Gustav Leonhardt

Gustav Leonhardt – J.S. Bach: BWV 1027-1029 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:11 minutes | 459 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © FIN

Gustav Maria Leonhardt was a Dutch keyboardist, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. He was a leading figure in the historically informed performance movement to perform music on period instruments. Leonhardt professionally played many instruments, including the harpsichord, pipe organ, claviorganum (a combination of harpsichord and organ), clavichord, fortepiano and piano. He also conducted orchestras and choruses.

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Gustav Leonhardt – Elizabethan Organ Music (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:34 minutes | 910 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Paradizo

Though known primarily as a harpsichordist, Gustav Leonhardt spent much time and effort over a fifty-year period performing and recording on the finest historic organs in Europe – from the 1559 ‘baldachin’ organ at Churburg Castle in Switzerland to the largest instruments including the Schnitger organs of Alkmaar, Zwolle and Hamburg and the organ of the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. These European organs are among the greatest artistic monuments of Europe of the last millennium, combining musical instrument making, design, architecture and decoration. The perpetual care of these organs is essential. Leonhardt was an enthusias- tic supporter of fine organ restoration – once asked to contribute a few written words for fund-raising for the restoration of an historic organ, he wrote that ‘even to the most sensitive ears, the rattle of coin and the rustle of paper money are sounds not disagreeable’. Organist of both the Waalse Kerk (1959-1982) and the Nieuwe Kerk (1980-2012) in Amsterdam, Leonhardt was always an active force in this movement that began, at least in Northern Europe, in the 1950s.

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