Originally posted by PJPJ
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Originally posted by Beef Oven! View PostDangerous 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?I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I am not a number, I am a free man.
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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.
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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.[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]
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Roehre
Originally posted by johnb View Post....
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......
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.
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Roehre
Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Postjohnb 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.
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Originally posted by Roehre View PostNot 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)[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]
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Originally posted by Roehre View PostNot 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)
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.
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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).
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Originally posted by PJPJ View PostJust announced........
£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.
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Roehre
Originally posted by ostuni View PostI 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).
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.
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Originally posted by MickyD View PostYes, 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.
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Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostIs 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.
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