumpet heaven, there’s the lively, minor-key Badinerie, lifted from the Orchestral Suite No. 2 (originally written for solo flute and strings), on which Ms Balsom plays a solo piccolo trumpet (the highest-pitched one). And if you’re seeking some lovely pathos to enjoy, there’s the Agnus Dei from the Mass in B minor. Here the trumpet’s mournfulness is no less affecting than the original version with voice, supplemented as it is with textural harmonic counterpoint from the violin, organ and viola da gamba. But really, mere words still fail me in this attempt to capture the all-around excellence of this disc. Go and listen to the music for yourself. Following are a few... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Beautiful relaxing music. Rich instrumentation. Played with passion.
Disadvantages: Not all instruments are from the period.

...are best heard (in my opinion) on the period instruments for which they were originally intended. Whilst Menuhin and his Bath Festival orchestra do not entirely use period instruments, the continuo is performed on the harpsichord and Menuhin uses a piccolo violin in the first. Before I go on to say a little about the individual concertos, I think maybe I should just describe what a concerto actually involves. A concerto is a form of music in which a solo instrument or instruments are contrasted with a larger body of instruments. The main body of instruments of the baroque period is the string section and a continuo instrument usually a harpsichord or organ plays the underlying harmony. The usual format for a concerto is three movements (a fast tempo movement followed firstly by a slow movement and then by another fast movement). Bach... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Brilliant, stirring, excitingly unpredictable, fresh performance; "genius" is not hyperbole in Argerich's case.
Disadvantages: Reflecting its LP origins, the CD lasts only 50' 16"!

...- [Ital.,=touched], type of musical composition. Early examples were written for various instruments, but the best-known form of toccata originated about the beginning of the 17th cent. Free in form, it was one of the first attempts at idiomatic writing for keyboard instruments, in contrast to the strictly contrapuntal pieces of the Renaissance. The toccata was usually rhapsodic, often interspersing rapid passages of brilliant figuration with fugal sections. Andrea Gabrieli, Frescobaldi, Sweelinck, Froberger, Buxtehude, and Bach were outstanding masters of the toccata style. Schumann wrote a toccata for piano in sonata form. As a brilliant showpiece the toccata persists today in organ composition. (from http://www.bartleby.com/65/to/toccata.html, Columbia Encyclopedia) - musical form for keyboard instruments, written in a free style... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful