Comment by throw0101b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw0101b | Hacker News Reader

Around the year 2000, amongst the other things that were going on, it was also the 250th anniversary of Bach's death. Someone at the record label Teldec got the bright idea to release the entirely of Bach's work, and so a 153-disc box set was produced:

* https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/the-complete-b...

* https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2013/Apr13/B...

* https://www.amazon.com/Bach-2000-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B00001I...

A few years later they released a digital copy, with all the music made MP3s on a USB stick, with PDFs of the booklets:

* https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/apr/17/complete-bach-...

Edit: Somewhat related, is the All of Bach project:

> All of Bach is a project of the Netherlands Bach Society with the aim to perform and record all of Bach's works and share them online with the world for free. With the finest recordings, performed at special locations and with great attention to image and sound. Don't want to miss a recording of All of Bach? Then subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you would like to help us complete All of Bach, please consider a donation.

* https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/allofbach

* https://www.youtube.com/@bach

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Bach_Society

Deutsche Grammophon produced something similar recently, which I was lucky enough to get for Christmas last year: https://www.bach333.com/en/

It is stunning in every way; I highly recommend it for any Bach fans!

A playlist destroys the magic of the monumental achievement that this represents but visualizes the quantity pretty well:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4jjc7SCCeXZ0PmvnKZgjpx?si=...

750 performers contributed to 260 hours of recordings. The three hours I rounded up would represent a major part of some other‘s work.

Crikey, they have an unboxing video (and the musical samples they use in it sound so good/atmospheric in my headphones):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8EuGZk74io

I am so tempted to get this (even at CA$ 800, per amazon.ca), but I'm not sure I have the actual physical space to store it.

It’s probably my favorite gift I have ever received, even though I did have to rearrange my office to store it properly lol. The curation is incredible, as is the sound quality, the packaging… everything.

The Netherlands Bach Society (which sounds like an organization for people who are into Bach, but it's an ensemble, though one that has been in existence for more than 100 years) is fantastic. Some of my favourite Bach performances are by them [1].

Another Dutch "complete Bach" project from recent years that I enjoyed: Leusink's complete set of recordings of Bach's sacred cantatas with the Holland Boy's Choir and Netherlands Bach Collegium (1999-2000), recorded over the span of just 15 months. A year ago I listened to the entire thing, which took me three months.

(It's quite good. But in my opinion, this haste is reflected in the performances a little bit; they are very competent, to be sure, but they lack some nuance, perhaps especially in the sound mix. For whatever reason, I much prefer the NBS recordings of most of these cantatas. (I don't really like Sytse Buwalda's voice, either.) Compare their BWV 21 [2] with NBS [3]. The beautiful interplay between first violin and oboe in the NBS recording is rather lost in the Leusink version, and the sound muddier. Admittedly the NBS version appears to replace the organ with some extra strings, but to me it just sounds crisper and more carefully performed. This really extends to everything. I hope NBS will one day release a complete cantata box set.)

[1] https://youtu.be/N6sUlZa-IrU?si=0Ls7CTQ4UiMyDB0b

[2] https://youtu.be/JGT0iPpU9is?si=qVMJTYhANI8adHop

[3] https://open.spotify.com/track/6MLmB5GDhAJr3cxMKKXUzs?si=xcV...

I am hoping to live long enough to see his 300th year celebration.

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