J.S. Bach: Trauer-Music (Music to Mourn Prince Leopold) (2011)

by Carys Lane (soprano), Christopher Watson (tenor), Giles Underwood (bass), Jean Paterson (violin), Natanya Hadda (alto), Taverner Consort, Taverner Players, Tom Phillips (tenor), Andrew Parrott (conductor)

Buyers should note that the music contained here is not the Cantata No. 198, BWV 198, known as the Trauer-Ode or Mourning Ode for Christiane Eberhardine, the Electress of Saxony, although it does contain music from that work. What's presented here is a reconstruction of a piece Bach is known to have composed, a setting of Trauer-Musik or Funeral Music for Prince Leopold of Cöthen, Bach's longtime patron. The text of the work, by Christian Friedrich Henrici (known as Picander, and the author of the St. Matthew Passion text), ... Read More

Buyers should note that the music contained here is not the Cantata No. 198, BWV 198, known as the Trauer-Ode or Mourning Ode for Christiane Eberhardine, the Electress of Saxony, although it does contain music from that work. What's presented here is a reconstruction of a piece Bach is known to have composed, a setting of Trauer-Musik or Funeral Music for Prince Leopold of Cöthen, Bach's longtime patron. The text of the work, by Christian Friedrich Henrici (known as Picander, and the author of the St. Matthew Passion text), exists, and Bach is known to have written music for it, now lost. The commission came in on short notice, and conductor and reconstructor Andrew Parrott is arguing not only that what's heard here is plausible but that Bach actually might have used these works in the manner presented here. The sources are the Trauer-Ode and the St. Matthew Passion itself, with the recitatives as Parrott's only original contribution. Does it work? Certainly Bach was an inveterate recycler of his own... Read Less