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inging may nowadays seem to be principally a form of entertainment,yet ir is essentially a profound form of human communication. All mothers sing to their speechlessinfants and rejoice at their response.And retigious cults make use of songin preparingtheir approachto the holiestofholies. song is both the simplestand the most sophisticated form of music. Instrumental music develops from song and yet, at its most developed,the singing voice remains a more expressivevehicle for musical communication than any other instrument of muslc. of all musicalexperiences, the discoveryof a uniquely expressivenew voice must ,uniquely surely rank as the most exciting. To describe yoshikazu Mera's voice as ex- pressive' is to do it an injustice. Mr. Mera's voice is different from anything we have heard before. ostensibly he is a countertenor, a male alto, yet such a desciiption of his voice does not give the listener a true indication of what is to be heard on this record. Ever since Alfred Deller re-establishedthe counter-tenor as a solo voice afler the Secondworld war we have grown used to a type of voice that, though often strik- 'difficulties' ing in tone, yet betrays the inherent in using a falsetto voice. yoshikazu Mera sings in the counter-tenor register with an effortless freedom that we have not experienced before. The freedom of voice production and the evennessof his vorce throughout its full range enable him to give full rein to his interpretative skills. This record of Baroque arias gives us a picture of German church music of the period, concentrating on the two greatest figures of all, Johann SebastianBach and George Frideric Handel. Handel, dramatic and full of action, filled with an urge ro popularize, 'ordinary' to reach out to people, abandoned opera the province of a limited circle of the rich - in favour of the oratorio based on Biblicat texts. perfbrm_ ances were held in public. The texts were familiar to an audience used to hearing them read in church. Handel's music gave a striking dramatic nerve to the well known stories. Most famous of these oratorios is, of course, the Messiah which has a unique, unbroken history of performance. Indeed, more people must have taken pan in performancesof the Messiah than of any other musicaiwork. The style of perfbrm- ance here contrastswith that of the period after Handel,s death, which culminated in a pedormance involving 4,000 singers and 500 instrumentalists in 1883. Great music seemsinvulnerable to excessesof style! jour- While Handel'slife, like his music, was full of evidentdrama, Bach's earthly neymightSeemasstableandsolidasthegreatman'sownappearance.Yetona he was nine; priuateleuel Bach's life was fearsomely eventful; his mother died when three of i.," *us orphaned at ten; his first wife died after giving birth to seven children, he suffered which died in intancy. Added to which were all the indignities which to the opinion from his various employers. Yet he soldiered on, seemingly indifferent cantatasre- of others,leaving us with a musical legacyunequalled in its richness.The and the present a treasurestore of all too raiely visited music, the inventiveness view of un- t.nd.me., of the music contfasting strongly with the almost despairing redeemedhuman nature. were building Bach and Handel were not, of course,composing in a vacuum' They 'aft' cultures have on a long tradition. Folk-song is fundamental to all music. Settled pastime. church developJdmusic, initially for liturgical use and later as a secular music,inthetsaroqueperiod,begantomakevigoroususeofdevelopmentsinsecular pilrt in this pro- music. The two other .o.por.r, on this record played an important the greatest cess. Schiitz is a towering figure in the music of the reformed church, are dramatic, as we composer of 17th-century-c.rtnuny. His settings of Biblical texts the letter; and they can hear in the duet on this record, while remaining faithful to the collec- provided a model for the development of the church cantata.Interestingly, Thomasschulein iion from which Aal dem Gebirge is taken was dedicatedto the Leipzig,whereBachwastoworkinthenextcentury'JohannAhle'th-el7th-century cerma."ncomposerwhosesettingsofspiritualtextswerehugelyinfluentialinthe life in the town of developmenttf music in the reformed church, spent his working post latel to be held by Miihlhausen where he was organist at the BlaSiuSChurch, a J.S.Bach. His music is only just beginningto be rediscovered' music is not history' The history of music is iascinating in itself but the essenceof Greatmusicspeakswithanewvoicetoeachgeneration.YoshikazuMerahashadthe advantage of performing this great music with the Bach collegium Japan under its musical director and conductor Masaaki Suzuki. He thus brings to his interpretations historical insights into the