J.S. Bach: Morimur: The Hilliard Ensemble, Christoph Poppen

J. S. Bach: Morimur
The Hilliard Ensemble / Christoph Poppen
ECM 2001

Cristoph Poppen: Baroque violin
Monica Mauch: Soprano
David James: Countertenor
John Potter: Tenor
Gordon Jones: Baritone

Beyond the fascinating story behind Morimur it's an excellently well crafted, and well-produced recording that truly brings the piece to life. If you're a fan of J.S. Bach it is recommended that you give this recording a listen as it is fantastic and excellently read with the Hilliard Ensemble in top form. A must have for your collection! Matt Borghi / AMG

01. Auf meinen lieben Gott [0:02:04.20]
02. Den Tod [0:00:26.00]
03. Allemanda [0:04:11.02]
04. Christ lag in Todesbanden [0:01:29.33]
05. Corrente [0:02:48.40]
06. Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt [0:01:31.12]
07. Sarabanda [0:04:00.63]
08. Wo soll ich fliehen hin [0:00:51.62]
09. Giga [0:04:19.20]
10. Den Tod [0:00:29.28]
11. Ciaccona [0:14:22.27]
12. Christ lag in Todesbanden [0:02:17.23]
13. Dein Will gescheh' [0:00:54.05]
14. Befiehl du deine Wege [0:01:24.17]
15. Jesu meine Freude [0:01:06.63]
16. Auf meinen lieben Gott [0:00:48.57]
17. Jesu deine Passion [0:01:08.23]
18. In meines Herzens Grunde [0:00:52.72]
19. Nun lob', mein Seel', den Herren [0:01:39.63]
20. Den Tod [0:00:26.37]
21. Ciaccona [0:13:59.10]
22. Den Tod [0:00:30.58]

Reviews:
"Reviewed: Gramophone 2001/11
A speculative insight into Bach s mind proves an effective and moving listening experience

The idea behind this release is the intriguing one that by covertly slipping into his works snippets of Lutheran chorale tunes Bach was offering hints as to those pieces hidden meanings. It is a difficult theory to challenge without being as knowledgeable as Helga Thoene the Bach scholar on whose investigations it is based and I am certainly not. But while the sceptic will doubtless consider that the nature of most Lutheran chorale melodies is such that one might well recognise bits of them in any number of pieces (especially when the note values can be changed) the more accepting cannot fail to be impressed by the detail with which Thoene has developed her thesis. The result elucidated in her booklet article is a conceptual reading of the three Partitas for solo violin which sees them as representative respectively of Christmas Easter and Pentecost or in other words birth death and rebirth. What this disc sets out to do is to take the Second Partita and turn its notional Easter connotation of in Christo morimur (in Christ we die) into an audible one by interspersing its five movements with relevant verses and fragments from the chorales in question suitably paschal numbers such as Christ lag in Todesbanden and Jesu Deine Passion. Most fascinatingly of all though the great final Chaconne a piece thought to have moving extra significance as a tombeau for Bach s first wife is played twice the second time with the Hilliard Ensemble adding the chorale quotations to the texture. This is not the first time this last has been done lutenist Josι Miguel Moreno has already recorded the Chaconne in transcription with the chorale tunes superimposed by Emma Kirkby and Carlos Mena (Glossa 3/99) but with a Baroque violin and a four­part vocal ensemble the new recording could I suppose claim to be slightly more authentic . Performed with solemn feeling in a sepulchral acoustic it is also more objectively beautiful though by the same token less intimate and heartfelt. Christoph Poppen plays with secure agility and a vibrant tone bringing drama to the Sarabande and vigour to the Gigue and shaping a satisfying range of moods in the Chaconne grippingly hushed in the long arpeggio passage and joyously excited in the big fanfares. The Hilliard Ensemble sing with appropriately funereal dignity. No one would pretend that this project represents anything that Bach would ever have heard in performance but the thought of those fleeting ghostly chorale fragments being something he could have heard in his head is one that is hard to resist. And in the end when the mind has cleared itself of musicology this is above all one of those increasingly rare things a moving and intelligently programmed disc that is effective from beginning to end.

Also:

"Reviewer: Andrew McGregor / bbc.co.uk

Boy, is this hard to explain! The Hilliard Ensemble vocalising while Christoph Poppen plays Bach's most famous work for solo violin...surely some mistake? Well, no. You see, it's all down to the sharp eye and keen ear of German musicologist Helga Thoene. She specialises in seeing the hidden messages in baroque music that our superficial 21st century approach misses, and her theory is that Bach's D minor Partita for solo violin is full of hidden references to death, riddled with quotations from his own chorales. I've played the piece and never noticed anything like that&but then I wasn't looking, was I?
I won't go into details, it's mind-boggling enough when you read the notes, and that's the best place to direct you if you're interested in finding out more. But how have Helga Thoene's analyses been made flesh by our performers, you're asking? Well, the chorales, performed gently and very beautifully by the Hilliards, alternate with the individual movements of the D minor Partita, allowing us to investigate the associations with our own ears, or at least to luxuriate in an imaginatively mixed recital of Bach at his most affecting.
And so it goes - until we reach the great Chaconne. Thoene's thesis is that this movement represented a memorial to Bach's wife, Maria Barbara, who died while he was away from home. He returned to find not only that she'd died, but she'd actually been buried a week before his return; it's hard to imagine how this must have affected him. So, says the Professor, the Chaconne is a 'tombeau' for Maria Barbara Bach, and here, as Poppen plays one of the greatest movements for violin ever composed, the Hilliards sing the chorale quotations, showing how they fit alongside the solo line. It must have been extremely difficult to make this work in performance, but the result is extraordinary, turning the Chaconne into a memorial, and an expression of faith in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting.
You may not want to play this every time you think of the D minor Partita, but it's deeply affecting, and beautifully realised' ECM's been intelligent enough to give us a number of possibilities, recording two versions of the Chaconne, with and without voices, so if you want you can programme Christoph Poppen's performance of the Partita with no vocal interventions at all. But I bet you won't want to after you've heard them together."

Enjoy it!

Posted by Ice