Bach recommendations for a beginner?

Short list.  I think I have been able to draft a short list of 5 Cd's.  Please feel free to jump in and say "Paul, instead of this get this?"

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4683632

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4557002

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4757987

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4682062

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4784609

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4327562

In reality, this is six listings.  I was going to add a harpsichord selection.  I do like it.  But it does not grab me like the others.  It is interesting, but I find it a bit repetitive.  I will leave it for the next purchase.

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4425592

I will sit on this list for a couple of days and place my order after Easter to allow for any changes.

Thank you again,

Paul, out in The Bush and Down Under.

Paul,

Like I said, the Gramophone top 10 is a very good place to start (the works themselves - feel free to substitute whatever recording you can find) 

For starters, if you want to forget about this world for one hour (as you requested) and experience supreme bliss I would highly recommend the Goldberg Variations, BWV 988.  You will hear the Aria on Disc 2 of my original youtube suggestion, if you listened to that.

Here is the full work (An Aria followed by 30 variations of it and then ending with the Aria) played by Maria Tipo.  Put on some headphones, close your eyes and be prepared to be transported away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnecFAaK8rA

If you want a quarter hour express lane boost, try this (Tatiana Nikolayeva):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pKgAy7SQkE

Hi Paul, your selection of the Partitas (4th link down) is a guitar rescoring. On the Decca list is the Mullova performance I love, on violin. I'd suggest this above the guitar, if you want to check it out, try the Ciaccona (Chaconne) from No 2 on the second CD to see what you think. (For some reason the samples don't play on the tablet I've brought to my mum's, so I can't try the guitar version.)

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4757451

All the best Eoin.

Paul, just saw your latest list.  Further to Eoink's suggestion, I would say that I would get a St. Matthew's Passion sung in German?  Also, don't get cornered in by harpsichord only etc.  For starters, get what you feel comfortable with and most importantly what you will enjoy listening to.  You can always fill in the holes later if you wish.  My youtube's above will give a nice example of a pianoforte and you can compare and decide. 

My original thinking for recommending the Hogwood Passion is that for a Christian wanting to get into Bach, the English version seemed more accessible, as I remember the recording the diction is very clear, so the Gospel setting  will be easy to follow. For pure music I'd personally go for the  Harnoncourt (not on the Decca site) in German, but I'd expect the Hogwood to be an easier introduction to the work due to the language.

Paul, I don't disagree with Florestan, just explaining my earlier thinking,  maybe try both English and German on YouTube (not the whole 2 hours , just the start) and see what you think.

Thank you Florestan for reminding of the variations,

I found these

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4758058

and

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4757508

and

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4171162

and

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4767219

Would you be able to pick one of these out for me please?

No, last night I went straight to be and did not listen to your link though I am doing so now and an pleasantly surprised by the piano and the pianist's skills.  Very enjoyable.  I am not a big fan of piano.  Though this album is very beautiful.

Eoin, thank you for reminding me of this album and supplying the link.  I emailed myself so many links last night that have become lost in all the different links.  I will set up a new Bach folder inside the old one and start again.  I did select the guitar one as I found it interesting being a Mark Knopfler appreciator and being an electric christian rock bass guitarist myself.

I seem to have allowed myself to be side tracked and will refer back to the Gramophone's Top 10.  Though when I was searching last night not all of the titles appeared to be available.  I can not remember if that is why I approached the forum or for another reason.  My head cold is doing me in.  But back I will go and do another search and drop these links (emails) into yet again another folder.

All comments and recommendations gratefully appreciated.

Thank you,

Paul.

G'day again, After some more home work and using our friend Mr Google I was able to find all of Gramophone's Top 10 on Amazon except for these albums listed.  I have a shortlist of 5 which Amazon came up with.  I would be interested if these receive your collective ticks of approval instead of those recommended by Gramophone.

Number 8  https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Co...Violin/dp/B00006JQU1

Number 10 St Matthews Passion I ended up with these possibilities

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-JS...assion/dp/B000NIVO90

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Ma...astian/dp/B0000057DG

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-JS...assion/dp/B000NIVO90

http://www.deccaclassics.com/au/cat/4757987

Warm regards,

Paul.

Paul, for the Goldberg Variations on Decca with Schiff you have one choice.  It is his 1982 recording.  I think all four of the links you have are actually the same recording.   Schiff did a newer recording in 2001, I think, on ECM label as well.

