Johann Christian Bach: Gioas Rè di Giuda

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Written for London audiences in 1770, Johann Christian Bach’s only extant oratorio, Gioas, Re di Guida, is a proverbial curate’s egg. Attempting to please both those weaned on Handel and those hoping to hear the oratorio genre given a rococo makeover, it failed to please either. Such was London’s veneration for the spirit of Handel that Bach was booed when he dared play an organ interlude between acts; and despite George III’s patronage, the work was soon neglected. Audiences of the time simply did not want to hear Italian operatic conventions in their oratorios.

Over 200 years later, such considerations are, thankfully, far less important. While it remains slightly disconcerting to hear quasi-Handelian choruses interpolated into what is in every other respect an opera seria, Bach’s graceful galant manner and his easy, fluid way with vocal melody remain as delightful as ever throughout an increasingly dramatic succession of accompanied recitatives, arias and duets. The fulsome choruses themselves turn out to be the work’s most colourful elements.

Hermann Max follows his previous London Bach recording, La Clemenza di Scipione, with another sympathetic reading. His period-instrument band Das Kleine Konzert, his soloists--Kai Wessel, Ulrike Staude, Mechthild Georg and Markus Schafer--and the Rheinische Kantorei all sound comfortably at ease with the composer’s mellifluous idiom. As part of the ongoing renaissance of JC Bach’s works, this new recording presents us with, if not exactly a lost masterpiece, a substantial and rewarding addition to his discography. --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews:

Giving J. C. His Due.......2004-01-08

Forgive me, Johann Christian, for ever thinking of you as a half-baked Mozart--especially denigrating from a music lover who much prefers Haydn to Mozart! As penance (if you can call sheer pleasure penance), I have been getting to know as much of your work as I can. Listening to this three-CD set from Anthony Halstead and the Hanover Band has been an especial ear-opener. While I can't say that these overtures have the true stamp of theater about them, as Mozart's greatest overtures clearly do, Bach's music is always diverting and often much more than that. There are many beauties and occasionally high drama as well in these little works. And in the Ballet Music from Amadis des Gaule, there is music of such delicate color and panache that I think immediately of Rameau.

Some of these overtures will be familiar to you if you know Bach's symphonies, since they are just a reworking of the same. But most of this music will be new to you and will bring surprise and pleasure, I'm sure. Much of the credit is due Halstead and his band. By this point in their traversal of what seems all of Bach's orchestral music, they are expert at capturing the essence of this composer, whose musical ideas and orchestration are bolder and more scintillating than anybody could have imagined before the birth of the original-instruments movement. If anyone thinks of J. C. Bach as a merely genteel proto-Mozart, as I mistakenly once did, listen to these CDs and be chastened--and royally entertained in the bargain.

Music Review:

Music Review

music review

Recommended Music:

Heard It on the Radio, Vol. 3

Aaron Avshalomov: Symphony No. 2; Piano Concerto

Zelenka: Missa Dei Filii; Litaniae Lauretanae

Walking To Jerusalem

World of Music: India [Import]

Yo! Bum Rush the Show [Explicit Lyrics]

Mahler: Symphonies Nos 1 2 4 5 & 9

Live at the Blue Note