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Bach Cantatas Website - Newsletters
Year 2013 |
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< Year 2012 |
Year 2014 > |
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The Bach Cantatas Website celebrates its 12th anniversary |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (January 2, 2013):
The Bach Cantatas Website (BCW) was launched in its current form and address on December 30, 2000.
The BCW is located at: http://www.bach-cantatas.com
Description: The Bach Cantatas Website (BCW) is a comprehensive site covering all aspects of J.S. Bach's cantatas and his other vocal works and many of his instrumental works. The BCW contains for most works: detailed discographies, discussions, texts and translations, scores, commentaries, references, music examples... Performers of Bach’s works: their biographies, Bach discographies... Poets & composers associated with Bach: their biographies, Bach connection... Other resources: the Lutheran church year, chorale texts & melodies, books and movies on Bach, concerts, Bach festivals, guide to Bach tour... The BCW is an international collective project.
Some statistics: by the end of 2012, the BCW contains over 27,000 pages, 90,000 photos, 3,200 music files, and 2,100 PDF files.
The BCW is definitely the most popular site dedicated to J.S. Bach and his music and amongst the most popular sites dedicated to Classical Music in general.
The BCW has each day about 12,000 visits, from about 11,000 users, who see about 50,000-60,000 pages.
The BCW is rated very high in Google and other search engines, and there are over 430,000 links from other websites to the BCW (including, for example, over 8,000 links from Wikipedia)
There have been many improvements & additions to the BCW last year. The Home Page has been completely revised. The new Home Page is self-explanatory, and I hope more user-friendly and inviting. Each of the main sections of the BCW has a small box in the Home Page describing its content and including list of recent additions/updates. All the other pages of the BCW have been revised to make them more “modern” and easier to navigate. See other changes & additions at:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/New/Newsletter-2012.htm
As the creator of the BCW, not to me to testify for the value it has to the users. I know that it is extensively used by the academic community, by performers and by classical music fans around the world. The number of visits and the feedback I am getting continuously encourage me to continue, expanding, updating and improving the BCW. Many of the feedback messages from last year can be read at the page:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/About-2012.htm
I would like to use this opportunity to thank the numerous contributors to the discussions in the Bach Mailing Lists and some other lists, whose messages are compiled into the pages of the BCW. Their names are mentioned accordingly above each quoted message. I would also like to thank the many Bach lovers around the world who have sent me material to be included in the BCW, such as articles, translation of cantata texts, recording details, biographies, photos, music examples, links to other sites, etc. Their names are mentioned accordingly in the relevant pages.
I continue to look forward to receiving your comments (corrections, suggestions, improvements, etc.) about the BCW. The instructions how to send me comments, appear in the following page:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/How.htm
I wish you all another Great and Happy Bach Year! |
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Charles Francis wrote (January 3, 2013):
Impressive statistics you gave for the Bach Cantata website! |
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EM wrote (January 7, 2013):
A great source of information.
Thanks for all the good work. |
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Matthew B. Tepper (January 8, 2013):
Thank you for all your work. |
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1000 members! |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (January 5, 2013):
Member No. 1000 has just joined the BCML!
Happy New Year to all! |
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Realizations of Bach's Works using Various Tuning Systems |
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Charles Francis wrote (January 12, 2013):
There is new section in the Bach Cantatas Website (BCW): http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Video/Real-Main.htm
This addition has been proposed and expeditiously implemented by Aryeh Oron, following requests from Bach Cantata discussion group members.
Recording and producing videos with these retuned historic-organs has been an expensive time-consuming task for me, and accordingly there is a "Support Video Production Costs" button offered for those who would like to help out (there is no obligation, but any contribution is appreciated). |
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Douglas Cowling wrote (January 12, 2013):
Charles Francis wrote:
< There is new section in the Bach Cantatas Website (BCW): http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Video/Real-Main.htm >
A great resource. Thanks. |
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Bradley Lehman wrote (January 17, 2013):
[To Douglas Cowling] That same type of thing was done in c2003, and again in 2005-6, by Frog Music Press and James Pressler. Their work is still available:
http://www.frogmusic.com/the_temperamental_cds/
http://www.virtuallybaroque.com
Their CD sets:
http://www.virtuallybaroque.com/cd.htm
https://www.createspace.com/1722953 |
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Ed Myskowski wrote (January 23, 2013):
[To Bradley Lehman] A brief quote from Frog Press introductory material:
<Our ears have gotten so used to equal temperament that when listening to these Temperamental CD's people complain about how out of tune some intervals and chords sound. But before long they realize how in tune others are and they realize how much we have lost by adopting equal temperament for our tuning.> |
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BCW: Major Bach Events 2013 |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (February 13, 2013):
I have updated the page of Major Bach Events on the BCW, to include all the Bach Festivals, which have already published their planned dates for 2013.
