Arte dei Suonatori & Marcin Świątkiewicz – Instrumental Theatre of Affects (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:22 minutes | 1,63 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Following their critically acclaimed recording of Johann Gottfried Müthel’s keyboard concertos (BIS-2179), Polish ensemble Arte dei Suonatori and Marcin Świątkiewicz, who conducts from his instrument, perform the six Hamburg symphonies by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach interspersed with solo fantasias for keyboard. The music of C.P.E. Bach has always been a source of fascination for the listener with its great variety of atmospheres, captivating melodic ideas, irresistible contrasts, surprising interweaving of voices, eccentric harmonies, and extreme dynamic transitions. The six symphonies featured here are no exception, displaying a truly ‘subversive’ musical style expressed through extreme contrasts. Owing to the richness of their ideas, the virtuosity and the acuity of the compositional work, these works are considered the crowning achievement of C.P.E. Bach’s output. Since these symphonies can be considered as intimate chamber music, they are here performed by a compact ensemble where each musician participates in the interpretation on an equal footing, and everyone is heard. Thanks to the historically oriented performance practices followed here, the Hamburg symphonies and fantasias of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach thus regain the impact they originally had, inspiring awe, and moving hearts.
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Marcin Świątkiewicz – JS Bach: Harpsichord Concertos I, II, III (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:55 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Channel Classics Records
Musical works of genius are sometimes approached as museum exhibits, and the controversies concerning interpretative freedom can even be more fierce than Scheibe’s famous polemic with Bach’s advocate Birnbaum. Full of respect for the Composer’s artistic ideas as I am, I try to understand his music in the context of a time when improvisation was universally practised. The wealth, complexity and refinement of the notation make this task more difficult, but important clues are provided by the study of versions that usually differ in these very aspects, namely – texture and ornamentation. I made up my mind to look for my own embellishments, especially in those sections that are repeated da capo, but also in the brief cadenzas. My partners in this project adopted a similar stance. We believe that this approach is closer to the Composer’s own intention than a literal reading of the score. It provides for a fuller understanding of the music and for a greater freedom of expression.
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Marcin Swiatkiewicz – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV988 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:21:17 minutes | 1018 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RUBICON
I decided to cultivate the tradition of recording Goldberg Variations. This 20th-century ritual resulted in hundreds or thousands of interpretations performed on various instruments and recorded on various labels. Believers collect recordings of this lengthy masterpiece. There are legends about the sleepless nights of the count and about the genius of an adolescent Gdańsk man, and the Orthodox spend creative hours of gray twilight seeking the final argument for the superiority of the First Record of the Canadian over the Second, or vice versa.
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