Academy of Ancient Music

Richard Egarr, Academy of Ancient Music – J.S. Bach: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:24:32 minutes | 2,74 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Academy of Ancient Music

Since 1727, JS Bach’s “Great Passion” has gripped the hearts and uplifted the minds of audiences all over the globe. Nearly three centuries after its premiere, the work has lost none of its power to evoke feelings of compassion for all those who suffer. Its mix of urgent story-telling, meditative arias and mighty choruses sets St Matthew’s account of Christ’s betrayal, trial and execution eloquently and emotionally.

Over the past 40 years the AAM has made over 300 recordings of baroque and classical music, winning Brit and Gramophone Awards along the way, however – remarkably – this is our first recording of the St Matthew Passion. With a superlative cast including James Gilchrist, Sarah Connolly, Thomas Hobbs, Elizabeth Watts, Christopher Maltman and Matthew Rose, and directed by Richard Egarr, this is a landmark project.
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Academy of Ancient Music, Richard Egarr – J.S. Bach: St. John Passion BWV245 (1724 version) (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:44:33 minutes | 1,94 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © AAM Records (Academy of Ancient Music)

JS Bach’s St John Passion is an intensely personal experience, bringing to life the humanity of the passion story. Combining raw viscerality with moments of exquisite intimacy, it was written soon after Bach’s arrival as Kantor at Leipzig’s Thomasschule. Keen to impress a new congregation, Bach produced a setting of the age-old passion story which overshadowed almost every piece of liturgical music the world had previously known. Our recording aims to capture the authenticity and vivacity of the very first Good Friday performance at Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche.

Over the past 40 years the AAM has made over 300 recordings of baroque and classical music, winning Brit and Grammy Awards along the way. This is our first-ever recording of the St John Passion. With a superlative cast including James Gilchrist, Sarah Connolly, Andrew Kennedy, Elizabeth Watts, Christopher Purves and Matthew Rose, and directed by Richard Egarr, this is a landmark project.
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Academy of Ancient Music, Richard Egarr – J.S. Bach: Orchestral Suites BWV1066-9 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:33:46 minutes | 1,91 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Academy of Ancient Music

Announcing AAM Record’s newest release, AAM003 JS Bach Orchestral Suites, available worldwide from 4 November 2014. Bach’s Orchestral Suites are a series of grand and graceful dances, paying homage to the French baroque style as championed by the ballet-obsessed King Louis XIV. Written during Bach’s years in Leipzig, where he had a wider range of instruments at his disposal than ever before, the Suites revel in new sonorous possibilities and employ varied combinations of wind, brass, stringed instruments and timpani.

“The news of the death of Christopher Hogwood comes just as the orchestra he founded, the Academy of Ancient Music, releases a fine new set of Bach’s Orchestral Suites with his successor, Richard Egarr, repeating the one-to-a-part approach he adopted for their Harmonia Mundi Brandenburg set. The sound is consequently less expansive than other recordings but the rewards are glorious, with Egarr at the harpsichord driving the delightfully clean and springy rhythms, every detail sharply defined, each separate timbre there for us to enjoy. This intimate chamber approach allows the trumpets in Suites Nos.3 and 4 to glow rather than blast, and the exceptional flute of Rachel Brown to shine in all its woody-toned charm in Suite No.2. Highly recommended.” –The Observer
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Academy of Ancient Music, Richard Egarr – Castello: Sonata Concertate In Stil Moderno, Libro Primo (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:37 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Academy of Ancient Music

The Academy of Ancient Music explores a revolutionary period of Italian music through the work of Venetian man of mystery Dario Castello.

Working at the same time as Claudio Monteverdi, Dario Castello wrote innovative and ground-breaking sonatas that had a profound effect on generations of Italian composers. Very little is known about him today, but in the 17th century he was actually more widely published than Shakespeare.

AAM Music Director Richard Egarr is a lifelong advocate of Castello, and on this recording directs the composer’s first book of sonatas from the harpsichord and organ.Taking the form of a small chamber group, the AAM finds itself at its most adventurous and expressive, performing twelve fiercely virtuosic sonatas for violin, cornetto and dulcian that are full of imagination and colour.

This release – the fifth on AAM Records – follows the AAM’s critically-acclaimed series of JS Bach recordings. Their 2015 release of JS Bach’s St Matthew Passion (AAM004) was praised by BBC Music Magazine for Richard Egarr’s “compellingly original vision”, and was awarded BBC Radio 3’s Disc of the Week. JS Bach’s Orchestral Suites (AAM003) was awarded five stars by Fine Music Magazine and was described as “a feast of meaningfully understated musicianship” in an Editor’s Choice review in Gramophone magazine.

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