KARL RICHTER

The Complete Recordings on ARCHIV PRODUKTION and Deutsche Grammophon

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Art: Boxset (97 CD + 3 BluRay Audio Discs)

Through his brilliant interpretation of Bach's music Karl Richter became a respected authority already early in his career. He impressed audiences around the world as virtuosic organist, but even more as conductor of the Munich-based Bach Ensemble he formed over the years. Karl Richter touched his listeners through pure emotion and expressivity and was referred to as “Thomaskantor of people’s hearts”.

Karl Richter complete recordings for Archiv Produktion, DG and Decca on 97 CDs and 3 Blu-ray Audio discs:

• 97 CD & 3 Blu-ray Audio Original Jackets Collection
• A wide-ranging portrait of the all-round musician Karl Richter, as an organist and harpsichordist, chamber musician, continuo player, and as conductor of major orchestral and sacred choral works.
• All of Bach’s cantatas and major sacred works on Blu-ray Audio in audiophile resolution of 24bit / 192kHz.
• 176pp booklet with:
  • New informative liner notes by Richter specialist and discographer Roland Wörner, and reprint of a personal homage by tenor and friend Peter Schreier.
  • Many session and artist photos

 Includes rare recordings of particular interest and many first releases: 

• First CD release of two truly programmatic works, illustrating Richter’s connection to Bach:
  • Liszt: Prelude and Fugue on the Name B–A–C–H, from Victoria Hall, Geneva
  • Reger: Fantasia and Fugue on the Name B–A–C–H from Ottobeuren
• First international CD release of
  • Handel’s Flute Sonatas with Hans-Martin Linde
  • Bach’s Flute Sonatas (BWV 1033-35) with Aurèle Nicolet
  • Bach’s Double Concertos BWV 1043, 1060 (from 1963) and 1064R (from 1980)
• Richter’s very first recording on Archiv Produktion, as continuo player in Handel’s Concerti Grossi Op. 6 with Bamberg Symphony and Fritz Lehmann
• Richter’s first independent recording on Archiv Produktion: Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien, featuring Munich’s Heinrich-Schütz-Kreis, renamed after 1954 as the Münchener Bach-Chor
• Bach’s Violin Sonatas with Wolfgang Schneiderhan
• The recording of Bach-Schemelli’s Songbook with Peter Schreier, made in the Freiberg cathedral with the famous Silbermann organ, featuring the Bach’s Dorian Toccata, Passacaglia in C minor and Partita BWV 768
• A special and intimate Christmas Carol Recital with Maria Stader, featuring many instrumental soloists close to Richter

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KARL RICHTER, A UNIVERSAL MUSICIAN

Hardly any 20th century musician could come closer to the role model of a Saxon cantor, and so to the ideal of J. S. Bach himself as Karl Richter. The son of a Protestant clergyman, Richter had his first lessons with the organist of Dresden’s Kreuzkirche, he was able to practice at the world-famous Silbermann organ at Freiberg cathedral and also sang in Dresden’s Kreuzchor. Pupil of the legendary Thomaskantor Karl Straube, Richter traced a career largely dedicated to sacred music. He was appointed organist of St. Thomas in Leipzig in 1949 and after winning the international Bach competition, he transferred the focal point of this work to Munich, where he established not only a reputation as a brilliant organist but built up the Münchener Bachchor and brought many outstanding instrumentalists into his Munich orchestra.

Although steeped in tradition, Richter’s perspective showed no backward orientation – his merit in contrast was to establish “Bach for contemporaries” by sweeping away the mists of a bombastically monumental Romantic sound world, and he touched and convinced his listeners through his emotion and expressivity. Richter built a solid network in the European musical scene and soon came to the attention of Decca/Telefunken’s producers and Archiv Produktion, later Deutsche Grammophon, becoming one of the great and acknowledged Bach and Baroque music interpreters on disc. Richter’s interpretations consist of a special gravity and sincere profoundness, and generations of listeners have been attracted by them and drawn into them them up to this day.

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REPERTOIRE:

CD1-64     Johann Sebastian Bach

CD65         Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Orchestral Sinfonias

CD66         Ludwig van Beethoven: Mass in C major op. 86

CD67-68   Christoph Willibald Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice

CD69-92   George Frideric Handel

CD93         Joseph Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 94 “Surprise” & 101 “The Clock”

CD94         Alessandro Scarlatti, J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn

CD95         Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt

BONUS

CD96        Franz Liszt: Prelude and Fugue on the Name B–A–C–H S 260

                 Max Reger: Fantasia and Fugue on the Name B–A–C–H op. 46

CD97       In Dulci Jubilo – 18 European Christmas Carols

BLURAY AUDIO DISCS

BRA1     Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 (Recording 1958)

St. John Passion BWV 245

Christmas Oratorio BWV 248

Mass in B minor BWV 232 (Recording 1961)

BRA2     Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantatas For all the Sundays and Feast Days in the Church Calendar (Part 1)

Advent and Christmas

Easter

Ascension Day · Whitsun · Trinity (beg.)

BRA3     Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantatas For all the Sundays and Feastdays in the Church Calendar (Part 2)

Ascension Day · Whitsun · Trinity (cont.)

Sundays after Trinity I

Sundays after Trinity II