Bargains

[Beef Oven!]

Just announced........

Just gonna check behind the sofa to see if £140 fell out me strides over the past few months!

[teamsaint]

Dangerous business. Just casually reading your toings and froings, I downloaded #55 from the Suzuki set and now I'm thinking about some Harnoncourt. Anyone know what JEG's performances are like?

any specific ones? He has done almost the whole lot hasn't he? are you asking about the ones in this box?

[Beef Oven!]

any specific ones? He has done almost the whole lot hasn't he? are you asking about the ones in this box?

Cantatas.

Off to the gym, expect a full synopsis of all JEG CD issues on my return

[johnb]

It seems that many forum members rate the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set very highly but I confess to having problems with it. To me it is very much the hair shirt approach to Bach performance.

The recordings were made between 1971 and 1990 and IMO the performances (at least in the earlier recordings) were almost an experimental hot-house with the musicians learning how to play the instruments and the conductors trying to put into practice the (then) latest thoughts about Bach performance. However, since those days HIP has moved on considerably and I am sure that the results would be significantly different if Harnoncourt/Leonhardt were to have recorded the cantatas again.

For me it is an interesting set to dip into. Perhaps there is no ideal set, but then perhaps the concept of "ideal" is somewhat out of place when talking about musical performance and I tend to gravitate towards the Suzuki recordings.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

johnb makes comments similar to others I have occasionally heard from other listeners. I can only say that I disagree with the description of "hair shirt approach" (even slightly, let alone "very much") - as Andrew Parrott (no mean Bach conductor himself) has said of them, they are wonderful performances, not just "historically interesting". HIPP may indeed have "moved on considerably" since then, but still the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set is the only one that uses boys' voices for the "soprano" solos - everybody else uses adult voices - which is a not inconsiderable feature. Leonhardt did other Bach recordings (the Easter and Ascension Oratorios, for example, after this Cantata set (with adult soloists) but they do not surpass or replace what he did earlier. Harnoncourt has completely abandoned the idea of using young voices (soloists and choirs) in Bach recordings, losing much of the vigour and joy of his earlier pioneering impetus, IMO. But comparisons can be odious - the fact remains that for very many listeners that the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set has Musical strengths to match any of the wonderful sets that have appeared since (and I include Suzuki), and to leave many others struggling at the back.

[MickyD]

I'm still waiting for Teldec to re-release the classic first Matthew Passion from Harnoncourt..at the moment you can only get it at inflated prices. I really regret not having bought it earlier, when I got the complete cantatas.

[Roehre]

....
The [Harnoncourt/Leonhardt] recordings were made between 1971 and 1990 and IMO the performances (at least in the earlier recordings) were almost an experimental hot-house with the musicians learning how to play the instruments and the conductors trying to put into practice the (then) latest thoughts about Bach performance. However, since those days HIP has moved on considerably and I am sure that the results would be significantly different if Harnoncourt/Leonhardt were to have recorded the cantatas again......

This is exactly the reason why the original deadline of the project -Bach year 1985- was missed.
Were these recordings made now, or say starting from the late 1980s onwards, the results would have been quite different.
We only have to look at the new(ish) results of recent research by i.a. Wolff and Koopman, as well as to listen to the mastering of the musicians in playing authentically but not (sometimes) out of tune (as happened in the early Harnoncourt/Leonhardt recordings - sometimes by the boy sopranos being not completely up-to-the-job).
And I also think that the Kalmus study scores (for which one needs a magnifying glass the read) which originally were added to the two-LP-sets now would be replaced by copies of the Neue Bach Ausgabe following the results of aforementioned recent research.

Whatever, I still think it's an excellent set, and also a nice one if one is interested in the development of HIP Bach between the late 1960s and the late 1980s.

[Roehre]

johnb makes comments similar to others I have occasionally heard from other listeners. I can only say that I disagree with the description of "hair shirt approach" (even slightly, let alone "very much") - as Andrew Parrott (no mean Bach conductor himself) has said of them, they are wonderful performances, not just "historically interesting". HIPP may indeed have "moved on considerably" since then, but still the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set is the only one that uses boys' voices for the "soprano" solos - everybody else uses adult voices - which is a not inconsiderable feature. Leonhardt did other Bach recordings (the Easter and Ascension Oratorios, for example, after this Cantata set (with adult soloists) but they do not surpass or replace what he did earlier. Harnoncourt has completely abandoned the idea of using young voices (soloists and choirs) in Bach recordings, losing much of the vigour and joy of his earlier pioneering impetus, IMO. But comparisons can be odious - the fact remains that for very many listeners that the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set has Musical strengths to match any of the wonderful sets that have appeared since (and I include Suzuki), and to leave many others struggling at the back.

