Ausonia / Biber / Froberger - Passion - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Featuring the 1984 debut album and the final album from 1985, This Is The Real Thing. 16 tracks include Superfine (From Behind), Breakin' Out, Before You Go, Nothin Like A Slow Dance, You Are The Best Thing In My Life. Two albums on one CD.

At the end of his life, J.S. Bach, a living legend at the pinnacle of his art, met the music-loving, InchenlightenedInch King Frederick who was to present him with the Royal Theme. This gift would immediately arouse Bach's prodigious creativity, and within the space of a season he would go on to compose a labyrinthine work in which beauty, complexity and seduction are united in a work of unique intensity. The Musical Offering is both a challenge and a gift, to musicians and to all music-lovers

Graupner holds in store music of the highest artistic sophistication. Flawless vocal achievements and an orchestra that savors all the color nuances of Graupner's carefully thought-out instrumentation make these Passion cantatas a genuine listening feast. This is what klassik-heute. Com wrote after the of cpo's Vol. 1 featuring cantatas by Christoph Graupner. Vol. 2 now follows, just in time for Passiontide. Once again the instrumentation is manifold in it's design, and it is here too that we find the key to Graupner's personal style he captivates his listeners not so much with catchy, easy-to-remember »melodies« as with intensive play with the various tone colors made available to him by the court chapel members and their instruments. For example, while the Cantata for the Third Sunday in Lent exclusively employs stringed instruments, for the Cantata of the Annunciation of Mary Graupner chooses a clearly more colorful instrumentation by additionally using two transverse flutes and two oboes opposing each other as pairs in the opening chorus. The instrumentation of the Bass Aria No. 5 in the cantata exhibits special finesse. Along with the pair of transverse flutes, the first violin part is given an original design it has tones held for an entire measure in the lowest register on the lowest string, while the two flutes insistently repeat their syncopated motion. This recording is new proof that Graupner was indeed the most independent-minded and individual and composer of the German Baroque.