Customer Reviews

Bach Edition: Complete Works [Box Set]

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Currently available from Amazon.com's French site for about $100 with shipping, this is simply an amazing collection. I agree with the consensus view that it is a smashing success, both artistically and economically.

As you'd expect the quality of the performances is somewhat uneven, but it's generally quite high, often as definitive as you will find for certain individual works. Most of the interpretations are historically informed, and most are on period instruments or copies of period instruments. The closer you can get to the timbres, performance techniques, ensemble sizes and intonation systems for which this music was written, the more listenable it is.

During my musical apprentice days, I naturally learned Bach's "canonical" masterpieces. But working my way through these complete surviving works over four months allowed me to discover a number of gems for the first time: some of the early experimental keyboard works, the lute music, the occasional jewels among the hundreds of arias and choruses comprising the church cantatas, the remarkable proto-minimalist BWV 922 keyboard Prelude, etc. To make the experience even more interesting, I assembled my favorites along the way into 22 CDs worth of highlights to which I've been putting myself and the kids to bed for the past several weeks. Sweet.

If you're a fan of Bach or Baroque music, do yourself a favor and indulge in this set. It's also a great gift for a music lover (at least at current Amazon.fr prices).

I believe this to be the first release of the Brilliant Classics complete survey of the works of Bach on 160 CDs. This isn't a bad deal on its own, but pales by comparison to the re-release of this anthology in a 155 CD package, for less than half the price. That is the one to have, and worth an unqualified recommendation at that extremely modest cost.

According to many, greatest composer of all times, known at the time.
Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities of his compositional style -- which often included religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special codes -- still amaze musicians today. Many consider him the greatest composer of all time.

Bach was born in Eisenach in 1685. He was taught to play the violin and harpsichord by his father, Johann Ambrosius, a court trumpeter in the service of the Duke of Eisenach. Young Johann was not yet ten when his father died, leaving him orphaned. He was taken in by his recently married oldest brother, Johann Christoph, who lived in Ohrdruf. Because of his excellent singing voice, Bach attained a position at the Michaelis monastery at Lüneberg in 1700. His voice changed a short while later, but he stayed on as an instrumentalist. After taking a short-lived post in Weimar in 1703 as a violinist, Bach became organist at the Neue Kirche in Arnstadt (1703-1707). His relationship with the church council was tenuous as the young musician often shirked his responsibilities, preferring to practice the organ. One account describes a four-month leave granted Bach, to travel to Lubeck where he would familiarize himself with the music of Dietrich Buxtehude. He returned to Arnstadt long after was expected and much to the dismay of the council. He then briefly served at St. Blasius in Mühlhausen as organist, beginning in June 1707, and married his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, that fall. Bach composed his famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) and his first cantatas while in Mühlhausen, but quickly outgrew the musical resources of the town. He next took a post for the Duke of Sachsen-Weimar in 1708, serving as court organist and playing in the orchestra, eventually becoming its leader in 1714. He wrote many organ compositions during this period, including his Orgel-Büchlein. Owing to politics between the Duke and his officials, Bach left Weimar and secured a post in December 1717 as Kapellmeister at Cöthen. In 1720, Bach's wife suddenly died, leaving him with four children (three others had died in infancy). A short while later, he met his second wife, soprano Anna Magdalena Wilcke, whom he married in December 1721. She would bear 13 children, though only five would survive childhood. The six Brandenburg Concertos (BWV 1046-51), among many other secular works, date from his Cöthen years. Bach became Kantor of the Thomas School in Leipzig in May 1723 and held the post until his death. It was in Leipzig that he composed the bulk of his religious and secular cantatas. Bach eventually became dissatisfied with this post, not only because of its meager financial rewards, but also because of onerous duties and inadequate facilities. Thus, he took on other projects, chief among which was the directorship of the city's Collegium Musicum, an ensemble of professional and amateur musicians who gave weekly concerts, in 1729. He also became music director at the Dresden Court in 1736, in the service of Frederick Augustus II; though his duties were vague and apparently few, they allowed him freedom to compose what he wanted. Bach began making trips to Berlin in the 1740s, not least because his son Carl Philipp Emanuel served as a court musician there. In May 1747, the composer was warmly received by King Frederick II of Prussia, for whom he wrote the gloriously abstruse Musical Offering (BWV 1079). Among Bach's last works was his 1749 Mass in B minor. Besieged by diabetes, he died on July 28, 1750.

This set is the best of the best box set all times!!!
Including new recordings of all the 200 sacred cantatas on period instruments and sung by a boys choir , the Suites Luthe, The complete Organ works, etc.

Many great artists and ensembles have been involved in the creation of the Edition. The Sixteen, The King's College Choir, the Neues Bachisches Collegium Leipzig, Emma Kirkby, Michael Chance and Trevor Pinnock.