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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Howard Arman – Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 – Neukomm: Libera me, Domine (Live) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:08 minutes | 552 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
Mozart’s unfinished last composition, the Requiem in D minor from 1791, is one of the most famous compositions of the Latin Mass for the Dead. The version on this CD, submitted by Howard Arman for the Bavarian Radio Chorus, is based on Mozart’s sources and the additions by Franz Xaver S”ussmayr. CD 2 of this release offers an introduction to the work by Markus Vanhoefer (in German) from the series BR-KLASSIK WISSEN – Wege zur Musik.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Georg Kallweit – Handel: Concerti grossi, Op. 3 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:09 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Even if this selection of ‘Concertos’ was most likely compiled by Handel’s publisher rather than by the composer himself, the overall quality and colourful nature of the music contained do make it a powerful ‘opus’. With their historically-informed and lively playing, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and concertmaster Georg Kallweit demonstrate why many consider them the best Baroque ensemble of today.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – Friedrich der Grosse (Frédéric le Grand): Music for the Berlin Court (Musique pour la cour de Berlin) (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:58 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
The year 2012 marks the tercentenary of the birth of Frederick the Great, whose political and military glory has often relegated his musical talent to the status of a mere hobby. But Frederick II was not only the key personality of Berlin musical life for the whole of the 18th century – as is shown by the works of the composers presented on this CD, all of whom worked at his court at some point in their careers – but also an excellent flautist who left posterity a number of fine flute sonatas from his own pen.
The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2012. Formed in East Berlin in 1982, Akamus can pride itself on an outstanding reputation and an exceptional career: it has been a welcome guest in all thegreat musical institutions of Europe, Asia and North and South America. In 2011, the ensemble took in its stride operatic productions in nine European countries, an extended tour of the USA and its first tour to China.
The group gives around one hundred concerts a year, with varied forces, under the direction of its different Konzertmeisters: Midori Seiler, Stephan Mai, Bernhard Forck, Georg Kallweit; or guest conductors such as Marcus Creed, Daniel Reuss and Hans-Christoph Rademann. The Akademie’s collaboration with René Jacobs, which started almost 25 years ago, has turned into a genuine artistic partnership. The productions resulting from their work together have been enthusiastically acclaimed both on stage and on record: their recording of ‘Die Zauberflöte’ was distinguished with an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and BBC Music Choice. More recently ‘Agrippina’ has been shortlisted for a BBC Music Award in April 2012.
Since 1994, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has recorded exclusively for harmonia mundi.
Composer: Johann Gottlieb Graun, Christoph Nichelmann, Frederick the Great, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach
Orchestra/Ensemble: Academy for Ancient Music Berlin
Vivica Genaux, Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, Rene Jacobs – Arias for Farinelli (2003)
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 77:33 minutes | Scans & Digital booklet | 3,59 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans & Digital booklet | 1,36 GB
Features Stereo & Multichannel Surround Sound / Harmonia Mundi # HMC 801778
Recording an album of arias written expressly for Farinelli, one of the most legendary castratos of the eighteenth century, is brave; his name invokes a world of superhuman vocal feats, remarkable pathos, and a uniquely strong and brilliant tone that, for obvious anatomical reasons, will not be replicated by modern singers. But that clearly does not scare Vivica Genaux who, along with René Jacobs and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, dives into Farinelli’s repertory as if it were her very own. She reveals a voice capable of dizzying speed and agility, and a refreshing ability to find in the highly ornamented, expression-through-excess style that typified opera seria of the time a sincerity and musical integrity that makes a case for its wider exploration. Jacobs and the Akademie are equally impressive, playing with a rhythmic vitality and crisp ensemble that elevates their role to an equal plane with that of the voice. Inclusion of Baldassare Galuppi’s Concerto à quattro in D minor – a rare orchestral selection on a vocal recital album – is especially interesting; although it lacks the visceral appeal of the sung selections, it showcases the ensemble to great effect. Genaux is terrific in all respects, but she really shines when the fireworks start. There are jaw-dropping passages in these arias that are impossibly intricate, often combining furious coloratura and ornament upon ornament with wide leaps and extremes of range, both high and low. Hearing her negotiate these difficulties with such clarity and confidence is awe-inspiring and fun. Especially noteworthy are “Qual guerriero in campo armato” from Idaspe, by Riccardo Broschi (Farinelli’s brother) and Geminiano Giacomelli’s “Quell’usignolo,” from the opera Merope. Both are showpieces that very few people could sing at all, let alone so winningly.