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Concerts/Event-2013.htm
The Main Page of all known Bach Festivals & Cantata Series around the world:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Festival/index.htm
All the relevant Festival pages on the BCW have been updated as well.
If you are aware of a major Bach event (Festival, Competition, Conference, etc.) missing from the above pages, please inform me. |
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New Set of Chinese Translations on the BCW |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (April 20, 2013):
A new complete set of (Standard) Chinese translations of all the Bach Cantatas BWV 1-224 (including the spurious works in the BWV list) has been added to the BCW. The new set was contributed solely by Chen-Hanson Ting.
See: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/IndexTexts-Chi2-BWV.htm
or: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/index.htm
[marked as Chi-2 the 6th column - Chi]
Standard Chinese is a standardized form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese. It is the official language of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (AKA Taiwan), as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
About one-fifth of the world's population, or over one billion people, speaks some form of Chinese as their native language, meaning that it is the most natively spoken language in the world.
I hope that the these translations as well as the previous partial set of Chinese translations on the BCW, contributed by Yang Jingfeng, would intensify the understanding of the Bach Cantatas and enjoyment from them by Chinese-speaking Classical music lovers.
The BCW presents now complete sets of Cantata translations into sush languages as Catalan, Chinese, English, French (2 sets), Hebrew, In, Italian (2 sets), Russian, Spanish (2 sets), as well as partial sets of translations into Arabic, Dutch, Hungarian, Japanese and Portuguese.
I am still looking for translations to complete the partial sets and to add new languages, such as Polish, Urdu, etc. If you are willing to contribute such translations, I would be happy to host them on the BCW. |
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BCW: WTC Discographies |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (June 1, 2013):
The discography pages of both Books of Well-Tempered-Clavier (WTC) on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade. All the discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades.
Book 1 BWV 846-869 (163 complete recordings): http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV846-869-Rec8.htm
Book II BWV 870-893 (124 complete recordings): http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV870-893-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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Phil [BRML] wrote (June 5, 2013):
[To Aryeh Oron] Thanks for doing this and calling our attention to it. I had not realized there was a Keith Jarrett recording, now winging its way to me courtesy of Amazon. |
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BCW: Change of a host server |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (June 15, 2013):
These days I am transferring the Bach Cantatas Website (BCW): http://www.bach-cantatas.com/ to a new host server.
The BCW is a huge site with over 120,000 files, over 15 GB disc space and a lot of daily traffic (12-15,000 daily visits), and it continues to grow. The limitations of the previous host of the BCW have forced me to look for a new host server. The new host server, Just Host, offers unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth (traffic) and better response time, among other features.
The links to the Bach cantatas website should work as before and there is no need to change links or bookmarks to pages on the BCW. I am doing my best to minimize the downtime. However, during the transferring period, which would take a few more days, the BCW or parts of it might not be available After the transferring is completed, everything should work fine. |
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Santu de Silva [BRML] wrote (June 15, 2013):
[To Aryeh Oron] Your efforts are deeply appreciated. |
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Richard Gueriaux [Facebook] wrote (June 15, 2013):
Travail de titan.. Espèrons que tout se passe bien ! |
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Jean-gabriel Puyraveau [Facebook] wrote (June 15, 2013):
Oui! Nous croiserons les doigts pour le bon déroulement de ce transfert! |
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Mike Hatch [Facebook] wrote (June 15, 2013):
It's a truly GREAT site for a truly GREAT composer!! |
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Ian Howell [Facebook] wrote (June 15, 2013):
Thanks for your work aryeh! |
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Volker Hege [Facebook] wrote (June 15, 2013):
Wonderful. Thank you Areh..!! |
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BCW: New Host Server |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (June 20, 2013):
I am glad to inform you that I have finished transferring the Bach Cantatas Website (BCW) to the new host server. The BCW domain name is the same as before: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/
I have checked the internal links to all the pages on the BCW (over 27,000) and found that they are working fine. It means that the all the links to the Bach cantatas website from other sites (over 400,000) work as before and there is no need to change links or bookmarks. Missing are only some old album cover photos, which I replace gradually with new ones.
Since I run link check on the BCW at least once a month, I do not expect too many broken links (404 Error Message). In the rare case that you meet a missing page, you will now see a page, which ask you to report the error to me: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Error/Error404.htm
The new host server should give you a better response time and it allows me to continue expanding the BCW with no actual limitations of space and bandwidth (traffic). |
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David Chin [Facebook] wrote (June 20, 2013):
Thank you for all your wonderful contributions to the world and our generation, dear Aryeh! You have helped so many people, more than you know! We can never thank you enough! |
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Arthur Robinson wrote (June 30, 2013):
Many thanks for all you do, Mr. Oron! |
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BCW: Various Suites BWV 818-824 Discography |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (June 20, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bach’s Various Suites BWV 818-824 on the BCW have been revised and updated. The discography is arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade. All the discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades. http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV818-824-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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BCW: Discographies of the 6 Partitas & the French Overture |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (June 27, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bash's 6 Partitas and French Overture (sometimes called the 7th Partita) on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade. The discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades.
