Thüringer Bach Collegium - Prinz Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar: Concerti (2019) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

This release is the debut recording of the Thüringer Bach Collegium and marks the beginning of its co-operation with audite. A second album (works by Johann Bernhard Bach) will be released in autumn 2019 and further projects are being planned.

Prince Johann Ernst IV of Sachsen-Weimar (1696-1715) was taught by Johann Gottfried Walther; Johann Sebastian Bach also perused the young prince’s compositions and arranged some of Johann Ernst’s concertos for keyboard instruments for his own use. Georg Philipp Telemann put the finishing touches to the violin concertos. The results are unmistakeably Italianate: at times brilliantly virtuosic, at other times contemplative and lyrical – composed by the ‘Thuringian Vivaldi’ who died far too early.

The Thüringer Bach Collegium, directed by Gernot Süßmuth, have recorded the six violin concertos by Prince Johann Ernst – as posthumously published in 1718 by Telemann – with exuberant enthusiasm. These works are combined with two further concertos whose original Weimar court orchestra parts survived: a concerto for trumpet and orchestra as well as a concerto for two violins which survived as an adaptation by JS Bach and was “arranged back”.

This pioneering recording revives a central chapter of Weimar’s musical history, in which the works of the court composer Johann Sebastian Bach also had their place. The prince’s concertos were written at the same time as Bach’s Weimar cantatas and provide, as no other body of works, the “soundtrack” to the dynamic musical life in the palace. The musical perspective was a European one: in 1713 a veritable “Vivaldimania” broke out, the Venetian composer’s works being arranged, imitated and emulated.

This can be experienced in the prince’s concertos, written in the finest Vivaldian style.

Tracklist:
1 Violin Concerto No. 3 in E Minor: I. Vivace 01:53
2 Violin Concerto No. 3 in E Minor: II. Pastorella 02:41
3 Violin Concerto No. 3 in E Minor: III. Presto 01:08
4 Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Minor: I. Adagio - Presto 01:43
5 Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Minor: II. Allegro - Adagio 01:56
6 Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Minor: III. Vivace 01:09
7 Violin Concerto No. 7 in G Major: I. Allegro assai 02:25
8 Violin Concerto No. 7 in G Major: II. Adagio 02:12
9 Violin Concerto No. 7 in G Major: III. Presto e staccato 01:09
10 Violin Concerto No. 5 in E Major: I. — 02:10
11 Violin Concerto No. 5 in E Major: II. Siciliana 01:55
12 Violin Concerto No. 5 in E Major: III. Allegro 02:15
13 Concerto in C Major (after Prince Johann Ernst IV of Sachsen-Weimar), BWV 984: I. — (Reconstructed as Double Concerto for 2 Violins in C Major by Gernot Süßmuth, BWV 595) 02:57
14 Concerto in C Major (after Prince Johann Ernst IV of Sachsen-Weimar), BWV 984: II. Adagio e affettuoso (Reconstructed as Double Concerto for 2 02:13
15 Concerto in C Major (after Prince Johann Ernst IV of Sachsen-Weimar), BWV 984: III. Allegro assai (Reconstructed as Double Concerto for 2 Violins in C Major by Gernot Süßmuth) 02:28
16 Violin Concerto No. 8 in G Major: I. Adagio 01:24
17 Violin Concerto No. 8 in G Major: II. Allegro 01:59
18 Violin Concerto No. 8 in G Major: III. Adagio 01:12
19 Violin Concerto No. 8 in G Major: IV. Allegro 02:00
20 Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Major: I. Allegro 01:48
21 Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Major: II. Adagio - Allegro 03:04
22 Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Major: III. Un poco presto 01:41
23 Violin Concerto No. 2 in A Minor: I. Allegro 02:11
24 Violin Concerto No. 2 in A Minor: II. Largo 04:56
25 Violin Concerto No. 2 in A Minor: III. Andante 02:24
26 Violin Concerto No. 6 in G Minor: I. Vivace 02:34
27 Violin Concerto No. 6 in G Minor: II. Recitativo 01:32
28 Violin Concerto No. 6 in G Minor: III. Allegro 03:02
29 Sonata for Trumpet in D Major: I. Vivace 00:52
30 Sonata for Trumpet in D Major: II. Largo 01:20
31 Sonata for Trumpet in D Major: III. Allegro 01:09