Read more![Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck - Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 8 - Méhul: Symphony No. 1 - Cherubini: Lodoïska Overture (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/19/d190ntwj5m52a_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck – Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 8 – Méhul: Symphony No. 1 – Cherubini: Lodoïska Overture (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:30:48 minutes | 1,53 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
The least famous of Beethoven’s symphonies? Yet these two works are genuine tours de force: the composer takes the listener on a journey whose destination never seems to be known in advance, one brimming over with structural innovations subtly brought out in this interpretation by the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. This recording is also an opportunity to discover just how clearly Cherubini’s music prefigured that of Beethoven, whereas Méhul’s Symphony is a response à la française to the German composer.
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Christina Landshamer, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Bernhard Forck – La passione (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:51 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin returns to Pentatone together with soprano Christina Landshamer, presenting La Passione, a collection of dazzling concert arias on love, longing and loss by Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn, paired with the latter’s “La Passione” Symphony. Ranging from pastoral simplicity to exuberant outrage, the programme offers some of the finest vocal writing around 1800, including some of Beethoven’s rare and little-known excursions to Italian bravura opera, as well as one of the most dramatic and expressive symphonies of the eighteenth-century.
Read more![Bejun Mehta, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs - Che Puro Ciel: The Rise of Classical Opera (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/29/qr4aqxrgk6hka_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Bejun Mehta, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs – Che Puro Ciel: The Rise of Classical Opera (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:48 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Arias & scenes from l’Orféo et Euridice, Ascanio in Alba, Antigona et Ifigenia in Tauride (Traetta), Il trionfo di Clelia (Hasse), Artaserse (Bach), Ezio (Gluck), Mitridate (Mozart)
In the famous Preface to Alceste (1767), Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi posited a new direction for opera. They spoke of moving beyond Baroque forms, of striving for a new naturalism in opera. They wanted, in Calzabigi’s lovely phrase, to liberate the language of the heart. Taken from the height of this Reform period, the arias on this disc reveal composers exploring and experimenting, at struggle and at play, as they create the new forms that bring to opera the noble simplicity of the Classical era. Bejun Mehta returns to the Wigmore Hall and Covent Garden in 2014 [Mitridate].
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![Bejun Mehta, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin - Cantata: Yet Can I Hear... (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/29/wokpenvkhvhob_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Bejun Mehta, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – Cantata: Yet Can I Hear… (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:49 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © PentaTone
For the benefit of any Qobuz readers who might be offended that the Bach cantata Ich habe genug is sung here by a counter-tenor in the soprano register (rather than the normal bass), we want to point out two things: first, in the baroque era, music would be rewritten at the drop of a hat to fit the musicians who were available at a given time; and, secondly, this particular transposition was made by the Cantor himself! And what’s more, he actually thoroughly revised two works… The short cantata Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde was for a long time attributed to Bach before credit was finally given to its author Melchior Hoffmann: but it is testament to the work’s tremendous quality that the mix-up was possible: its originality certainly gives the listener pause for thought. For one thing, the aria contains a glockenspiel section! Counter-tenor Bejun Mehta continues his exploration of the world of the baroque cantata with the superb Pianti, sospiri e dimandar mercede by Vivaldi, which brims over with invention and harmonic and melodic surprises. Handel’s cantatas, on the other hand, were more directly written for amateur audiences, and therefore somewhat easier musically: whereas Bach never had to worry about selling his scores, Handel was very much preoccupied by sales! Berlin’s Akademie für alte Musik provides a fervent accompaniment, and without a conductor, as they know this music like the back of their hands.
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![Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs - Bach, J.S.: St John Passion, BWV 245 (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/21/3149020223703_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs – Bach, J.S.: St John Passion, BWV 245 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:46:33 minutes | 1,88 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
The two faces of a monument :: Bach revised his Johannes-Passion regularly: he returned to it over a period of twenty-six years, from 1724 to his death. It is the version hallowed by tradition, established by the Kantor a year before his death, that is presented on these albums.
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Xenia Löffler, Georg Kallweit, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – Concerto, Venice: The Golden Age (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:40 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
This disc is an invitation to explore one of the great attractions of Venice in the Baroque era, the famous ‘ospedali’. These were establishments that took care of and educated children and adolescents. In the early 18 century almost all the leading Venetian musicians were linked with the musical activities of one of the ospedali. The best-known among them was Antonio Vivaldi: just 25 when he was hired as violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà. Among the residents of the Pietà was a girl named Pellegrina, for whom Vivaldi wrote many of his oboe concertos. Accompanied by her colleagues of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, oboist Xenia Löffler not only breathes new life into a selection of concertos by the Red Priest’, but also several by his emulators, among them a contemporary composer, Uri Rom. The programme begins with a concerto composed by Rom [b. 1969] in 2013 to a commission from the Akademie für Alte Musik and dedicated to Xenia Löffler, one of today s leading oboists. ‘Concerto L Olimpiade’ is a sort of pasticcio based on works by Antonio Vivaldi and Carlo Tessarini. The first movement is based on the aria Siam navi all onde algenti from the opera’ L Olimpiade’. The second movement reflects the reception of the Italian style by J. S. Bach. The finale takes as its models a movement from a violin concerto by Vivaldi (RV 172) and a movement from a violin concerto by Tessarini. The solo part and the formal layout of the movement are new. Since 2001 Xenia Löffler has been a member and principal oboist of the Akademie für Alte Musik, appearing regularly on international concert platforms as a soloist with that orchestra and with Collegium 1704 (Prague), the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle and the orchestra of the Halle Handel Festival.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, RIAS Kammerchor and Justin Doyle – Haydn: Missa Cellensis, Hob. XXII:5 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:05:41 minutes | 659 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
It was when the young Haydn was appointed Kapellmeister to Prince Nikolaus Esterházy that he composed his Missa Cellensis, a work of vast proportions, whose popularity is demonstrated by the many surviving copies.
