This monster box set -- nine CDs -- is aimed at buyers in the process of doing what used to be called building a classical library. It contains four large Bach sacred works generally deemed critical to a classical collection aspiring to completeness: the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, and the Mass in B minor. The performances, recorded on period instruments by John Eliot Gardiner and his English Baroque Soloists with the Monteverdi Choir in the late '80s, are reliable classics, the kind of thing ...
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This monster box set -- nine CDs -- is aimed at buyers in the process of doing what used to be called building a classical library. It contains four large Bach sacred works generally deemed critical to a classical collection aspiring to completeness: the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, and the Mass in B minor. The performances, recorded on period instruments by John Eliot Gardiner and his English Baroque Soloists with the Monteverdi Choir in the late '80s, are reliable classics, the kind of thing that a clerk at a CD store might tell you that you couldn't go wrong with. They take advantage of the clean sound and the clear separation between ensemble sections that come from performing Bach's music on the instruments for which he wrote it, but they're not radical experiments in re-creating 300-year-old music -- by this time, when most Bach enthusiasts think about his big choral pieces, what they tend to hear in their heads is something like what's heard on these recordings....
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Add this copy of Bach: Sacred Vocal Works to cart. $24.99, very good condition, Sold by Priceless Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Urbana, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by Archiv Produktion.
Add this copy of St Matthew Passion / Mass B Min / St John Passion / to cart. $47.45, like new condition, Sold by Griffin Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Stamford, CT, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Deutsche Grammophon.
