Nevertheless, one of the best recordings ever made of Bach's B minor Mass - that led by Thomas Hengelbrock for DHM in 1997 - was based on a similar instance where the work was presented as a show rather than a 'straight' public performance of Bach's never-intended-as-liturgical choral masterpiece.įor a musical text like Les Éléments, of which the content is something of a matter of debate given the incomplete form in which it has come down to us, Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin's interpretation is remarkably fluid and evolutionary in keeping with Rebel's intentions of moving from Chaos through Creation. Some might find that the staging of instrumental - or at least non-dramatic - classics borders on the faddish. Inasmuch as the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin is concerned, these recordings reflect a staged performance of the two works as prepared for a festival in Italy in the fall of 2009 in collaboration with choreographer Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola. Like Vivaldi's often derided as over-familiar Four Seasons, Jean-Féry Rebel's 1737 ballet Les Éléments does not want for good recordings, but it is nowhere near as famous as the Vivaldi this is the first time the two have been combined on a recording, and these pieces are quite compatible given their shared, programmatic purposes.

Harmonia Mundi's Rebel: Elements - Vivaldi: Four Seasons combines two of the Baroque's biggest instrumental barnburners as performed by one of the top period instrument groups in Europe, Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin, under the leadership of concertmasters Clemens-Maria Nuszbaumer and Georg Kallweit and featuring their star attraction, violinist Midori Seiler.

4 seasons classical