Partitas BWV 825-830 (359 recordings of complete works):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV825-830-Rec8.htm
French Overture BWV 831 (110 recordings of the complete work):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV831-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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BCW: Discographies of the Fantasias & Fugues BWV 903-909 |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (July 7, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bash's Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue and the group of Fantasias & Fugues on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade. The discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades.
Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue BWV 903 (274 recordings of the complete work, including BWV 903a and arrangements/transcriptions):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV903-Rec10.htm
Fantasias & Fugues BWV 904-909 (104 recordings of complete works):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV904-909-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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BCW: Discographies of Small Keyboard Works BWV 894-902; BWV 917-970 |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (July 11, 2013):
The discography pages of more keyboard works by J.S. Bach on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date. The Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902 discography has a page per a decade; the pages are inter-linked. The discographies of BWV 917-970 are complied by groups; a page per each.
Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902 (78 recordings). 1st page (1900-1949):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV894-902-Rec1.htm
Fantasias & Preludes BWV 917-923 (54 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV917-923-Rec.htm
Little Preludes for W.F. Bach BWV 924-932 (42 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV924-932-Rec.htm
Six Little Preludes 933-938 (54 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV933-938-Rec.htm
Five Little Preludes BWV 939-943 (46 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV939-943-Rec.htm
Fugues BWV 944-962 (74 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV944-962-Rec.htm
Sonatas BWV 963-970 (51 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV963-967-Rec.htm
Various Movements BWV 968-970 (24 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV968-970-Rec.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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BCW: Discography the 7 Keyboard Toccatas |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (July 20, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bash's 7 Keyboard Toccatas BWV 910-916 on the BCW have been updated. The discography is arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade, and contains 219 recordings of complete works (recordings of individual movements are not included). All the issues of the same recording are presented together. The discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades.
http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV910-916-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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BCW: Discographies of the Solo Keyboard Concertos BWV 971-987 |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (July 25, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bash's Italian Concerto and the 16 Concertos for Solo Keyboard (all of them arrangements of works by other composers) on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade. The discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades.
Italian Concerto BWV 971 (290 recordings of the complete work, including a page of arrangements/transcriptions):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV971-Rec8.htm
Concertos for Solo Keyboard BWV 982-987 (131 recordings of complete works):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV972-987-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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BCW: New & Upcoming Recordings of Bach's Works |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (August 2, 2013):
I came to the conclusion that if I want to keep the discography pages of the BCW updated, I must keep the section of New & Upcoming Recordings as updated as possible.
This section includes two pages for each month: Vocal Works / Instrumental Works. Both new releases and reissues of old recordings are listed. For your convenience all the monthly pages are inter-linked and you can easily move back and forth from month to month.
I have recently updated this section to include all the new & reissued recordings of Bach's works from 2011 (and even earlier) up to the most recent. I have decided to leave out compilations of selections from albums on which the works are available complete.
The main sources of information are record labels, record stores, and the artists. Release dates differ from country to country and from continent to continent. As a rule of thumb, each recording is placed according to the earliest world-wide release date, of which I am aware.
My goal is that the info would be as comprehensive, as accurate and as updated as possible. The data presented for each recording usually includes: full list of artists, list of works and TT for each, recording date/s and venue/s, front & back cover photos and more. There are links to the artist bios, work pages/discographies and artist discographies, all on the BCW.
Main page: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Rec/index.htm
Main page of 2013: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Rec/Rec-2013.htm
Recent months are also linked from the Home Page of the BCW:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/ [9th row / middle box]
Of course, if you are aware of a new/re-issued recording I have missed, please do not hesitate to inform me. |
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BCW: NBA Cantata Texts |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (August 18, 2013):
I have added the cantata texts as appear in the New Bach Edition (NBA) to the BCW.
You might ask "Why? There is Bischof's fine site of Bach texts, or we can refer easily to Dürr's big volume or recording booklets, most of which are not from the NBA?".
The main cause for this is that I have been asked many times by translators of the cantata texts into various languages and by users of the BCW, which of the many different versions 'floating around' is the most reliable .
Since the NBA version is considered as the definitive one, I thought it might be useful presenting these texts on the BCW.
