About the album
Magnificent and transparent, a recording of the famous masterpiece by J.S. Bach by La Petite Bande and Sigiswald Kuijken. The ensemble has a worldwide reputation of aiming for the most authentic sound possible. Again Kuijken and his group of musicians and vocalists have achieved this the most sublime way!
Sigiswald Kuijken knows the St. Matthew Passion through and through. With La Petite Bande he gave performances of the work all over the world. Twenty years ago La Petite Bande (at that time with conductor Gustav Leonhardt and Kuijken as concertmaster) made their first recording of the Passion. It was a recording with soloists, a chamberchoir and an orchestral composition which was adjusted to that. Since then Kuijken's vision on this masterpiece has changed very much. Ground-breaking musicological work of the last decades has brought him to a serious thin-out of his ensemble without the use of a conductor. There is not a real choir anymore, because the soloists perform also the choirparts. The boyschoir that is usually used in most performances of this Passion is replaced here by a single soprano voice!
Additionally, by using authentic instruments and the original way of playing them, both in interpretation and sound quality, La Petite Bande strives to revive baroque music as faithfully as possible without lapsing into rigid academics.
Een controversiële uitvoering van de Matthäuspassion
Een sublieme uitvoering, deze interpretatie van Sigiswald Kuijken van de Matthäuspassion van Johann Sebastian Bach. Gespeeld door zijn ensemble La Petite Bande. "Het werk klinkt helder, erg helder. De transparantie is dusdanig aanwezig dat ieder woord en zelfs de plaatsing van iedere solist of musicus met gemak te volgen of te plaatsen is. De minimalistische setting van La Petite Bande maakt van Bach’s werk een controversiële uitvoering, die echter wel prettig `aanvoelt` en de luisteraar bij de tekst betrekt." Hifi.nl
Kuijken kent de Matthäuspassion door en door. Samen met La Petite Bande geeft hij over de hele wereld uitvoeringen van dit werk. Tijdens de 1e opname van La Petite Bande, toen nog onder leiding van Gustav Leonhardt, werd er gebruikgemaakt van solisten, een kamerkoor en een aangepaste orkestrale compositie. Sinds die tijd is Kuijkens visie op dit meesterwerk flink veranderd. Baanbrekend musicologisch onderzoek bracht hem ertoe om zijn ensemble grondig uit te dunnen en de dirigent af te schaffen. Er is geen koor meer, omdat de solisten de koordelen uitvoeren. Het jongenskoor is vervangen door een enkele sopraan. De opname is door deze uitdunning puur, helder en direct.
La Petite Bande is één van de meest vooraanstaande barokorkesten. Het werd in 1972 opgericht door de Belgische violist en dirigent Sigiswald Kuijken en de Nederlandse klavecinist en dirigent Gustav Leonhardt. Het orkest streeft ernaar oude muziek zo getrouw mogelijk te laten herleven. Dat doet het gezelschap door authentieke instrumenten te gebruiken en de oude speelwijze te hanteren. Ook een wisselende bezetting, met telkens de meest 'geschikte' musicus voor een bepaald repertoire, draagt bij tot de speciale interpretatie van Kuijken. La Petite Bande was oorspronkelijk een tijdelijk gezelschap, dat zich hoofdzakelijk richtte op Franse muziek. Vanwege hun succes geeft het orkest tegenwoordig wereldwijd concerten en bestaat het repertoire inmiddels ook uit muziek van Italiaanse componisten en componisten als Bach, Händel, Gluck, Haydn en Mozart.
In dieser Aufnahme übernimmt der solistisch besetzte Chor ebenfalls die großen und kleinen Solisten-Partien, wie meist bei La Petite Bande unter Sigiswald Kuijken. Dadurch entsteht ein faszinierend transparenter, direkter und purer Klang und extrem schlichter aber intensiver Ausdruck, der seinesgleichen sucht. Pressezitate zu CC72316 Bach: H-Moll-Messe - La Petite Bande: 'Eine Einspielung, die Geschichte machen wird' (Michael Wersin, RONDO 12.06.2009) / 'Kuijken gelingt eine in sich geschlossene, stellenweise betont geschmeidige und organische Lesart...Diese Musik fließt in ihrem natürlichen Bett, angenehm federnd, ohne unnötige dramaturgische Aufrauungen und ohne künstliche Affekte' (Christoph Vratz, SWR 2 27.06.2009)
Artist(s)
La Petite Bande (Belgium) was founded in 1972 by Sigiswald Kuijken at the request of the record company Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in order to record Lully's "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme", under the direction of Gustav Leonhardt.
The orchestra takes its name and constitution from Lully's own orchestra at the court of Louis XIV. All its members are internationally renowned specialists in the early music field.
Although originally La Petite Bande was not meant to become a permanent orchestra, the success of the recordings was such that they began to give concerts regularly. Having initially concentrated mainly on French music, the orchestra's repertoire has expanded over the years to include music by the Italian masters and that of Bach, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart and others.
La Petite Bande has recorded instrumental as well as vocal music, including operas and oratorios from the Baroque and Classical periods. La Petite Bande currently makes recordings for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Denon , Accent and Hyperion.
La Petite Bande has performed in a multitude of international festivals and concert series, in Europe, Japan, Australia, South America and China.
Sigiswald Kuijken was born in 1944 close to Brussels. He studied violin at the conservatories of Bruges and Brussels, completing his studies at the latter institution with Maurice Raskin in 1964. He came into contact with early music at a very young age, together with his brother Wieland. Studying on his own, he gained a thorough knowledge of specific 17th- and 18th-century performance techniques and conventions of interpretation on violin and viola da gamba. This led to the introduction, in 1969, of a more authentic way of playing the violin, whereby the instrument was no longer held under the chin, but lay freely on the shoulder; this was to have a crucial influence on the approach to the violin repertoire and was consequently adopted by many players starting in the early 1970s.
From 1964 to 1972, Sigiswald Kuijken was a member of the Brussels-based Alarius Ensemble (with Wieland Kuijken, Robert Kohnen and Janine Rubinlicht), which performed throughout Europe and in the United States. He subsequently undertook individual chamber music projects with a number of Baroque music specialists, chief among which were his brothers Wieland and Barthold and Robert Kohnen, as well as Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Bruggen, Anner Bylsma and René Jacobs.
In 1972, with the encouragement of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and Gustav Leonhardt, he founded the Baroque orchestra La Petite Bande, which since then has given innumerable concerts throughout Europe, Australia, South America, China and Japan, and has made many recordings for a number of labels (including Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Seon, Virgin, Accent, Denon, Hyperion, ...)
In 1986 he founded the Kuijken String Quartet (with François Fernandez, Marleen Thiers and Wieland Kuijken), which specialises in the quartets and quintets (with Ryo Terakado as first violist) of the Classical period. Recordings of quartets and quintets by Mozart and Haydn have appeared on Denon.
In 2004 Sigiswald Kuijken reintroduced in practical performance the Violoncello da spalla (shoulder cello, very probably the instrument Bach had in mind when writing his six cello solos): concerts and recordings of Bach , Vivaldi, ...
Since 1998, Sigiswald Kuijken occasionally conducts “modern” symphonic orchestras in romantic programs (Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn).
On 2 February 2007, Sigiswald Kuijken received an honorary doctorate of the K.U. Leuven.
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