As for the St. Matthew, both Gardiner and Harnoncourt subscribe to the HIP movement and so that means quite fast tempos.  No real difference between either but if I had to choose I'd go with the Harnoncourt.

Thank you Florestan.

Warm regards,

Paul.

Hi Paul, I don't know that performance of the violin works I'm afraid. . As I said earlier in the thread, I choose the Harnoncourt Passion as my favourite, so I'd take that one.

i hope you get great joy from these, if Bach turns out to be a composer that "works" for you, you're in for a wonderful experience. 

Eoin

A best of cd and complete box is a nice way to start.

Then you can have different recordings/performances of you favorites

The box set is still available in amazon not sure about the harmonia mundi 2 cd set

For a apx 100$ you have lots of Bach to become familiar with

You are not playing fair EMRE.  I will go check it out.  I may be wrong, or looking a gift horse in the mouth.  I have been disappointed with cardboard sleeves in the past.  With the sleeves falling apart and getting glue all over the disk.  I am not an audiophile.  Though would the quality be there in these recordings.  It sounds too good to be true, but very attractive all the same.

Oh well, back to Amazon.

Warm regards,

Paul.

G;day Emre, I had a peek and this is what I found.  Not the box set you have posted.  No biggie.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s...4&rnid=492502011

Warm regards,

Paul.

David and Igor Oistrakh playing Bach's Double Violin Concerto. I still play the vinyl after 45+ years.

The concerto is characterized by the subtle yet expressive relationship between the violins throughout the work. The musical structure of this piece uses fugal imitation and much counterpoint. Bach was the master of of these techniques.

Dear Filpe, I do own a turntable.  Though it is more of a novelty item than an audiophile piece of hardware.

https://www.gramovox.com/products/floating-record

I do intend to rectify this one day.  Though as we live on a rural (very) dusty road.  I would be concerned about the amount of dust the turntable would suffer from.  The dust rolls in with every vehicle that passes by.  May I thank you again for your recommendation.  I will, look for it in CD format.  Though for the immediate future I will put it away for now as I concentrate on Bach recommendations from Gramophone's Top 10 list and those albums that have a Christian vein which have been kindly recommended to myself.

I think I am a little overwhelmed with the kind responses and have more than enough to consider for the moment.

There is a local store in Melbourne, Australia that advertises that it sells audiophile LP's and CD's.  On Wednesday I will purchase this CD whilst it is still available

https://www.audiophilereferenc...ns-songcdi44009.html  which is listed in Gramophone's Top 10.

After this and having appreciated this CD and if I indeed do enjoy Bach I will next purchase Saint Matthew's Passion and Mass in B minor.  I will then go over all the recommendations again.  Re-reading and making note of forum members opinions and look for a commonality between these recommendations and the Top 10 list of Gramophone's reviews.

To everyone, thank you for your posts and recommendations.  I only have so many pennies to play with and can not purchase every item that has been recommended to me all at once.  Though I will work on his.  You may have a new Bach convert : )

In closing:

After listening to some short wave radio last night and our local AM medium wave station and enjoying the (I do not want to say religious music) appropriate music to celebrate this Easter.  I sat down to a Talisker 10 year old scotch at 1:00 am and listened to the first CD of John Butt's Handel's Messiah.  This is the second time I have played this CD and I appreciated it even more this time around.  I will listen to disc two tonight, again, after everyone is gone to bed.

It is a little difficult to "listen" to music during the day with all the family activities that take place in our open plan lounge/kitchen room.

Warm regards,

Paul.

Gigantor - that is a preposterously huge amount of money to pay for that performance; you can buy it on a normal cd for vastly less, the "gold plated limited edition" nonsense is just hype.

And fwiw I think it is an utterly dreadful performance. For a start Glenn Gould sings and moans along with the music extremely irritatingly and intrusively - evidently he is incapable of expressing himself through the piano -,  he doesn't play tall the repeats, and his performance is, well, idiosyncratic, attention seeking, mannered, ungainly ... He was a kind of "bad boy" of piano playing for a while, prodigiously competent technically, he introduced a particular generation of people to Bach, but - despite all the hype in the magazines - there are now just so many better interpreters and performances who let the music do the work. Murray Perahia, Angela Hewitt, Igor Levit, Andras Schiff .. I've recently enjoyed Beatrice Rana joyously young set. But Glenn Gould's set is more about Glenn Gould than it is about Bach.

(I am now going to be incinerated!)

