Rachel Podger

Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque – Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni (2018)
DSD128 (.dsf) 1 bit/5,64 MHz | Time – 01:15:29 minutes | 5,195GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:15:29 minutes | 1,31 GB
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Front Cover | © Channel Classics

After the volumes dedicated to Vivaldi’s great instrumental cycles, La Stravaganza (2004), La Cetra (2012) and L’Estro armonico (2015), English violinist Rachel Podger continues her work with her Brecon Baroque ensemble to bring out this version of the Four Seasons, which is rounded off with three violin concertos. A passionate fan of the music of Vivaldi and Biber, Rachel Podger, who studied in Germany, demonstrates through her performances just how much the Red Priest’s music (and her herself, following Biber) can cloak itself in the mysterious and bizarre, to the point that Vivaldi appears here as a distant descendant of the mannerists from the late Renaissance and early Baroque period. This is a particularly interesting and successful take.

Producer Jonathan Freeman-Attwood writes:
“Working with Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque has been an object lesson in starting anew and identifying the ingredients which make ‘Le Quattro Stagioni’ great works. Virtuosity is non-negotiable here and Rachel has it in abundance. But it’s the colour, poetry, vibrancy and evocative characterisation of weather, human warmth and fragility, captured by the dynamic flux of Rachel interlocking with her colleagues in Brecon Baroque, that deliver near-unimaginable qualities in this music”.

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Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque – J.S. Bach: The Art Of Fugue, BWV1080 (2016)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 70:28 minutes | Covers + PDF Booklet | 3,4 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Covers + Digital Booklet | 1,44 GB
Features Stereo and Multichannel Surround Sound | Channel Classics # CCS SA 38316

Rachel Podger has been recording and performing Bach’s music for violin to critical acclaim for over two decades. In 2015 she became the tenth (and first female) recipient of the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize. On this release she leads her own ensemble, Brecon Baroque, in JS Bach’s monumental Art of Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge). Bach’s The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, broken off at the end by the composer’s death, was written out in open score, with no indication of instrumentation. This has given rise over the years to a variety of instrumental realizations, with keyboard performances being the most common, but string orchestra, or wind versions, and so forth, are also often essayed.

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Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque – Antonio Vivaldi: L’Estro Armonico (2015)
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & DST64 5.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Time: 01:36:58 | Digital Booklet | 5.41 GB

Vivaldi augmented his reputation as The Red Priest with L’Estro Armonico , Op. 3, a collection of twelve concertos for one, two and four violins. The title of the collection encapsulates the qualities that so entranced Vivaldi’s contemporaries. L Estro Armonico , which might be translated as musical rapture , reflects the vitality and freshness of Vivaldi’s invention: its rhythmic energy, melodic and harmonic intensity,textural sensuousness,performative brilliance and dramatic flair.

These pieces are truly exhilarating to play and perform and their fresh impact never fails to hit some target or other, judging by the reaction of a live audience. Not often do you witness four violins trying to outdo each other! During Brecon Baroque’s concerts preceding the recording,the rapier-like turns in musical conversations between the four parts always seemed to lead to added expectation and excitement all the more effective because of the contrasted moments of deep melancholy which Vivaldi somehow manages to express irrespective of mode (Rachel Podger)

The dynamic ensemble Brecon Baroque was founded in 2007 by violinist and director Rachel Podger as resident ensemble at her annual Brecon Baroque Festival. The international line-up consists of some of some of the leading lights in the period instrument world. Brecon Baroque specialises in the music of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries, mostly as a one-to-a-part ensemble based on the Cafe Zimmerman ensemble which Bach himself directed. They also appear as a small baroque orchestra for Vivaldi,Telemann, Purcell and Handel.

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Rachel Podger & Brecon Baroque – J.S. Bach: Double & Triple Concertos (2013)
Genre: Classical | SACD ISO: DST 2.0, 5.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Artwork | 3.71 GB
Label: Channel Classics | Release Year: 2013

The dynamic ensemble Brecon Baroque was founded in 2007 by violinist and director Rachel Podger as resident ensemble at her annual Brecon Baroque Festival.The international line-up consists of some of the leading lights in the period-instrument world,such as cellist Alison McGillivray,flautist Katy Bircher,oboist Alexandra Bellamy and violist Jane Rogers,as well as some of Rachel’s former students who now occupy leading positions in many of Europe’s finest ensembles:violinists Bojan Cicic and Johannes Pramsohler.Brecon Baroque specialises in the music of J.S.Bach and his contemporaries,mostly as a one-to-a-part ensemble based on the Cafe Zimmerman ensemble which Bach himself directed.They also appear as a small baroque orchestra for Vivaldi,Telemann, Purcell and Handel.More than any other composer of his period,J.S.Bach realised the possibilities of the concerto avec plusieurs instruments.Drawing on the precedents of Vivaldi and others,Bach’s probing musical intellect led him down novel paths of invention where the collaborative and antagonistic features of the genre reached unprecedented levels of complexity.

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