Not quite: Leusink uses boy sopranos too (where available at the time of recording !, as the whole was recorded within a very short space of time: 2 years IIRC)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not quite: Leusink uses boy sopranos too (where available at the time of recording !, as the whole was recorded within a very short space of time: 2 years IIRC)

Does he?! It's either Ruth Holton or Marjon Strijk on all the ones I own (just under half the complete set) - which ones use a boy solo?

[gurnemanz]

Not quite: Leusink uses boy sopranos too (where available at the time of recording !, as the whole was recorded within a very short space of time: 2 years IIRC)

Leusink did not use boys as soloists:
Quote from an interview with him:
"Why do you use a female soprano-soloist? Have you come off your purist, authentic beliefs?
- No. I would have loved to sing solely with boys and men, but those treble solos are not feasible for schoolkids, if alone because of the lack of time. Besides, I need my top-trebles in the choir. Technically, these recitatives and arias for soprano demand an intensive training of many years. Harnoncourt and Leonard did use various boys trebles and it often shows they fall short. Ruth has a voice and a timbre that match the boys choir perfectly and her technique is super. Besides Ruth, I sometimes used Marjon Strijk, with whom I had worked several times before. Her light soprano voice also suits us well."

The demands of the tight recording schedule meant that solos and choral sections were recorded at separate sessions so as not to keep people (esp boys, I would guess) sitting around when not needed. One possible drawback of this is that not one cantata was recorded as an item in a single session.

[ostuni]

I don't think Leusink ever uses boys for the soprano solos, does he? Though Ruth Holton is (to my ears) nicely boyish in timbre. But, with the famous exception of Peter Jelosits, I have to say that very few of Harnoncourt & Leonhardt's boy soloists can really match up to the challenges in the music.

And I agree with Roehre & johnb that the playing has quite a few rough edges (and, personally, I can't abide Harnoncourt's flautist, Leopold Stasny's, vibrato & unfocussed sound).

[Dave2002]

Just announced........

Is this real, or a Photoshop job? If real, pricing?

£140 which someone has suggested, sounds very cheap to me - not that I think that is, but I reckon the recording company would think so.

I'm guessing, from the magic numbers I've noted with a bit of detective work, that it might be real, but not available until early July (say the 7th) - and that there's no price yet.

[Roehre]

I don't think Leusink ever uses boys for the soprano solos, does he? Though Ruth Holton is (to my ears) nicely boyish in timbre. But, with the famous exception of Peter Jelosits, I have to say that very few of Harnoncourt & Leonhardt's boy soloists can really match up to the challenges in the music.

And I agree with Roehre & johnb that the playing has quite a few rough edges (and, personally, I can't abide Harnoncourt's flautist, Leopold Stasny's, vibrato & unfocussed sound).

I seem to recall he has used some, but by far the best part female singers are used for the treble parts.
The choir however is Leusink's own Holland Boys Choir, of which some members had to play football and sing Bach sometimes on one day, as many of the choral movements were rehearsed and recorded during the evening.

[Dave2002]

Yes, it is a bargain and I agree that the music and performances are wonderful, but if you are a stickler for CD notes, be aware that you don't get the original ones which came with the first release of the discs.

Recently ordered, but it's possible to "try before you buy" for not much money if you have Spotify - http://open.spotify.com/track/4aZu0C49GQZkskooCmuDkp Also, from Amazon the set has the AutoRip feature, so can be downloaded immediately when the CD set is ordered.

[PJPJ]

Is this real, or a Photoshop job? If real, pricing?

£140 which someone has suggested, sounds very cheap to me - not that I think that is, but I reckon the recording company would think so.

I'm guessing, from the magic numbers I've noted with a bit of detective work, that it might be real, but not available until early July (say the 7th) - and that there's no price yet.

Amazon Japan has it listed. Whether it appears outside Japan is another matter.