Elly Ameling Bach Edition (20CD Boxset)

Compiled here for the first time are all of Elly Ameling’s Bach recordings for both Decca and Philips: an ‘original jackets’ treasury of Cantatas, Passions and oratorios which would make a first-rate introduction to the composer’s sacred music, but which for the more experienced listener holds vocal glories in store, and also takes the changing temperature of Bach performance practice during its span.

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"Radiance, then, radiance of tone and personality, that is Elly Ameling’s gift, and as she smiles, sweetly, we hear the smile in the voice." So John Steane wrote in his essay on the Dutch soprano in Singers of the Century, and her recordings of Bach preserve and communicate that radiance as much as her celebrated albums of Schubert Lieder.

The earliest recording here is the St. Matthew Passion conducted by Karl Münchinger from 1964, in which Ameling sings all the arias (no double-soloist division to match the double choir and orchestra) and the bit-parts such as Pilate’s wife, and she does so with not only a poise but a communicative urgency that seized the attention of countless listeners hearing her for the first time (though by then she had been singing professionally for more than a decade).

Before this recording, she recalled in a later interview, Münchinger had heard her on a German radio broadcast, "and said to himself, “There is a Bach singer!” So he told [Decca] that if he was to record any more Bach for them, he must have me as his soprano." She went on to bring her special qualities of serenity and pathos to his recordings of the St. John Passion, Easter Oratorio, Magnificat and several cantatas.

Münchinger brought a lighter touch to this music than other German Bach conductors, and his graceful rhythmic feeling paired well with Ameling’s voice, but then so did the more clipped and extrovert, French style of Ernest Ansermet (a single tantalising album of cantatas), the pacier, punchy but compact approach of the oboist-turned-conductor Helmut Winscherma.

TRACK LIST

CD 1
Cantatas, BWV 199 & 51
Maurice André · Helmut Winschermann

CD 2
Cantatas, BWV 32 & 57
Hermann Prey · Helmut Winschermann

CD 3
Cantatas, BWV 140 & 80
Linda Finnie · Aldo Baldin · Samuel Ramey
Raymond Leppard

CD 4
Cantatas, BWV 84, 52 & 209
Raymond Leppard

CD 5
Cantatas, BWV 130, 101 & 67
Helen Watts · Werner Krenn · Tom Krause
Ernest Ansermet

CD 6
Cantata, BWV 10
Helen Watts · Werner Krenn · Marius Rintzler
Magnificat, BWV 243
Hanneke van Bork · Helen Watts
Werner Krenn · Tom Krause
Karl Münchinger

CD 7
Missae breves, BWV 235 & 236
Birgit Finnilä · Theo Altmeyer · William Reimer
Helmut Winschermann

CDs 8–9
Mass in B minor, BWV 232
Yvonne Minton · Helen Watts
Werner Krenn · Tom Krause
Karl Münchinger

CDs 10–12
Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244
Peter Pears · Hermann Prey · Marga Höffgen
Fritz Wunderlich · Tom Krause
Karl Münchinger

CDs 13–14
Johannes-Passion, BWV 245
Julia Hamari · Werner Hollweg
Hermann Prey · Dieter Ellenbeck
Walter Berry
Karl Münchinger

CD 15
Osteroratorium, BWV 249
Helen Watts · Werner Krenn · Tom Krause
Karl Münchinger

CDs 16–17
Weihnachts-Oratorium, BWV 248
Helen Watts · Peter Pears · Tom Krause
Karl Münchinger

CDs 18–20
Weihnachts-Oratorium, BWV 248
Brigitte Fassbaender
Horst Laubenthal · Hermann Prey
Eugen Jochum