Bach, J S - Oboe Concerto - Holliger, Heinz (oboe)
Heinz Holliger: oboe, oboe d'amore
Camerata Bern
Erich Höbarth: violin, conductor
Heinz Holliger soars through Bach's music for oboe in his first ECM recital of core classical repertoire since his 1997 account of Zelenka's Trio Sonatas. Recorded at Radio Studio Zürich in December 2010, "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis", draws upon Holliger's long artistic relationship with Camerata Bern and leader Eric Höbarth, the production rendering every detail in the music, the elegance of Holliger's phrasing, the tactile sound of baroque bows on gut strings, crystal clear. Holliger dedicates this very special recording to the memory of his brother, theatre director Erich Holliger, and Gabriel Bürgin, pianist, friend and colleague.
Johann Sebastian Bach relied on the oboe to voice some of the most exquisite instrumental passages in his cantatas and orchestral works, these solo parts adding up to what Heinz Holliger terms a "miraculous wealth" of music for the oboe. Holliger, one of the world's consummate oboists for five decades now, as well as a prize-winning composer and conductor -presents a collection of this music drawn from the sinfonia introductions to several sacred cantatas, the sinfonia from the Easter Oratorio and versions of three Bach concertos made for oboe, strings and continuo. These include the sublime Double Concerto for Violin and Oboe, with the solo violin part played by Erich Höbarth, who also directs the Camerata Bern throughout the album. Also included is Alessandro Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D minor, a piece Bach appreciated enough to rework for solo harpsichord.
"Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis" translates as "I had much affliction." The title is drawn from Bach's cantata BWV 21, the largest of his sacred cantatas and a journey from the dark of grief to the light of hope, written for the death of a young prince, one of Bach's favourite pupils. Bach also performed the cantata later after the sudden death of his first wife. This cantata's sinfonia is a wondrous creation full of sighing chromatic melody for the solo oboe, garlanded by violins. Holliger - who has written his own liner notes for the album, detailing the often complicated provenance of the various pieces - describes Bach's oboe sinfonias as "among the towering masterpieces of the entire repertoire for the instrument."