BACH: Partitas & Sonatas BWV 1001 - 1006

BWV 1001 — 1006

BACH PARTITAS & SONATAS Bojan Čičić

Bach: Lute Suites BWV 996–998

Sean Shibe guitar

DCD34233

Three years as a Delphian artist have seen Sean Shibe record music from seventeenth-century Scottish lute manuscripts to twenty-first-century works for electric guitar, picking up multiple editor’s choices and award nominations for each release, as well as the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Young Artist of the Year accolade. Now he turns to the music of J.S. Bach, with three works whose obscure early performance history belies their status as repertoire staples for modern guitarists. The musicological questions that have arisen over what instrument Bach intended for these works – questions encapsulated for Shibe by the phrase ‘pour la luth ò cembal’, which appears in the composer’s hand at the head of the manuscript of the Prelude to BWV 998 –are here answered by the unshakeable assurance of Shibe’s performances.

‘masterful, beautiful and convincing in every way’

— The Times, May 2020, FIVE STARS

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations

Peter Hill piano

DCD34200

In the Goldberg Variations Bach answered a modest request – reputedly from an aristocratic patron who wanted music that was ‘soft and somewhat lively’ as a distraction from insomnia – with a work of immense scale and ambition, a great musical journey that traverses a dazzling kaleidoscope of musical styles. The music’s wit and virtuosity is matched by the exquisite contrapuntal tracery of the canons that form the work’s backbone, and by the tragic grandeur of the minor-key variations, which contain some of the most poignant music Bach ever wrote; the homecoming, as Bach ends by returning to the opening Aria, is one of the most moving passages in all music. Peter Hill here continues his acclaimed series of Bach recordings with a searchingly imaginative performance, capturing the music’s zest and its depth of feeling in a reading that is as profoundly poetic as it is beautifully coloured.

‘an honesty and intelligence that earns [Hill] his place at the top of the table’

— BBC Music Magazine, May 2018

Stravinsky: Choral Works

Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh / Duncan Ferguson; Scottish Chamber Orchestra Soloists; Ruby Hughes soprano; Nicholas Mulroy tenor

DCD34164

In Duncan Ferguson’s most ambitious recording project to date, the St Mary’s choir are joined by instrumentalists and soloists in major works by the twentieth century’s most influential composer. The choir rarely get to perform Stravinsky’s Mass in its full version with wind instruments, while a performance of the Cantata with cathedral choristers rather than an adult choir is rare indeed. Also included are Stravinsky’s ‘completions’ of three cantiones sacrae by Gesualdo; their weird contrapuntal twists and turns are relished by this intelligent, committed choir, and provide a stark contrast to the austere simplicity of Stravinsky’s own short sacred choruses. Gabriel Jackson provides the illuminating accompanying essay.

‘Beautifully sung and blessed with outstandingly vivid recorded sound’ — Gramophone, October 2016

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations

Samuele Telari accordion

DCD34257

Samuele Telari’s instrument is essential to his conception of this eternally fresh, kaleidoscopic work. The accordion’s bellows bring out and intensify dynamic contrasts in the slower variations, while the sparkling, faster ones are powered by a pure virtuosity that flows along the two manuals, imitating or chasing one another in resonant stereophony. Bach’s immortal masterpiece shines with new light here, keyboard dexterity meeting a string-like expressivity, both heightened by Telari’s interpretative subtlety and impeccable control.

‘The whole recording is joyful’

— BBC Radio 3 Record Review, July 2021

J.S. Bach: Suites for Solo Cello

Philip Higham

DCD34150 (2 CDs)

Philip Higham’s debut recording, a disc of Benjamin Britten’s three solo suites, won acclaim across the board, including Disc of the Month accolades from both Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. He has chosen to follow it directly with the Bach suites which were Britten’s inspiration, and which remain pinnacles of the repertoire for any cellist. Not afraid to question received wisdom, Higham’s thoughtful yet daring approach leads him to combine elements of period and modern style both in his playing and in his choice of instruments – a 1697 cello for the first five suites and a 2013 fivestring instrument to bring out the extraordinary range of colours with which Bach invested the crowning Sixth.

‘The character he finds throughout this music is consistently revealing … unpretentious depths and organic, naturalistic flow: the highest possible recommendation’ — The Herald, August 2015

J.S. Bach: The French Suites

Peter Hill piano

DCD34166 (2 CDs)

The French Suites have a special place among Bach’s keyboard works. Besides containing music as profound and poetic as any he wrote, their textures have a transparency and sparkle that reflect a move towards the galant style fashionable among Bach’s contemporaries. In this, the third instalment of Peter Hill’s acclaimed Bach series, Hill has chosen to follow the suites with his own completion of Mozart’s Suite in C, K399. With Bach and Handel as his models, this work epitomises Mozart’s fascination with Baroque music. Hill’s celebrated return to the studio with Delphian four years ago continues to reap rich artistic rewards; here in Bach his abundant energy and passion are deeply informed by a lifetime of scholarship.

‘there’s a confiding wisdom sustaining [Hill’s] latest Bachian foray. Trademark unshowy integrity, too, articulated through a silky translucent tone and captured in an agreeably intimate recording’ — BBC Music Magazine, February 2016

J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II

Peter Hill piano

DCD34101 (2 CDs)

A recognised authority in twentieth-century and contemporary music, Peter Hill turns for the first time on disc to another of his lifelong preoccupations: the music of J.S. Bach. On this new recording, Hill brings his customary scholarly acumen and crystalline musical intelligence to bear on Book Two of the ‘48’ – music of ‘unsurpassed inventiveness’.

‘exceptional readings, scholarly yet living … For all the compositional rigour, Hill makes these preludes and fugues sing and dance, and also brings out their unshakeable foundations of faith’ — HiFi Critic, March 2012

Adriatic Voyage: Seventeenth-century music from Venice to Dalmatia

The Marian Consort / Rory McCleery; The Illyria Consort / Bojan Čičić

DCD34260

Two of Delphian’s most admired ensembles join forces for this imaginative programme of sacred and secular music by composers working along the Dalmatian Coast – now largely in Croatia, then mostly the territory of Venice – in the decades around 1600. It was a time in which constant movement of people and trade of goods created linguistic and cultural cross-currents, in contrast to the sharp distinctions encouraged in later centuries by the emergence of modern nation states. Much of this music would have been regarded as Venetian, but the journey points up intriguing differences between the composers and pieces presented, many of them in premiere recordings, while violinist and director Bojan Čičić’s interactions with cornettist Gawain Glenton – and the rich ornamentation contributed by all the musicians here – bring the period back to vivid, unforgettable life.

‘A cornucopia of sacred and secular instrumental and vocal music, performed with arresting, period-evocative beauty’ — Gramophone, January 2022

Photograph: Nick Rutter