Frans Brüggen - J. S. Bach: Oratorio de Pâques BWV 249 (2012)

Remaining faithful to their tradition of making live recordings during the course of their concert tours, Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century now come forward with the results of concerts given by them in the spring of last year with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Easter Oratorio as the centrepiece of the new release. With Ilse Eerens, Michael Chance, Markus Schäfer and David Wilson:Johnson as the vocal soloists, and with the faithful Cappella Amsterdam responsible for the choruses, Brüggen and his legendary ensemble once again demonstrate why they have been – and continue to be – one of the pillars of the historically:informed performance movement, which from the final quarter of the 20th century onwards, has stirred up so radically the way of hearing music composed before 1800.

On the other hand, Brüggen has never championed another practice which has become established, for a variety of reasons, in recent years – that of one voice:per:part – which reduces the choral interventions to their minimum form of expression; for which his version of the Easter Oratorio, like with his recent recordings on Glossa of the Mass in B minor and the St John Passion, provides a set of contrasts in tone colours highlighting yet more (if this is possible), the great beauty of the composition.

To complete the disc there is a ‘hypothetical’ Organ Concerto, brought together from instrumental movements from Cantatas, BWV35 and 156, following on from an idea by Frans Brüggen himself which comes with a solid documentary basis in the erudite programme notes supplied by Anselm Hartinger, a music scholar at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.