In this interpretation full of vivid contrasts, the RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik confirm their extraordinary ability to reveal every subtlety of a composition that possesses almost operatic energy.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernarda Fink & Anna Prohaska – Pergolesi: Stabat Mater (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 35:17 minutes | 335 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Pergolesi completed his Stabat Mater a few days before his death, on 17 March 1736, prompting comparisons with another mythical figure, Mozart composing his Requiem. It is framed here by three more masterpieces of the pianto genre in a similar spirit of bittersweet sadness. Born in Buenos Aires to Slovenian parents, Bernarda Fink studied at the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón. Today her repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the twentieth century, and she appears regularly with such great international orchestras as the Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic and with celebrated Baroque ensembles. Among the conductors with whom she works are Nikolaus Harnoncourt, René Jacobs, Mariss Jansons and Riccardo Muti. Since the start of her career, Bernarda Fink has been applauded in the leading concert halls of Europe and Argentina. She was recently heard in the role of Irene (Theodora) under the direction of Ivor Bolton at the Salzburg Festival and as Idamante in Luc Bondy’s production of Idomeneo conducted by Jesús López-Cobos at the Teatro Real in Madrid; she has also recorded the latter role for harmonia mundi with René Jacobs. She gives song recitals in the principal European and American musical centres. Bernarda Fink has taken part in more than 50 recordings.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs – Pergolesi: Septem verba a Christo (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:28 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Now attributed to Pergolesi on the basis of recent research, the ‘Seven Words of Christ’ has been regarded as ‘one of the most heartfelt works of art, full of profound tenderness and an all-conquering sense of beauty’ [Hermann Scherchen, on its discovery in 1930]. However, his judgment has remained unheeded and only the discovery of two more manuscripts in the abbeys of Kremsmünster and Aldersbach, by the musicologist Reinhard Fehling, prompted the firm of Breitkopf & Härtel to publish a critical edition.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Justin Doyle – Handel: Messiah, HWV 56 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:14:25 minutes | 1,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
The RIAS Kammerchor Berlin and its chief conductor Justin Doyle present Handel’s Messiah, together with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and an all-British quartet of outstanding soloists, consisting of Julia Doyle (soprano), Tim Mead (countertenor), Thomas Hobbs (tenor) and Roderick Williams (bass). Messiah (1742) is not only Handel’s most famous work, but equally one of the cornerstones of British choral culture. Over the years, a tradition of mass performances full of pomp and circumstance took root, with the Hallelujah as a showstopper. This new period-instruments recording, however, aims to bring the piece back to the size and intimacy of the earliest performances.
The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has a substantial PENTATONE discography, including Handel’s Concerti grossi Op. 6 and Op. 3, (released in 2019 and 2020), Telemann’s opera Miriways (2019) and CANTATA with Bejun Mehta (2018). The RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Justin Doyle, Julia Doyle, Tim Mead, Thomas Hobbs and Roderick Williams all make their PENTATONE debut.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck – Handel: Concerti grossi, Op. 6 Nos. 1-6 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:53 minutes | 1,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
The Akademie für Alte Musik reveals its performance of Handel’s first six concertos from Opus 6 in true chamber music spirit, which sometimes brings Handel’s universe closer to that of his continental counterpart, Georg Philipp Telemann, whose work has often been played and recorded by the Berlin ensemble musicians (including several indispensable albums for the French label Harmonia Mundi). For this magnificently recorded first part of their Handel trilogy, which includes the two opuses 3 and 6, recorded in the Nikodemuskirche in Berlin between September 2018 and February 2019, the Akademie für Alte Musik paints rich, striking colours (already showcased in their album Water Music) while remaining attentive to polyphonies and phrasing. This record is a real pleasure throughout, and perhaps even more compelling than their recent album Water Music. – Pierre-Yves Lascar
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