Volume 24 Issue 5 - February 2019

Old Wine,
New Bottles
Fine Old Recordings Re-Released
BRUCE SURTEES
Bach333: J.S. Bach – The New Complete Edition
Various Artists
Deutsche Grammophon 4798000 (222 CDs; bach333.com/en/)
When I was presented with this edition
for review a little while ago I was
delighted. Now I can play absolutely any
Bach work at any time, I rejoiced. Then
it sunk in. What exactly can be written
to appraise excellence? “Are you going
to recommend it?” “Will you listen to
222 CDs?” were typical questions from
friends. After assessing the enormity
of the collection and playing something
from just about every category,
I settled down to watch the one DVD in the box, Bach: A Passionate
Life, a documentary written and presented by Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
This is an engrossing documentary and unfolding story, an appreciation
with conversations with colleagues and others. Gardiner
describes Bach’s life from his birth in Eisenach on March 21, 1685
through his early years and Lutheranism in Eisenach, his family and
musical education. Gardiner follows his life and works in Arnstadt,
Mülhausen, Weimar and finally on July 28, 1750, at the age of 65, his
death in the Thomasschule in Leipzig following a botched operation.
Interwoven in the narrative are period-informed performances of
significant passages from several genres, the ensemble works mostly
directed by Gardiner. I mention this most informative and absorbing
DVD because, quite unexpectedly, my appreciation of many of Bach’s
original works in the collection, all of them, choral, concertos,
concerted works, string solos, organ and keyboard works, etc. has
been heightened.
So, what’s in the box? Everything. There are 48 CDs of sacred
cantatas conducted mainly by Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir
with some performed by Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium,
Japan. Others are by Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale
Gent, Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and
Choir, Joshua Rifkin and the Bach Ensemble, and more. The 22
secular cantatas are directed by Suzuki, Rifkin, Hogwood, Goebel,
Koopman, Leonhardt, Gardiner, Alexander Grychtolik and Helmut
Rilling. The three Magnificats are under Gardiner, Simon Preston and
Paul McCreesh. The Mass in B Minor is from Frans Brüggen. Peter
Schreier conducts Masses BWV 234-236. Two versions of St John
Passion are by Gardiner and Suzuki, two versions of St Matthew
Passion, by Gardiner and McCreesh. Two Christmas Oratorios,
Gardiner and Chailly. And there are many more works for voice and
voices including, as the title states, everything else. Complete texts
with translations are in four accompanying booklets. Before leaving
the vocal works there are 23 CDs of historic recordings from 1933 on.
They include conductors Mengelberg, Scherchen, Karl Ristenpart,
Fritz Lehmann, Karl Münchinger, Neville Marriner, Benjamin Britten,
Raymond Leppard and Roger Norrington. Karl Richter and the Munich
Bach Orchestra and Choir has 13 CDs including another complete
Matthew Passion. Vocalists include Karl Erb, Magdá Laszló, Hilde
Rössel-Majdan, Waldemar Kmentt, Helmut Krebs, Alfred Poell,
Fischer-Dieskau, Agnes Giebel, Elly Ameling, Ileana Cotrubas, Hugues
Cuénod, Julia Hamari, Birgit Finnilä, Helen Watts, Werner Krenn,
Tom Krause, Janet Baker, Robert Tear, Peter Pears, Matthias Goerne,
Peter Schreier, Anna Reynolds, Hertha Töpper, Ursula Buckel and
about 50 more including Emma Kirkby, Gundula Janowitz and Fritz
Wunderlich.
The second half of this everything collection is devoted to instrumental
works beginning with the entire catalogue of organ works
on 20 discs played by distinguished soloists. Bach was a superlative
organist and composer, hence his compositions are best served
by virtuoso performers, as these are here, playing organs throughout
Europe, Scandinavia and England. Mavens will recognize their names
including: Simon Preston, Ton Koopman, Peter Hurford, Wolfgang
Rübsam, Helmut Walcha, Daniel Chorzempa, Graham Barber and
Christian Schmitt. CD124 presents 20 “Free Works of Unproven
Authenticity.” They are organ works and each has a BWV number
assigned to it, BWV898 with the rest spotted between BWV 533 to
598. Played by Hurford and Preston and two others, the risk is leaving
them out of a complete edition… they may be authentic.
The keyboard works are shared by harpsichordists and pianists.
Harpsichordists include Trevor Pinnock, Gustav Leonhardt, Justin
Taylor, Kenneth Gilbert, Huguette Dreyfus, Ton Koopman, Keith
Jarrett, Masaaki Suzuki, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Christopher Hogwood,
Christophe Rousset, Mahan Estahani and others, both familiar and
unfamiliar. Pianists include Brendel, Argerich, Hewitt, Jarrett and
Ashkenazy, Schiff and Nelson Freire, Murray Perahia, Maria João
Pires, Benjamin Grosvenor and Pogorelich. There are five CDs of
keyboard legends; pianists Edwin Fischer, Gulda, Lipatti, Gieseking,
Backhaus, Tureck, Myra Hess (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring), Richter,
Horowitz, Gilels and others. Organists include Albert Schweitzer and
Helmut Walcha.
The Brandenburg Concertos, the violin and keyboard concertos
and the orchestral suites are directed by Goebel and Pinnock and
Hogwood, all with period instrument soloists. Following six CDs
of a miscellany of “Orchestral Traditions” there are seven CDs of,
“Instrumental Traditions” containing famous pre-informed versions
from 1935 on. A group of Bach works include “Solo and Chamber
Works” played by alternative instrumentalists. The first alternative
is a rather unexpected version of the mighty Toccata and Fugue in
D minor, BWV565 played on a lone period instrument by violinist
Andrew Manze. So simply perfectly correct and satisfying in every
respect, one could easily believe that this is the original, not an
alternative version.
There are many other sub-groups: “The Bach Family”; “Concertos
at Weimer,” arrangements of Telemann, Vivaldi and Marcello; “Bach
Renewed – From Bach’s Sons to Mahler”; “Bach Reimagined,” with
orchestrations by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, Busoni,
Respighi and Stokowski; “Bach Orchestrated – Reger to Stokowski”;
“Inspired by Bach – Gounod to Pärt”; “Bach & the Virtuoso Piano –
Liszt to Busoni”; “Bach & The Virtuoso Piano – The 20th century”;
“Bach à la Jazz”; and finally, on CD222, “New Colours of Bach.”
Each CD sleeve is numbered 1 to 222, and colour-coded. Finding
a certain CD is easy, either categorically or finding the location
within from the directory listing by BWV number, title or artist. The
CDs sit vertically on an A-frame construction within the box. Very
clever. Deutsche Grammophon has, once again, outdone themselves
and everyone else in preparing this uniquely unmatched collection
containing “every known note from the great master.” There are over
280 hours of music, including 10 hours of new recordings, totaling
750 performers. For this monumental edition, DG collaborated with
Decca and 30 other labels and the Leipzig Bach Archive. Three books
are included, the scholarly up-to-date BWV listing, a fine quality 222
page hard-bound with an appreciation of every composition on every
disc, and a matching hardcover book covering every aspect of Bach’s
life, complete with essays by noted authorities.
So, my reply to the questions in the first paragraph is Yes and No.
84 | February 2019 thewholenote.com