Apollo's Fire & Jeannette Sorrell - Bach's Coffeehouse: Bach • Telemann • Vivaldi (2024)

Based in Cleveland, Ohio, far from the cities of the historical performance mainstream, Apollo's Fire is an innovative, popular, and critically acclaimed group devoted to repertory from the Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical eras. Typically, Apollo's Fire has a subscription concert schedule consisting of five to seven programs yearly, with each concert performed several times over a three- or four-day period. In addition, the group regularly tours throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Offering the kind of freethinking that develops best when it's far from established scenes, Apollo's Fire continues to push historical performance in new directions. Most of its recordings have achieved both impressive sales and critical plaudits, recording with greater frequency since the turn of the new century. In 2022, Apollo's Fire issued a live recording taken from 2018 and 2020 of Jeannette Sorrell's O Jerusalem! City of Three Faiths.

Apollo's Fire was founded in 1992 by harpsichordist and conductor Sorrell. As a harpsichord student of Gustav Leonhardt and a conducting student of Leonard Bernstein and Roger Norrington, Sorrell possesses impeccable credentials. She attracted many musicians from the Netherlands with the intention of assembling an orchestra devoted to historical practices in performance as laid down by Leonhardt, Anner Bylsma, and Sigiswald Kuijken. Apollo's Fire consists of about 35 players and often uses guest artists during performances. The size of the ensemble can vary depending on the work, shrinking to chamber size or swelling to stage-filling proportions for choral works where the group often employs its sister enterprise, Apollo's Singers. That ensemble has about 20 members and is also highly respected. By the mid-'90s, Apollo's Fire had achieved wide acclaim, as evidenced by the Noah Greenberg Award given to it in 1995. A pair of recordings from 1999 – Monteverdi's Vespro Della Beata Virgine and Noël Ancien (Noëls & Carols from the Olde World) – were both critical successes and augured further artistic triumphs for the players.

The program recorded on the 2011 release Come to the River: An Early American Gathering exemplified a branch of Apollo's Fire's efforts directed toward the performance of American folk and traditional music. The group ventured into Celtic music in 2012 with Sacrum Mysterium: A Celtic Christmas Vespers and returned to the American tradition with Sugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gathering in 2015. The group also took on Sephardic music with 2016's Sephardic Journey: Wanderings of the Spanish Jews. Apollo's Fire has issued straightforward collections of Baroque arias and choral works, but perhaps most characteristic of the group's originality were its acclaimed 2017 performances and recording of Bach's St. John Passion, BWV 245, which was performed in New York as well as Cleveland. The live performances were semi-staged, with the soloists moving around and addressing each other on-stage rather than singing to the audience. The audience itself was infiltrated by members of the chorus. In 2018, Sorrell and Apollo's Fire backed tenor Karim Sulayman on the album Songs of Orpheus, which won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. The group returned in 2021 with a recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons featuring its artist-in-residence, Francisco Fullana, on violin. Apollo's Fire kicked off its 30th anniversary year of 2022 by issuing a live recording from 2018 and 2020 of Sorrell's O Jerusalem! City of Three Faiths. ~ Robert Cummings & James Manheim

TRACKLIST

1. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire;Daphna Mor;Alan Choo - Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049: I. Allegro
2. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire;Daphna Mor;Alan Choo - Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049: II. Andante
3. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire;Daphna Mor;Alan Choo - Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049: III. Presto
4. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55: G10 'Burlesque de Don Quixotte (2024 Remaster)
5. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55:G10 'Burlesque de Don Quixotte': II. Le réveil de Quichotte: II. Le réveil de Quichotte (2024 Remaster)
6. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55:G10 'Burlesque de Don Quixotte': III. Son attaque des moulins à vent (2024 Remaster)
7. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55:G10 'Burlesque de Don Quixotte': IV. Ses soupirs amoureux après la Princesse Dulcinée (2024 Remaster)
8. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55:G10 'Burlesque de Don Quixotte': V. Sanche Panse berné (2024 Remaster)
9. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55:G10 'Burlesque de Don Quixotte': VI. Le galope de Rosinante (2024 Remaster)
10. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55:G10 'Burlesque de Don Quixotte': VII. Le couché de Quichotte (2024 Remaster)
11. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire - Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068: II. Air
12. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire;Debra Nagy;Johanna Novom - Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin BWV 1060: I. Allegro
13. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire;Debra Nagy;Johanna Novom - Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin BWV 1060: II Adagio
14. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire;Debra Nagy;Johanna Novom - Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin BWV 1060: III. Allegro
15. Jeannette Sorrell;Apollo's Fire;Francisco Fullana;Alan Choo - 12 Trio Sonatas, Op. 1: XII. Trio Sonata in D Minor, RV 63 "La Follia" (arr. Sorrell) (2024 Remaster)