composers' intentions. Yet this stylistic understandingrs as nothing compared with the human insights that can be conveyed in great performancesof great music. The finest composersof the Baroqueperiod could use music to communicate their understandingof the human condition. with his unique voice and his remarkable vocal skills, Yoshikazu Mera brings the great Baroque mastersto life for his own generation, demonstrating anew that though styles may change, fundamental human preoccupationsremain constant. Yoshikazu Mera, countertenor,was bom in Miyazaki in 1971. During his third year in college he changedhis principal subject from tenor to countertenor.In october petite 1992he sangthe solo part in Rossini's messesolennelle,and in March 1994he sang the countertenor solo part in Bernstein's skylark under the baton of Kazuyoshi Akiyama. Mera is a winner of the highest prizes at the eighth Early Music competition Yamanashi in May 1994 and the sixth rochigi Music Festival Award. His keen interest in JapaneseArt Song led to third prize atthe sixth sohgakudou JapaneseArt song competition in 1995. Mera appearsfrequently as a soloistfor the Bach collegium Japan. The Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ) was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki, who remains its music director, with the aim of introducing Japaneseaudiences to great works of the baroque era on period instruments. As the name of the ensemble indic- ates, its main focus has beenon the works of JohannSebastian Bach and thosecom_ posers of German Protestantmusic who preceded and influenced him, such as Buxte- hude,Schiitz, Schein and Bcihm. The Bach Collegium Japan comprises both baroque orchestra and chorus, and its major activitiesinclude an annualfour-concert series ofBach's cantatasand a number of instrumental programmes. In addition, the BCJ presentsmajor works such as 6 prog- Bach's Passlors, Handel's Messiah and Monteverdi's Vespers,and smaller Kobe rammesfor soloistsor small vocal ensembles.The BCJ is basedin Tokyo and pleased to but performs throughout Japan, and for many of its projects it has been Pr6- welcome European artists such as Max von Egmond' Nancy Argenta' Christoph Tiirk' gardien, Peter Kooij, Monika Frimmer, Michael Chance' Kai Wessel' Gerd Michael Schopperand ConcertoPalatino. of 12, he Masaaki Suzuki, conductor,was bom in 1954 at Kobe, Japan.At the age from the began to play the organ for church services every Sunday. After graduating and ro"tyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in composition Sweelinck organ performance,he continued to study the harpsichord and organ at the Kee' CJnseivatory in Amsterdam under Prof. Ton Koopman and Prof' Piet he Having obtained Soloist Diplomas in both of his instrumentsin Amsterdam, in 1980 was awar-cledsecond prize in the Harpsichordcompetition (bassocontinuo) Festival at and third prize in the organ competition in 1982 at the vlaanderen Bruges.Belgium. rtasaaki3uzuki enjoys an outstandingreputation not only as an organ and_harpsr- the Musical chord soloist,but also as a conductor.Since 1990 Suzuki has also been harpsichord' he Director of the Bach Collegium Japan. As a professor of organ and teachesat the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music' as singen mag heutzutagehauptsiichlich als eine Art Unterhaltung aufgefaBt werden, aber im Grunde genommen ist es eine tiefe Form menschlicher ver- r stiindigung. Alle Miitter singen ihren sprachlosenSiiuglingen vor und freuen sich iiber ihre Reaktionen. Religionen machen vom Singen Gebrauch, wenn sie an ihren Allerheiligsten herantreten. Das Singen ist sowohl die einfachste als auch die raffinierteste Musikform. Die Instrumentalmusik entstandaus dem Singen, aber trotz- dem bleibt die menschlicheStimme, wenn sie hoch entwickelt ist, iin ausdrucks- volleres werkzeug der musikalischenVerstdndigung als jedes andereMusikinstru- ment. Unter allen musikalischenErlebnissen gehdrt die Entdeckung einer einzigartig ausdrucksvollen,neuen Stimme sicherlich zu den spannendsten.yoshikazu Meras Stimme als ,,einzigartig ausdrucksvoll" zu beschreibenist aber ungerecht. Seine Stimme unterscheidetsich von allem, was wir bisher gehcirt hatten. Angeblich ist er ein countertenor, ein m:innlicher Alt, aber diese Beschreibungseiner Stimme gibt dem Hcirer keine Idee davon, was auf dieser cD zu hcirenist. seit Alfred Deller nach dem zweiten weltkrieg den solistischen countertenor wieder ins Leben rief, haben wir uns an einen Stimmentyp gewcihnt,dessen Klang zwar hiiufig bemerkenswertist, aber der dabei die ,,Schwierigkeiten" verret, die mit dem Gebrauch des Falsetts ver_ bunden sind. Yoshikazu Mera singt im countertenorregistermit einer miihelosen Freiheit, die wir noch nie erlebten.Die Freiheit der Stimmbildung und die Gleich- miiBigkeit seiner

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