Latest Release
- 17 MAR 2023
- 14 Songs
- Bach: St. John Passion, BWV 245 (Johannes-Passion) [Deluxe Edition] · 2016
- Bach: Weihnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio) · 1997
- Bach: St. John Passion, BWV 245 (Johannes-Passion) [Deluxe Edition] · 2016
- Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto · 1991
- Handel: Saul · 2005
- Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 · 2022
- Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro · 2004
- J.S. Bach: St Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (Matthäus-Passion) · 2013
- Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea · 1990
- Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea · 1990
Essential Albums
- A rich, spatial sound is just one sterling attribute of this recording of Bach’s more popular Passion. Werner Güra makes for a splendid Evangelist, while the choral work—split between the Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus and Berlin State And Cathedral Choir—is heavenly. Though it wouldn’t be a René Jacobs interpretation if there weren’t a couple of idiosyncrasies (including the choice of lute accompaniment during “Komm, Süßes Kreuz”), the conductor ably manages the difficult task of letting certain sections breathe while keeping the whole work moving with undeniable propulsion.
Artist Playlists
- A Belgian conductor who combined new and old into groundbreaking Mozartean performance.
Compilations
About René Jacobs
Following the path of least resistance has never appealled to René Jacobs. His uncompromising pursuit of truth and meaning in the performance of music from the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries holds no place for the safe, the routine or the expected. Born in Ghent in 1946, he cut his musical teeth as a chorister at the city’s medieval cathedral and developed invaluable skills for decoding ancient texts with university studies in classical philology. During the 1960s, he made his mark as a countertenor soloist with such postwar pioneers of the Early Music Movement as the professorial Gustav Leonhardt and Belgium’s Kuijken brothers, Sigiswald, Barthold and Wieland. His vibrant, edgy voice and feeling for the sweeping expressive gestures of music from the period 1600 to 1750 found an ideal home in the recording studio, leading him to contribute to benchmark albums of core Baroque works and the modern revival of practically unknown compositions by, among others, Frescobaldi, Cesti and Henri Dumont. In 1977, Jacobs formed Concerto Vocale, dedicated to the historically informed performance of Baroque music, singing with the group while simultaneously directing it in a series of revelatory recordings for Harmonia Mundi France. His often iconoclastic interpretations as a conductor combine a forensic attention to the sources with the courage to ditch modern performance conventions. Jacobs helped establish period-instrument orchestras as part of the mainstream of opera performance with regular appearances at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the Berlin Staatsoper and Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, and drew close attention to this important work during his time as artistic director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music (1996-2009). Jacobs’ best-selling recordings of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni, landmarks of a discography that comprises well over 250 albums, and revelatory accounts of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion delivered ear-opening insights into works that had been taken for granted for decades.
- HOMETOWN
- Ghent, Belgium
- BORN
- 30 October 1946
- GENRE
- Classical