Search - Klaus Mertens, Jap Ter Linden, Andreas Staier :: Bach 2000: The Complete Bach Edition - Sampler

J.S. Bach's fascination with numbers has been taken over by the music world at large as--in alignment with the new millennium--it prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, which occurred in July 1750. Though his passing marked the sunset of one of the most glorious eras in music, awareness of the value of Bach's enormous legacy has never been more widespread than in our own time. As evidence, just take the spectrum of recordings scheduled to honor the Bach anniversary. This sampler offers a glimpse of the most ambitious of them all: Teldec's Bach 2000 box set, a 153-CD mountain of music consisting of the composer's entire output of over 1,000 works. The majority of these recordings have been previously released over the last several decades in various guises, but for the first time they are being gathered into a unified edition. Its guiding spirit is Nikolaus Harnoncourt, one of the pioneers of the revolution in historical performance practice, and he is similarly represented in 8 of the sampler's 18 selections. Among the other artists to savor here--and at beguiling length in the full set--are Harnoncourt's early-music ally Gustav Leonhardt, eloquent violinist Thomas Zehetmair, Il Giardino Armonico, and organist Ton Koopman (in a majestically architectural account of the D Minor Toccata and Fugue). And even though at 77 minutes this is just 1/150th of the whole Bach, you don't need to do the math to be swept away in pleasure. --Thomas May