Jan 1, 2012 | Wencke Wallbaum News The RIAS Bach Cantatas Project

​​The 9 CD box set with first releases from the RIAS archive presents the historically first attempt at a complete recording of the Bach cantatas. Karl Ristenpart built up the choral and orchestral work of RIAS Berlin from 1946 and directed the RIAS Chamber Choir and the RIAS Chamber Orchestra. With these ensembles and upcoming young singers such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Helmut Krebs and Agnes Giebel, Karl Ristenpart and Elsa Schiller, then head of the RIAS music department, planned a complete recording of all Bach cantatas from 1947. However, the project could not be fully realised. The 29 cantatas still in the RIAS archive today document a Bach ideal that is forward-looking even from today's perspective. Through the interpretation, which frees itself from all monumentality, the later historical performance practice was aesthetically prepared.

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