Bach : Trauermusic. Parrott.

Choir & Organ (Jan, 2012)
Here are two outstanding, revelatory discs: a sublimely a sublimely convincing reconstruction of J.S. Bach’s Trauermusik for Prince Leopold and his son J.C.’s Messa di Requiem . For the former, sections of the St Matthew Passion and the Trauer-Ode are re-used with Picander’s alternative text in a manner that seems irreproachably ‘right’, presented by Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Consort & Players with gorgeous solo voices and the classiest of playing – a fantastic idea, brilliantly executed. From the personal, pietistic, Protestant devotional intimacy of the father it’s quite a leap to the classical, Catholic and ceremonial style of the son who was very clearly the ‘Italian Bach’ first, ere he …