Nagamiya Tutomu, who had reproduced the NBA texts on his website, was very kind to allow me using them.
Some explanations by Tutomu:
Other versions differ from the NBA in many points - spelling, punctuation, capitalisation or even word itself. Some examples (Dürr -> NBA):
BWV 40/1 darzu -> dazu
BWV 64/7 genung -> genug
BWV 133/6 mein Jesu -> o Jesu
These styles are originally included in the NBA:
Recitativo (italics: presumed)
"Der Tod in Töpfen!" sagen. (quotations from the Bible)
These styles were added by Nagamiya Tutomu:
Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, (bold: choral texts)
»Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür und klopfe an.« (quotations from the Bible)
Indented texts are middle sections of da capo movements.
Main page of Texts & Translations:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/index.htm
[The links to the NBA Texts appear in the 2nd column: Ger]
The links to the NBA Texts also appear in all the relevant cantata pages [row: Text]
Any comment regarding this new addition would be most appreciated. |
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BCW: Discographies of the Variations & Capriccios BWV 988-994 |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (August 29, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations and the Arias & Variations, Capriccios on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade. The discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades.
Goldberg Variations BWV 988 (563 recordings of the complete work):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV988-Rec2010.htm
This is definitely the most recorded work among Bach's solo keyboard works. However, the discography includes not only recordings on keyboard instruments (harpsichord, clavichord, piano, organ, etc.) but also many arrangements for various combinations of instruments.
Arias & Variations, Capriccios BWV 989-994 (128 recordings of complete works):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV989-994-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me.
With this group I have finished revising and updating all the BCW discography pages of Bach's solo keyboard works BWV 772-994. |
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BCW: New Set of Russian Translations on the BCW |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (November 2, 2013):
A new complete set of Russian translations of almost all Bach’s Vocal Works BWV 1-249, 518-524, 1127 (including spurious works in the BWV list and BWV Anh 21, 24-25) has been added to the BCW. The new set was contributed solely by Igor Sivkov.
See: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/IndexTexts-Rus3-BWV.htm
Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. It is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the 8th most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers and the 5th by total number of sp. The language is one of the 6 official languages of the United Nations.
I hope that the these translations as well as the previous complete set of Russian translations on the BCW, contributed by Peter Meshcherinov, would intensify the understanding of the Bach Cantatas and enjoyment from them by Russian-speaking Classical music lovers.
The BCW presents now complete sets of Cantata translations into such languages as Catalan, Chinese, English, French (2 sets), Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian (2 sets), Russian (2 sets), Spanish (2 sets), as well as partial sets of translations into Arabic, Dutch, Hungarian, Japanese and Portuguese.
I am still looking for translations to complete the partial sets and to add new languages, such as Polish, Urdu, etc. If you are willing to contribute such translations, I would be happy to host them on the BCW.
Any comment regarding this new addition would be most appreciated. |
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BCW: Hans-Joachim Rotzsch Bach Discography |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (November 12, 2013):
The former Thomaskantor Hans-Joachim Rotzsch passed away on September 24, 2013 in Leipzig. As J.S. Bach 15th successor in office, Rotzsch held the position of Thomaskantor from 1972 to 1991, succeeded by Georg Christoph Biller. For a long time I had wondered why did he left this prestigious job. Only recently, I found out that after it became known that he had temporarily co-operated with the State Security of the GDR, he had to resign from the post of Thomaskantor. After that he worked until 2000 as Professor of Protestant Church Music at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Rotzsch was also an excellent tenor singer as testified by his many recording under various conductors, including three former Thomaskantors - Günther Ramin, Erhard Mauersberger and Kurt Thomas. Rotzsch left us a good wealth of Bach recordings under his baton, all of them with the Thomanerchor.
With the help of Matthias Hansen, I revised and expanded Rotzsch Bach discography pages on the BCW.
See: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Rotzsch.htm |
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BCW: Johannes-Passion BWV 245 Discography |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (November 27, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bach’s Johannes-Passion BWV 245 on the BCW have been updated. The discography is arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade, and contains 245 recordings of the complete work, including 4 sung in English and one in French. Both commercial and non-commercial recordings are presented, including all the complete recordings which are available only on YouTube. 26 recordings have been added since the previous version of the discography (May 2012). If a recording is available on YouTube, there is now an option to listen to/watch it directly from the discography page, just below the recording details.
As usual with all the discographies on the BCW, all the issues of the same recording are presented together. The discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades:: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV245-Rec9.htm
Although there are indeed many recordings of Johannes-Passion, I guess there are some recordings out there that I have missed. My goal is that the discography would be as comprehensive, as updated and as accurate as possible. So, if you have any correction, addition, etc., please inform me. |
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< Year 2012 |
Year 2014 > |
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