The Netherlands Bach Society

The Netherlands Bach Society and Jos van Veldhoven – Mozart: Requiem (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 55:13 minutes | 1,66 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Channel Classics

Founded in 1921, The Netherlands Bach Society is the oldest Early Music ensemble in the Netherlands, and possibly in the whole world. Yet along with the musicians, its artistic director Jos van Veldhoven is still continually in search of contemporary ways of presenting this music, whether it be the traditional performances of the St. Matthew Passion in Naarden, other works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) or music by his predecessors, successors, contemporaries and fellow spirits.

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The Netherlands Bach Society, Jos Van Veldhoven – Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:45:34 minutes | 3,25 GB | Genre: classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Channel Classics

Sometimes you come across a performance that may not be exactly to your taste, but is nonetheless so persuasive of its type that it disarms criticism. This is one. It’s not quite a “one to a part” interpretation of the work, but with 10 choristers and eight strings, it is intimate, and that always risks minimizing the majesty that Bach built into the Sanctus, the eight-part Osanna, and the choruses with trumpets and drums. Jos van Veldhoven addresses this issue head-on, compensating with swift tempos and a light, dance-like treatment of rhythm that’s wholly captivating. His handling of solo vs. ripieno vocal parts in the choruses is particularly imaginative and texturally varied (try the opening of the Credo, given to the soloists). The result has great vitality and conveys real joy (once past the opening Kyrie, of course).
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The Netherlands Bach Society, Jos van Veldhoven – J.S. Bach: Magnificat in D major (bwv 243) / Unser Mund sei voll Lachens (bwv 110) (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:04:20 minutes | 1,97 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Channel Classics

All the music on this CD is associated with the festival of Christmas. Bach wrote the cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens (BWV 110) for morning service on Christmas Day 1725, and the first version of the Magnificat in E flat major (BWV 243a) for Vespers on Christmas Day 1723, seven months after the Leipzig town council appointed him cantor of the Thomaskirche. It would hardly be exaggerating to say that Bach thus presented his visiting card to his new employer. According to the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff, the work is his “first really large-scale and complex piece of church music”. Christmas was not the only occasion to sing the Magnificat text, however, for it was also a standard part of the Vespers liturgy. This may explain why Bach made a second version some years later (in D major, BWV 243).
For a Christmas CD in the year 2010 it is obviously attractive to add new movements to Bach’s Magnificat, entirely in keeping with the tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His own choice, in the E flat major version, remains unsurpassed. By adding extra Christmas music to the second version in D major, however, a new and unexpected form arises which lends the performance a certain topicality. What is more, it gives us the opportunity to present Bach with several Netherlands composers of the seventeenth century. –Jos van Veldhoven

(…) The Dutch group that Jos van Veldhoven directs delivers a musical message of pristine beauty. And in the two works the solo parts transport us as fully as does the direction, with Dorothee Mields (soprano), Johannete Zomer (soprano), William towers (alto), Charles Daniels (tenor), Stephan MacLoed (bass). This is a great accomplishment, in an exemplary sound recording that respects tones and acoustics. –Opus Haute Définition
(…) This is terrific Bach singing and playing, and even if you already own one or two or three Magnificats, you won’t be sorry to add this one–so vibrant and fresh-sounding, and possessed of the hopeful, optimistic spirit of the texts and music. And the sound, well, Channel Classics has a lock on whatever combination of technical know-how and magic is involved in making consistently demonstration-quality recordings. Don’t hesitate to include this in your holiday-season acquisitions. Highly recommended. –Classics Today
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The Netherlands Bach Society, Jos Van Veldhoven – J.S. Bach: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (2003)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:25:06 minutes | 4,48 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Channel Classics Records B.V.

