Masaaki Suzuki

Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki – Bach, J.S.: Secular Cantatas, Vol. 4 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:06 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS Records

The two works on this disc perfectly illustrate a particular type of secular cantata, the so-called dramma per musica. In such works the libretto is constructed dramatically, and the singers embody various roles, such as gods and other characters from antiquity, and allegorical figures. The parallel with opera is apparent, although the drammi per musica do without any scenic element. Bach primarily used the form in works intended for princely tributes or academic festivities: educated audiences could be expected to recognize the characters and literary traditions involved. Both cantatas recorded here are academic cantatas, composed in honour of eminent members of the faculty at the University of Leipzig. BWV 205 celebrates the name day of Dr August Friedrich Mller (3rd August 1725), and takes us to Aeolia, where Aeolus, the King of the Winds, holds the mighty autumn storms captive until it is time to let them loose on the world. To prevent any disruption of the celebrations for Dr Mller, the goddess Pallas, among others, entreats Aeolus to keep the storms in check for a while longer. Grudgingly he concedes to her wish, but only after singing an aria full of splendid bluster (Wie will ich lustig lachen). One year later, Bach composed the cantata BWV 207 for the appointment of Dr Gottlieb Kortte as professor extraordinarius. The young jurist enjoyed particular popularity among the young academics, who probably were the commissioners of the cantata. In this work it is virtues such as Diligence and Honour which take musical shape, singing the praise of the eminent academic. The cantata closes with a chorus, Kortte lebe, Kortte blhe!, wishing the new professor a long and flourishing life unfortunately to little avail, as Dr Kortte died only five years later, at the age of 33.
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Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki – Bach: Lutheran Masses, Volume 2 (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:30 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS

By Bach’s time, the traditional forms of church service had been fundamentally altered by the Reformation, and in German churches Latin had yielded to the country’s own language. To an extent, however, the Latin mass text did remain in use in Protestant church music – in particular the Kyrie and Gloria sections. Albeit incomplete, this form of mass setting was termed ‘Missa’; nowadays the pieces are often referred to as ‘Lutheran Masses’. Bach’s famous Mass in B minor, later expanded into a complete mass, began its existence as a work of this kind, and four other examples from Bach’s pen have survived. The recent release of the Missae in G minor and G major (BWV 235 and 236) caused the reviewers in Gramophone and Fono Forum to eagerly look forward to the sequel, and Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki have not kept them waiting. Like their companion works, the two Lutheran Masses recorded here make extensive use of earlier compositions by Bach and include reworkings of arias and choruses from cantatas, but each of the four masses also has its own unmistakable artistic profile. The most telling detail on the present disc is the instrumentation, where Bach’s choice of flutes in BWV 234 and of horns and oboes in BWV 233 contributes to the individual character of each work. In his task of supplying the music for church services Bach also performed music by other composers, among them Marco Gioseppe Peranda whose Kyrie-Gloria mass closes the disc. Born in 1625, Peranda trained in Rome, and was active in the Dresden Hofkapelle from the 1650s until his death in 1675. Copies in Bach’s hand of parts of Peranda’s splendidly contrapuntal Missa in A minor exist, and it is likely that Bach performed the work during the latter part of his Leipzig period.
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Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki – J.S. Bach: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:43:14 minutes | 2,86 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS

Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan made their first recording of the St Matthew Passion in March 1999. Twenty years later, in April 2019, it was time once again, as the singers and players gathered in the concert hall of the Saitama Arts Theater in Japan. ‘A profound joy’ is how Masaaki Suzuki describes his emotion at the opportunity to record Bach’s great fresco of Christ’s Passion for a second time. And this time, he and his ensemble have brought with them into the concert hall a profound and collective familiarity with Bach’s choral music, after having recorded more or less all of it in the meantime, including the complete sacred cantatas. For his Evangelist, Suzuki has selected the young German tenor Benjamin Bruns, making his first appearance on BIS. Among the other soloists are familiar names including Carolyn Sampson, Damien Guillon, Makoto Sakurada and Christian Immler.
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Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki – J.S. Bach: St. John Passion, BWV 245 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:44:53 minutes | 1,91 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS

