Benjamin Alard JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Complete Works for Keyboard 4

 

THE COMPLETE WORKS FOR KEYBOARD 4

Benjamin Alard JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Complete Works for Keyboard 3

 

THE COMPLETE WORKS FOR KEYBOARD 3

Benjamin Alard JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Complete Works for Keyboard 2 - Part 2

 

THE COMPLETE WORKS FOR KEYBOARD 2 - PART 2

Benjamin Alard JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Complete Works for Keyboard 2 - Part 1

 

THE COMPLETE WORKS FOR KEYBOARD 2 - PART 1

 

Benjamin Alard JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Complete Work for Keyboard 1

 

THE COMPLETE WORK FOR KEYBOARD 1

 

Benjamin Alard JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Complete Works for Keyboard 2

In 1700, the 15-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach left behind his native Thuringia and travelled to Luneberg, in the north of Germany, where he studied, sang, developed his talents on the organ and made the acquaintance of some of the leading musical figures of the day. Hamburg was close enough that he could visit there, too, with its opera house and cosmopolitan musical life. French Huguenot composers, fleeing religious strife, had brought the latest keyboard fashions to the region, which he absorbed through his encounters with Georg Böhm. And the local musical culture meant steady exposure to Pachelbel, Buxtehude and Reincken.

Benjamin Alard continues his revelatory complete keyboard works series with four discs that explore this new milieu, which had such a powerful impact on Bach’s musical style. ‘Towards the North’, the second instalment of this beautifully played and produced series, explores the years 1705 08; and like the first it includes music not just by Bach but by the composers who influenced him. So we have a steady, sensible reading of Reincken’s magisterial chorale fantasy An Wasser Flüssen Babylon, a theme on which Bach would extemporise a legendary improvisation years later, when he was a master of equal standing to his aged predecessor.

The works of Bach in this period are, like those heard on the first volume, a motley assemblage, reflecting his growing skill, his absorptive talent, his occasional clumsy efforts and his nascent mastery, which one hears in the early toccatas included on the fourth and last disc of the set.

One of the great pleasures of these discs, beyond Alard’s smooth renditions and clarifying fingerwork, is his choice of instruments, in particular a claviorganum built in 2009 10. The combination of the harpsichord’s sharp ictus and the organ’s mellow and sustained tone gives his renditions of early chorale arrangements both linear fluidity and tonal richness, a sharply etched chamber-music sound that fits their four-part texture perfectly. The soprano Gerlinde Sämann sings the chorale lines with simplicity and a pleasant tone, underlying the musical source material and adding to the chamber-music fullness of the presentation.

Alard’s playing is rhythmically free, fleet and unpretentious, and, once again – even if this collection feels a bit like preparatory material for the main event to come – it leaves one eagerly anticipating Alard’s arrival at Bach’s second Weimar period, with its explosion of keyboard riches. (Philip Kennicott / Gramophone)

Benjamin Alard JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Complete Works for Keyboard 1

The first instalment of Benjamin Alard’s projected complete keyboard works of JS Bach is entirely auspicious. Subtitled ‘The Young Heir’, this three-disc set includes works performed on the harpsichord and organ, dating from (roughly) 1699-1705, the young composer’s childhood and apprentice years. The first CD includes works of musicians with whom Bach would have been familiar, among them members of his own extended musical family, including the greatest of his forebears, his great uncle Johann Christoph Bach, and his father-in-law, Johann Michael Bach. Also included are works by Frescobaldi, Froberger, Pachelbel, Marchand and de Grigny, along with Georg Böhm, whose work was particularly influential on the young Bach.

Alard is equally accomplished on both the organ and the harpsichord and moves from one to the other with facility. The organ is used not just for the early chorales but also, on the third disc, for the Capriccio on the departure of his brother, BWV992, an effective choice. The three discs are organised both chronologically and geographically, documenting the early peregrinations of the composer as he emerged from the musical milieu of his brother’s town of Ohrdruf to his time in Lüneberg, where Böhm was a central figure, and his first professional posting in Arnstadt. Not surprisingly, the first two discs feel a bit scattered and unfocused, while the third reveals the composer coming into his own and contains the most substantial of the early works.

Alard’s playing is a delight, clean and sensible, with striking agogic expressive power. On the early discs, his performances of works by Froberger and Kuhnau (a spare and melancholy little sonata) are even more striking than the sometimes more workmanlike chorales and early fugues. But the third disc is full of evidence that the rest of this cycle will be a collection to be reckoned with, including fine renditions of the Suite in A major, BWV832, and the early, delightfully naive Aria variata alla maniera italiana, BWV989. Both the organ (from the Sainte-Aurélie church in Strasbourg, originally built in 1718) and the harpsichord (by Émile Jobin, based on a 1612 Ruckers and a 1747 Joannes Dulken instrument) are colourful and well suited to the repertoire. This is a project to watch with anticipation. (Philip Kennicott / Gramophone)

A Nocte Temporis / Reinoud Van Mechelen CLÉRAMBAULT Cantates Françaises

“A nocte temporis”: Latin translation of the French expression “depuis la nuit des temps”, which means “from time immemorial”. A nod towards the past, towards what is changing, and especially also towards what remains unchanged.

After several years of activity as a soloist with conductors such as William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Hervé Niquet, Christophe Rousset, and many others, Reinoud Van Mechelen founds his own ensemble in 2016. His goal is to present historically informed music as well as to emotionally touch an as large audience as possible. For this purpose he surrounds himself with musicians who share this passion with him and who are ready to take up this challenge.

Reinoud Van Mechelen / A Nocte Temporis BACH Erbarme Dich

Since he completed his master studies in 2012 at the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels (class of Dina Grossberger), Reinoud Van Mechelen has established himself on the international stage. 

In 2007 he caught attention at the Académie Baroque Européenne in Ambronay under the baton of Hervé Niquet. In 2011 he was a member of the "Jardin des Voix" of William Christie and Paul Agnew and became soon a regular soloist of Les Arts florissants. With Les Arts florissants he has performed at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, the Edinburgh Festival, the Château de Versailles, the Bolchoï Theatre in Moscow, the Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican Centre in London, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Philharmonie in Paris, the Opéra Comique and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. 

At the same time he is a guest with international ensembles such as Collegium Vocale, Le Concert Spirituel, La Petite Bande, Les Talens Lyriques, Pygmalion, Le Poème Harmonique, Il Gardellino, Insula Orchestra, L’Arpeggiata, Ludus Modalis, B’Rock, Ricercar Consort, Capriccio Stravagante, Scherzi Musicali, European Union Baroque Orchestra. 

 In 2014 Reinoud Van Mechelen performed his first Evangelist in J.S. Bach's Johannes passion with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. The season after he made his debut in a title role in an opera by Rameau, Dardanus, at the Opéra national de Bordeaux. 

In 2016/17 he will be debuting at the Zürich Opera in Charpentier's Médée(Jason) under the baton of William Christie. He will go a significant way ahead in extending his repertoire performing in concert Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Gérald (Lakmé) with the Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio.