The catalogue of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works comprises 1128 numbers. However, he actually composed more than that. Many compositions have, unfortunately, not survived to the present day. Some works, moreover, have reached us incomplete, either because the composer himself did not finish them or because part of the manuscript has been lost.

In this recording, Lorenzo Ghielmi has taken on the challenging task of completing Bach’s organ works that have reached us as fragments. While he recognizes the inimitable nature of such a supreme artist, he has strived to stay true to Bach’s style. Through this endeavor, Ghielmi offers us the possibility to explore largely forgotten pages of Bach’s musical legacy and experience the magic of these incomplete compositions brought to life.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE, IT

Lyrics: EN, IT

Bach’s English Suites are entitled in a way that is as strange as it is hard to explain, at least at first glance. Contrary to what one might assume, these works are more closely related to French suites than to English music. The title is taken from the inscription “Fait pour les Anglois”, found on a manuscript owned by Bach’s youngest son. In addition to an extensive prelude and four traditional dances – Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue – each suite also contains “gallantries”, lighter dances that were fashionable at the time. In these dance movements, grace and melody play together with a compositional artistry that elevates them far beyond incidental music for courtly dances.

After the Partitas published by Passacaille in 2021 (PAS 1105), Lorenzo Ghielmi, one of the most renowned Bach interpreters of our day, now releases the English Suites, recorded on a harpsichord built by Detmar Hungerbert after an instrument by Michael Mietke (ca. 1710 in Berlin).

Booklet: EN, FR, DE, IT

The Partitas are the first work for harpsichord published by Johann Sebastian Bach. Between 1726 and 1730, the partitas were published separately, one per year, before being brought together in a single collection in 1731.

Shortly after his appointment of Cantor of the Leipzig Thomaskirche, Bach decided to devote his Opus I to a fashionable genre: the harpsichord suite, a series of dances of contrasting character, united by the same key and preceded by a prelude.

The Partitas are, to all intents and purposes, Bach’s last word on this musical form, the most mature, a sort of collection: each type of dance is explored, with a compositional virtuosity that requires from the performer, in addition to an undisputed technical ability, a depth of reading capable of grasping the mathematical relationships that trace the general architecture.

Lorenzo Ghielmi, one of the most famous interpreters of Bach’s works, presents us with a recording in which elegance and measure allow the beauty and formal rigour of these pages to coexist.

Booklet: EN, FR, IT, DE

With this album, violinist Mayumi Hirasaki, who has been Concerto Köln’s concertmaster since 2011, explores the chameleon-like possibilities of her instrument: when playing with scordatura, instead of the usual fifths interval between the violin strings, an alternative is used in which at least one string is tuned to a different pitch. This results in completely new sonic and harmonic possibilities, which Mayumi Hirasaki presents in works by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Biagio Marini and Giuseppe Tartini, among others – sometimes highly virtuosic, sometimes dance-like or cantabile.

Booklet: EN, DE

Johann Sebastian Bach composed many works for violin (besides the pieces for organ and harpsichord, the two instruments he mainly played). He had learned to play the violin as a child and knew its characteristics perfectly well. Unfortunately, the manuscripts of many of his compositions were lost after his death: the three sonatas for violin and basso continuo BWV 1021, 1023 and 1024 are today a small remnant of what is thought to be a much larger production. In addition to these sonatas, the album is completed by harpsichord transcriptions of some movements from the solo sonatas for violin, which may have been adapted by Bach himself, and by a trio sonata originally written for violin, flute and basso continuo in a version for violin and harpsichord obbligato.

Booklet: EN, DE, FR, IT

The Rysum organ (East Friesland, Germany) is the oldest instrument in Northern Europe which still has most of its original pipes from 1457 and 1513. The instrument was restored to its 1513 condition by the organbuilders Ahrend and Brunzema in 1959. To reconstruct a “late medieval mass” was a challenge, as the historian Konrad Küster acknowledges. The role of the organ was above all to improvise, not to accompany the singers. The organist Lorenzo Ghielmi understood this well and did not “accompany” the singers of the Biscantores Ensemble, but dialogued with them. For this, he has chosen music taken from European tablatures of the middle of the 15^th and 16^th centuries, such as those of Krakow and Lublin (Poland), of the Fürstenberg Abbey in Xanten and of the Buxheimer Orgelbuch (Germany), some of which contain transcriptions for organ from Italy and even France, not included here.

Booklet: EN, DE

The French Suites were written between 1722 and 1725. The name was given by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg in 1762 and further popularized by Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel. In reality these suites are not more or less French then the other suites by Bach, they even follow a largely Italian convention.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE, IT

For this new opus devoted to Girolamo Frescobaldi, the organist and harpsichordist Lorenzo Ghielmi combines various pieces for organ with a set of motets to compose an instrumental and vocal programme devoted to the major figure of the “nuova maniera di suonare”. This style, advocated by the composer himself, aimed to adapt the “seconda prattica” defined before him by Monteverdi through a new approach to the keyboard.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE, IT

Lyrics: EN

 Booklet: EN, FR

Lyrics: EN, FR, IT