G'day Likesmusic, after my post I listened to the Album on iTunes and it is not my bucket of fish.  Even thought it is rated Number 4 with Gramophone TOP 10 List.  I found it too busy.  I have since gone through all the Top 10 albums on iTunes and have come up with a short list.  Those being Numbers, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9.  For number 10 I found a German version on iTunes and would like an English version.

After thinking a little off centre.  I Googled these albums in Australian and ended up at our local ABC shop.  ABC is our local channel 2 TV station and part of an Australia wide AM radio network on the medium wave band.  Here in Victoria Melbourne it is on 774 kHz.

On there website I found these listings:

https://shop.abc.net.au/search#stq=bach

I do not know what to make of them.  Though I am considering purchasing the Passions of Matthew and John for starters and see where I go from there.  I do not know if I am making a mistake walking away from Gramophone's Top 10 list and finding a locally available list that may be equivalent.  I have not been disappointed with the ABC in the past.  Though it is a risk.

I must say thank you for your post warning me off the Glen Gould CD.  Even though I did not enjoy it.  I thought I might with enough exposure.  Though honestly it was very fast work which I found over complex for enjoyment.  I like how some pieces can drift silently away with spacing for personal contemplation.  You have saved me $55 dollars AUD.

Likesmusic, are there any on this ABC list that you think I should avoid please.  I have a fire extinguisher to put out any flames : )  Fully trained on cockpit and hangar fires.  Please feel safe : )

Please feel free to go through my ABC link above and select any must haves.  I am finding that I have a preference for strings and or accompanied voices.  I do not know what you call the latter.

Warm regards,

Paul.

I don't know most of the performances, the Hewitt Well Tempered Clavier is my reference performance of the work, the Parahia recording of the Frnch Suites is excellent ( I don't know the other Perahia one, but it looks like a good introduction to Bach's keyboard music), and the mixed album of Brahms, Schumann and Bach with Martha Argerich Nd Izzy Perlman is wonderful, although obviously not totally Bach.

I'd suggest just picking up one of the Passions, the Matthew, to start, both are long choral works, and as an introduction to Bach 4 hours of choral work may be a bit much, then add the John when you've decided (hopefully) that Bach will be a lifelong passion.

There have been many recommendations for keyboard, violin, cello and voice. All good. One set of compositions I keep coming back to, that I don't believe has yet been mentioned, is the lute suites. I find them to be quite sublime and very cerebral. I like Goran Sollscher in these works.

Something else you will certainly want to explore, are the sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Milstein on EMI, or Mullova on Onyx are very fine.

The recordings I listed get played to death at our place, but there are many other fine recordings to choose from.

Enjoy,

BB

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their guidance with my desire to expand my listening to include Bach.  Please do not feel ignored that I have not purchased from overseas sources as some have recommended.  After a number of disappointments from purchasing from outside Australia.  I have elected for this purchase that I will purchase from our local government book shop the ABC (Australian Broadcast Commission).

The albums I have purchased are:

https://shop.abc.net.au/produc...-matthew-passion-3cd

https://shop.abc.net.au/produc...-st-john-passion-2cd

Plus one DVD

https://shop.abc.net.au/products/wolf-hall-dvd

Hopefully these albums will be fully appreciated which will ignite an ongoing passion for Bach.

Thank you everyone very much.

Warm regards,

Paul.

Bach begins and ends with : Hilary Hahn - Bach Concertos

Anything else is superfluous. 

Once you've enjoyed that CD, try moving on to Elliott Carter.

kuma posted:

Parton me, I can't help with your Bach question, but I just noticed your avatar.

It's cool that Tetsujin 28-go survived to the 21st century.

Huge Gigantor fan here.

I had this artist recommended to me.  Though after looking at the new price.  I have put my wallet back in my pocket.  She must be good to command this price.

https://www.amazon.com/Violin-...ativeASIN=B000E0W23E

Paul.

Yes, Victoria Mullova is excellent in Bach in my opinion. Look for her recording of the sonatas and partitas for solo violin on the Onyx label. Very special. 

BB

Success, after a search on the internet I found this.  Mulled over it for a 15 minutes and then hit the buy button.  It was cheaper than the new price at Amazon for almost $200 USD.  A little over $50 AUD second hand delivered from the UK.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/351...e=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I do take notice.  For now I will sit back and await for my purchases to arrive.

Thank you again to everyone.  Nobody has been ignored.

Warm regards,

Paul.