Stephan MacLeod

Stephan MacLeod – Bach : h-Moll Messe, BWV 232 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:41:24 minutes | 1,79 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Claves Records

The Mass in B minor holds a very special place in J.S. Bach’s output: a work of grandeur, an opus ultimum, it was not composed as such but is the result of an assembly of pieces written at different times and for different circumstances. Bach worked on it during the years 1748-1749, until his eyesight, which had gradually deteriorated, was completely lost. The idea of bringing together pieces drawn essentially from the vast corpus of cantatas was not unusual; a similar approach was taken by several of his contemporaries, such as Handel, and Bach himself had done so for the short masses he composed in the late 1730s. These were called parodies. Moving from the German text of the cantatas to the Latin text of the masses meant adapting the vocal lines, with additions and deletions, polyphonic and harmonic enrichments, and changes in instrumentation. Throughout his life, Bach never ceased to revisit his works with a view to improving them.

(more…)

Stephan MacLeod – Bach: Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:40:00 minutes | 2,77 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Claves Records

This recording was made in April 2019 at the Ernest-Ansermet Studio in Geneva, after five concerts in Switzerland during the preceding days. The desire to be as faithful as possible to the rhythm of the drama of the Passion and to the evidence of the musical sequences, which is easier to feel during a live performance than in front of the relative abstraction of the microphones, as well as a non-negligible time constraint (three and a half days in the studio for a work of 160 minutes), pushed the members of Gli Angeli Genève to record long takes, sometimes including up to 10 or 12 minutes of music, thus getting as close as possible to the feeling of a concert.

(more…)

Stephan MacLeod – 17th Century Sacred Music in Wrocław (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:52 minutes | 1,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Claves Records

Here is a superb inter-European artistic cooperation, with the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra from Poland, the Gli angeli ensemble from Switzerland and the Concerto Palatino based in Italy. It’s only “reasonable” for this album to also features composers from many horizons of 17th-century Europe, except all the rare (and unique in some cases) manuscripts and prints are kept at the Wrocław University Library – hence the album’s title, of course. Indeed, this library was, as early as the baroque era, an extraordinary collection centre for ultra rare publications, and despite the ravages and lootings brought by World War II, most of the collection could be retrieved. It clearly seems that despite never leaving their home country or even their region, some composers were well-known far beyond borders, and that their works found interpreters and amateurs in lands they only vaguely knew by name. This recording offers a generous range of vocal, instrumental and mixed personnel, for the most part Italian and German musicians, as well as a handful of Polish composers – who clearly studied in Italy! An opulent and extraordinarily varied repertoire, with a thousand sounds passionately performed by the three ensembles.

(more…)