Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt was one of the original promoters of the practice of playing Baroque music on historical instruments, and he had an idiosyncratic style, to boot; well-considered and carefully worked out, but still idiosyncratic. It wasn't uncommon to hear Bach lovers get into arguments at parties over his first cycle of Bach cantata recordings, made in the 1970s and 1980s. He's mellowed out a bit in his old age, with some widely acclaimed recordings of Classical-era repertory that anyone can enjoy ...
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Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt was one of the original promoters of the practice of playing Baroque music on historical instruments, and he had an idiosyncratic style, to boot; well-considered and carefully worked out, but still idiosyncratic. It wasn't uncommon to hear Bach lovers get into arguments at parties over his first cycle of Bach cantata recordings, made in the 1970s and 1980s. He's mellowed out a bit in his old age, with some widely acclaimed recordings of Classical-era repertory that anyone can enjoy for their combination of gravity and transparent detail. This release featuring three familiar Bach cantatas, with an assortment of uniformly good Austrian soloists, will give those who may not have been around the first time a taste of the old bad-boy Harnoncourt. Try especially the most famous Bach cantata of all, the Cantata No. 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," BWV 140 (Sleepers awake, a voice is calling), for an example of the clipped notes that are among Harnoncourt's...
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