Bachs Christmas Oratorio Johann Sebastian Bachs Oratorium Tempore Nativitatis Christi, a cycle of six cantatas for the Christmas season, had its collective premiere from Christmas Day 1734 through Epiphany Sunday 1735 in Leipzig. One of Bachs reasons for these performances was his search for a more permanent home for the music of three large-scale occasional works. The music involved was that of the three cantatas (Drammae per Musica) for members of the princely house of Saxony: Hercules auf der Scheidewege BWV 213 (September 1733) (Hercules at the Crossroads), written for the eleventh birthday of Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony; Tnet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! BWV 214 (December 1733) (Sound, ye drums! Burst forth, ye trumpets!), written for the birthday of Maria Josepha, Crown Princess of Saxony and Queen of Poland, and mother of Friedrich Christian; and Preise dein Glcke, gesegnetes Sachsen BWV 215 (October 1734) (Praise thy good fortune, o blessed Saxony), written for the first anniversary of the accession of Augustus II, Crown Prince of Saxony and King of Poland. These cantatas provide the lions share of the arias and choruses for the first four cantatas of the Christmas Oratorio. The fifth cantata, in contrast, is almost completely composed of original material, and the sixth is based as a whole on a single church cantata, which has not survived in its original form. The choice may well have been due to the fact that BWV 213-215, in a sense, comprised a sort of cyclic whole, making use of similar styles of text and music. But the most important reason for this large-scale parody composition was, of course, the musical quality and festive atmosphere of the three Saxon cantatas, which could easily be translated to the Christmas story. Bach commissioned his (unknown) librettist to rewrite the chorus and aria texts in such a way that this music could essentially be re-used unaltered, but as might be expected, he could not resist the temptation to introduce numerous improvements to the original compositions as he rewrote them. Bachs surviving clean final copy of the 1734 full score provides fascinating documentation for this process. He also had a handsome libretto printed separately, above all to make it clear to his fellow citizens of Leipzig and the audience that this was a major Oratorio, in spite of its performance being spread out over the course of six Sundays and two weeks. In later years, some have been uncomfortable with the secular origins of the Christmas Oratorio: the concept that music from a group of princely birthday cantatas could also serve to celebrate the birth of Christ was difficult to accept. But in the period before the Enlightenment, reigning heads of state were seen in a theological context: their office was conferred by God and was seen as completely separate from their physical bodies and good (or bad) deeds. For this reason, music written for these Kings was by its very definition highly suitable for the birthday of that other King, Christ, and most fit to sing the praises of the Ruler of the Heavens. –Pieter Dirksen
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The Netherlands Bach Society, Jos van Veldhoven – Handel – Music for the Peace of Utrecht (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:12:57 minutes | 2,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Channel Classics Records

Recording: Philharmonie, Haarlem, The Netherlands, May 2009
Сomposer: George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), William Croft (1678-1727)
Artist: The Netherlands Bach Society, Jos van Veldhoven

Disc reviews Steven Ritter (audaud.com)
This disc is offered as a foretaste of the celebration of 300 years since the passing of the Treaty of Utrecht, an event that can hardly be underestimated as it brought an end to almost 200 years of war in Europe. It was a big event then and has not lost its significance today. The Treaty of Utrecht Foundation is in part responsible for the sponsorship of this recording.

Handel was just starting to acclimate himself to the ways of England when the opportunity to write his Te Deum presented itself. The accompanying Jubilate was almost an afterthought to the other composition. It only took about two seasons for the already-successful composer to establish himself as the one to beat in terms of musical talent, and the Queen and English court caught on to his genius in rather short order. Otherwise it is impossible to understand how a foreign composer so easily assumed the first place for selection in such an important commission as this, works to be performed at St. Paul’s to celebrate the most important European event in 500 years. In fact, Handel’s opus was destined to supplant Purcell’s Te Deum that was annually performed on St. Cecelia’s Day on November 22 of each year, no mean feat. It is a spectacular piece with all of the typically Handelian effects that we all know and love, though it will probably not rank among favorite Handeliana when compared to what he could accomplish in future years; likewise the Jubilate, another invigorating and immediately popular work that served as an infallible calling card to London society.

William Croft (1678-1727) was court organist and composer along with master of the Children in the Chapel Royal and organist of St. Peter’s Westminster. His motivations for the composition of this blockbuster Ode were a little different from Handel’s, a musical dissertation devised to earn him a doctorate from Oxford University, which it did. This work was performed three months after the Utrecht treaty, and is full of what we would now consider Handelian devices as well. This is not surprising as the two composers were colleagues and friends at the Chapel Royal, and it is hard to ascertain who influenced who. Croft’s work is a marvel, wonderful choral work with a striking overture, and one that did good service to the court and the celebrations.

The Netherlands Bach Society is a crackerjack ensemble of tremendous quality and digs into these pieces with relish. Channel’s surround sound is simply brilliant, and I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed by this recording.

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