On 6 of March 2020, Bach Collegium Japan began their long-awaited 30th anniversary tour of Europe with a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion in Katowice, Poland. The same week Europe was becoming aware of the very stark reality of the threat posed by the new Coronavirus, Covid-19. Consequently, as Masaaki Suzuki and his ensemble went on to perform in Dublin and then London, concert halls across Europe were closing down and the remaining tour dates were cancelled. Before making their return to Japan, the BCJ agreed with the Kölner Philharmonie to go ahead with the concert that had been planned, in the form of a live streaming without an audience. This meant that the ensemble had time on their hands, and the idea was born to use it for making a recording. Having received permission to use the hall of the Philharmonie for the recording, Bach Collegium Japan and BIS jointly decided to go ahead with the idea, and during a few hectic hours arrangements were made for a recording team to come to Cologne. Over the next few days, Suzuki, the BCJ and a team of soloists headed by James Gilchrist as the Evangelist, recorded Bach’s rendering of the Passion of Christ, finishing just ahead of complete lockdown. Their efforts are now available as a testimony not only to the drama of Bach’s score, but also to the urgency of a week when the world changed.
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Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki – Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 “Choral” (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:28 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS

Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Tolstoy’s War and Peace – those works of art that are truly part of the canon of global culture are few and far apart. In music, one work that holds significance for people all over the world is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and especially its choral finale. Even today, as we are getting ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of its creator, the sheer size and complexity of the symphony is daunting.
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Masaaki Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan – Beethoven: Missa solemnis, Op. 123 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:07 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS

Beethoven began composing the Missa solemnis in 1819, when he learned that his patron (and pupil) Archduke Rudolph was going to be appointed Cardinal Archbishop of Olmütz. The plan was for the mass to be ready for performance at the enthronement celebrations in March 1820, but one year proved to be too little time. It wasn’t until almost three years later, in January 1823, that Beethoven was able to complete the work.

As might be expected, it was unparalleled in every respect – although composed for use during church services, even Beethoven’s contemporaries found that it exceeded the bounds of the genre. Beethoven himself was quite aware of both the dimensions and the importance of the work: in a letter he described it as ‘my greatest work’. It is also a work which over its course encompasses great contrasts: from the solemnity of the Kyrie and the intense excitement at the opening of the Gloria to the disturbing intimations of war during the closing Dona nobis pacem.

Originally founded with the aim of performing the choral works of Bach, the Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki are now taking another great leap, after their recent release of Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. Described as ‘refreshingly open-hearted, spontaneous and natural’ their interpretation received a 2017 Gramophone Award. Joined by an eminent quartet of vocal soloists, the team now applies its expertise in period performance to Beethoven’s masterpiece.
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Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki – Bach: Secular Cantatas, Vol. 2 (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:14:40 minutes | 751 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

This release is part of Japanese conductor Masaaki Suzuki’s fine complete cycle of Bach’s cantatas with his Bach Collegium Japan, but it stands somewhat apart from the others, both in content and style. The two Bach secular cantatas featured both date from early in the composer’s career; the Cantata No. 208, “Was mir behagt, is nur die muntre Jagd” (What makes me happy is only the lively hunt), BWV 208, comes from 1713, during Bach’s years of service to the Duke of Sachsen-Weissenfels, while the “serenata” Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht, BWV 134 (Time, maker of days and years), dates from 1719, during the Köthen period. The former piece was apparently written to adorn one of the Duke’s hunting outings and is a sort of pastoral paean; the latter is a New Year’s ceremonial work proclaiming the desirability of long life and power for the “Saxon hero.” It would be unlikely to find these works among anybody’s top Bach picks, and it’s interesting to reflect on the ways in which Bach’s vocal idiom was bound up with Lutheran devotion. But they make a satisfying effect here in the hands of Suzuki and his group. Partly this is due to the terrific work of soprano Sophie Junker, the standout among the group of soloists; her voice has a startling range of colors within the small dimensions Suzuki lays down here. Also notable is the way Suzuki avoids the utter precision that usually characterizes his style, letting the orchestra’s natural horns define a looser, more festive sound. Listenable for anyone, with the usual BIS engineering values, and a worthwhile choice for Bach completists as well as those sampling Suzuki’s series or acquiring it in full.

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